Canon and non-canon scenes?

[Sothis]

Originally Posted by Banefull

Remember that one of the biggest reasons for the development of new languages is isolation. On Earth, it took ancient humans forever to travel from one village to another. Pandora, as a celestial body, is smaller than the Earth and the average size of a Navi means that they have a longer stride and can walk further distances. But these reasons alone cannot explain why. The real reason is that they have flying draft animals. Travel between each tribe is much safer (relatively) and much faster allowing for more frequent contact.

Excellent points. Also, I think I read somewhere that although Pandora's water-to-land ratio is similar to Earth's, the landmasses are smaller and more numerous. So you don't have vast, nigh-uncrossable oceans either. That, combined with the power of flight, makes it feasible to travel just about anywhere in the world given enough time, which is a HUGE difference from primitive Earth.

Taking both the ease of travel and the shared memories into consideration, I actually find it quite believable that a single, unified language would have emerged on Pandora. A lot of languages are quickly going extinct even in our own, current-day Earth society, as technology makes it easier and easier to communicate globally and share information. For the Na'vi, the ability to travel, communicate, and share information globally is built-in, and I get the impression that their society is actually extremely old, despite their "primitive" appearances. (Grace: "It's their ancestral home. They've been living there since before human history began.") So the same processes that are killing off languages on Earth have been going on orders-of-magnitude longer on Pandora. If anything, I'd be surprised if multiple languages had survived that are unintelligible to one another, though I can imagine that regional dialects might still exist.

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by harrie

There is another issue: According to the original release (and SE), "a guy with a gun" killed Tom, according to the CE earth opening and script, it was "a guy with a knife".
According to the post of 'sothis', Tom was killed with a gun, since the original cinema release has the highest 'priority'.

I tend to go with 'gun', there - it was in the original version, the movie has lots of things to do with guns being harbringers of death, AND it provides a nice mirror of Jake, who got shot in the chest and lived while Tommy got shot in the chest, and died.

Originally Posted by Sothis

Excellent points. Also, I think I read somewhere that although Pandora's water-to-land ratio is similar to Earth's, the landmasses are smaller and more numerous. So you don't have vast, nigh-uncrossable oceans either. That, combined with the power of flight, makes it feasible to travel just about anywhere in the world given enough time, which is a HUGE difference from primitive Earth.

Taking both the ease of travel and the shared memories into consideration, I actually find it quite believable that a single, unified language would have emerged on Pandora. A lot of languages are quickly going extinct even in our own, current-day Earth society, as technology makes it easier and easier to communicate globally and share information. For the Na'vi, the ability to travel, communicate, and share information globally is built-in, and I get the impression that their society is actually extremely old, despite their "primitive" appearances. (Grace: "It's their ancestral home. They've been living there since before human history began.") So the same processes that are killing off languages on Earth have been going on orders-of-magnitude longer on Pandora. If anything, I'd be surprised if multiple languages had survived that are unintelligible to one another, though I can imagine that regional dialects might still exist.

To me, the shared memories/network is the main thing keeping everything unified - it's both a religion (look at how widespread Arabic is, thanks to the Qu'ran) and a form of internet. They constantly hook in it, it would keep the language from drifting too much from the original, unless where it had to - the Na'vi of the deserts and Arctic regions obviously needing different words from those of the jungle.

[Sothis]

Originally Posted by Ashen Key

I tend to go with 'gun', there - it was in the original version, the movie has lots of things to do with guns being harbringers of death, AND it provides a nice mirror of Jake, who got shot in the chest and lived while Tommy got shot in the chest, and died.

Same here.... in my case, I like to imagine Jake's thoughts whenever Grace goes off on a rant about "trigger-happy morons" or "idiots with guns" in his vicinity, before they get to know each other better. He'd probably like to tell her that, actually, ma'am, he's not a huge fan of such people himself, but hell if he's gonna give her that satisfaction.

While we're on the subject, Jake displays a rather impressive ability to NOT be trigger-happy during the face-off with the hammerhead, and he actually listens to Grace. Observe that it's only after then that we see her show any signs of concern for Jake's well-being.

Btw, is it actually canon that they were both shot in the chest? I don't remember reading/seeing that anywhere (except your fanfiction, of course :-p)

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by Sothis

Same here.... in my case, I like to imagine Jake's thoughts whenever Grace goes off on a rant about "trigger-happy morons" or "idiots with guns" in his vicinity, before they get to know each other better. He'd probably like to tell her that, actually, ma'am, he's not a huge fan of such people himself, but hell if he's gonna give her that satisfaction.

*grins* It seems to be the way to deal with Grace - think the thoughts, rather than say them and give her the satisfaction.

Originally Posted by Sothis

While we're on the subject, Jake displays a rather impressive ability to NOT be trigger-happy during the face-off with the hammerhead, and he actually listens to Grace. Observe that it's only after then that we see her show any signs of concern for Jake's well-being.

Jake's been trained well *g* He doesn't tend to shoot without orders, which is what he SHOULD do.

Originally Posted by Sothis

Btw, is it actually canon that they were both shot in the chest? I don't remember reading/seeing that anywhere (except your fanfiction, of course :-p)

And no, it's not canon EXACTLY that both he and Tommy were shot in the chest - but the torso for both of them would make sense in that Jake has a spinal injury combined with the words "hole blown in the middle of my life", and Tommy didn't get shot in the head because we see the body. Not to mention, for a mugging, torso makes sense.

[Human No More]

Talking about Jake getting shot in the chest had me confused then until I realised you probably meant in the backstory, although there is nothing anywhere about how he got injured, could have been shot or anything else (and getting shot in the chest, AFAIK is unlikely to cause paralysis, more likely death or a recoverable injury depending on how badly)

[harrie]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Interesting, but I already said that the language in it [the survival guide] was not official (Paul Frommer is the only canon source for the language), ....

what are the differences? As already mentioned, at least I can't find something wrong in the ASG. But I'm not that much into the language to look for small details or differences.

[Human No More]

Spelling mistakes mostly, I think, although possibly a few grammatical mistakes and/or different words as well. You'd have to ask someone better at Na'vi than me.

[EywaBlessMe]

Originally Posted by Ashen Key

Interesting. Just curious, why do you say that Neytiri's sister subtracts? I thought it added so much depth and backstory - much needed depth and backstory, even.

I thought trying to establish a hetred between Jake and Neytiri at the start of their relationship was unnecessary. For instance, I have a deep seated hatred of Isreal for the way they've mistreated the Palestinians, even tho I am not Palestinian, nor do i have and familial connections to the whole mess. One can have an extended feeling from others pain.

[SnowRider]

Another thought occurs to me in considering this discussion of what is and isn't canon to the Avatar universe and that is the Pandorapedia site, which is billed as the "official field guide" for all things Pandora, and presumably for all things in the Avatar universe.

If it is to be regarded as gospel for the Avatar universe, then everything and anything on that site should be considered canon, correct?

Ergo, if the site says that there is supraluminal communications between Earth and Pandora, then there is supraluminal communications between Earth and Pandora, unless James Cameron specifically says there is not, in which case the site is wrong in that regard and should be ignored.

I guess my point is that we don't really "know" what is and isn't canon and we won't know for certain until the prequel novel comes out, which will explain the parameters of the Avatar universe.

Basically, what I am saying is that either James Cameron has decided what does and doesn't go on the Pandorapedia site or he has the final say about what goes there, and for that reason, I regard what's there as basically canon to the Avatar universe.