Norm and his Avatar

[jujubees]

Originally Posted by Crickett

if Avatar wasn't so ridiculously successful as it was, I doubt there would be a sequel.

Gotta disagree with that one. Today's Hollywood business model is to plan on sequels from the very beginning...any sci-fi movie franchise that doesn't generate at least 2 sequels nowadays is considered a flop.
I think this is a reflection of the cost and scope of creating a truly unique and richly detailed fictional universe. Those costs must be ammortized over several films in order to maximize profits.
They plan for sequels, and then if the film bombs (Green Lantern is a great example), they pull the plug on the sequels. But they are always planning on being the next George Lucas.

[Moco Loco]

Beyond business models, JC always planned on sequels, or at the very least had an extended enough plot to make them if Avatar did well enough.

[heresi]

I for one have always pondered this question of Norms avatar as well.

As the screengrab of the scene where Norms avatar is shot in the shoulder/chest shows; he is hit by the second shot in approximately the area of the heart (according to human physiology anyway!) and this could potentially be lethal if it was not for several factors:
1) The Na'vi/Human hybrids physiology may be radically different to that of a humans and so we just cannot assume that they have organs in the same places as regular humans. And after all '...they have bones reinforced with naturally occurring carbon fibers. They are very hard to kill'.
2) The angle of the shots seems difficult to ascertain. Although the shot is assumed to be coming directly from the front it could be coming from a different angle - it could be coming in from an oblique angle so that the trail seems a straight line from the camera angle we have but the shot may be coming in more from the side. Norm does turn as he is hit.
3) When we see Norm exit from his pod after being the gunshot wound and he is clinging to his chest and gasping as if he is still feeling the pain. My question is; given that the pain would be very intense given such a wound would it be possible for Norm (or ANY Avatar driver for that matter!) to be able to terminate the link with the Avatar manually or would there be a fail safe system in the controlling computer to break a connection in such dire circumstances?


Just some food for thought. It is at best ambiguous to me anyway that his Avatar is alive or dead...

[Human No More]

People can lose consciousness from pain - I would guess that would likely interrupt the link in the same manner as manually terminating it, and the mental effect of it could easily be destabilising enough to prevent someone from re-establishing the link again straight away.