**claps**

Ohoho, that is indeed correct.

While genetic engineering allows humans to tamper with things quite a bit, variations in how genes are expressed is simply an unavoidable part of biology.

And, like others already said, she might have been a first-gen avatar driver. If there are new avatars in the sequel, I will be curious to see if the newer ones have been "improved" to make them appear more like the Na'vi cosmetically than the older ones.

While it may only be cosmetic, it might make the Na'vi feel more at ease and less "creeped out" by the Avatars, since to them they would look more like their sense of "normal".

Was anyone thinking uncanny valley? :P

Exactly. This is the entire reason for the creation of the avatar program in the first place.

There's no specific reason Grace's might be any specific generation.

The human fingers and toes are for ease of adaptation, while the general body shape and markings do seem to vary, which would not be advantageous in artificially varying.

Speaking of fingers/toes, isn't that a terrible idea? I don't think they want to give the impression of being actually alien, in such an obvious, undisguised way. (Think the six-fingered man from Princess Bride. You don't even need to know his name to identify him.)

I think the human DNA just morphed the digits to 5 instead of 4.
I don't think the scientists really had a choice.

You're implying the Na'vi are stupid. I REALLY hate that.

They are for easier acceptance at first glance, and for much freer ability to move around on Pandora, not a disguise.

I think that the scientist would choose to keep five digits per limb because our brain is designed for it. If the avatars only had four digits per limb it possibly would have introduced phantom sensations of still having the extra finger or toe. This could lead to dexterity or balance problems for the avatar.

Sounds probable, I'd hate to imagine the effects of phantom limbs or digits.

I always thought that Grace's nose was just because Grace herself has a very sharp nose, and it just translated through her Avatar...

Then again, maybe i'm wrong. :P

Did I? I might have implied they're ignorant, which is perfectly acceptable in the circumstances. I don't know how advanced Na'vi astronomy is, but it took us a very long time to even conceive of aliens from other planets.

If H.G. Wells' martians had wanted to talk to us, a comparatively gigantic red flag that said "Not normal!" would not help anything, regardless of whether the goal is actively trying to hide or just fit in.

Don't really think balance would be an issue, considering we don't have tails either. :P

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaactually, humans have conceived of aliens and other worlds like Earth for thousands of years. Imagining worlds and deducing that if we are here, then logically there must be other worlds like ours with people like us seems to be a very human thing to do.

If the Na'vi didn't have a concept of other beings, than that might have been a lack of imagination inherent in the species rather than anything else. BUT they do have a concept of 'not one of the People', and 'alien', as well as the human-specific 'Sky Person' label, so I suspect either they've had contact with other intelligent species in their past, or have the imagination and logic to think that there might be others in the universe.

Well, alien-from-other-planets only appeared in the 16th century.

And we don't know for certain if they just made up the label after we came along. We didn't have analog watches until digital ones came along, after all.

That's just splitting hairs - when people look to the stars and imagine other worlds and other people (or put it into their religious texts), I'm going to go with 'aliens'.

No, we don't know for SURE, but humans can only have been around....between thirty and fifty years (I think some of the extra material says twenty-five, which is patently ridiculous, the Avatar program wouldn't be in its current form with Grace having spent at least eleven years on Pandora if humans have only been there for twenty-five.) To me, that's not quite long enough for the three, very different, terms for 'people who are not People', particularly as they have a specific one for the humans themselves.

Exactly. People have always thought of the possibility of other lifeforms existing, even before they understood the nature of the stars, even if they didn't think about what actual form they would take. Mythology is a clear example of that, especially the older ones which are the origin of all sorts of sentient animals and nonhuman humanoids.