Avatar’s Pandora Was Likely Inspired By This Deep-Sea Environment

gamerant.com:

The only thing as mysterious and alluring to humans as space is the ocean, which is why these two settings so often make their way into the stories people consume. It is a tendency of humans to try to understand their surroundings, which is a large part of what fuels our fascination with the unexplored vastness of space and sea.

Another tendency of people is to reflect what they are familiar with in their creations, which is why elements of the world around us often make appearances in art, inventions, books, and film, even those that take place in alien or fantastical worlds. Because of this, it makes sense that when creators of the Avatar film were challenged with imagining a colorful and unusual new world, they borrowed components of the unknown world that we have the most access to: the ocean.

Avatar: The Way Of Water Could Be James Cameron’s Next Terminator 2

The moral theme of the first Avatar film made a solid point about deforestation, and thus, the story focused a lot on the forest and a threat against the trees. In the second film however, a lot of the story appears to be spent on or in the water and is likely going to center its moral theme around the impact humans have on oceans and their life forms. Because of this, it only seems appropriate to recognize how this environmental focus is relevant in the real world.

Inspiration for creating this vast and vibrant world was pulled from several Earthly sources. One source that many people recognize as having inspired the creative minds behind the first Avatar is Zhanggjiajie National Forest. In terms of water’s influence, meanwhile, many fans have noted the similarities between the bioluminescent qualities of Pandora and the Bioluminescent Lagoon in Jamaica.

However,