this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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I'm pretty sure they meant it as a meta joke. Unobtanium has been used to describe fantsy/sci-fi fictional plot relevant material for many years before either Avatar was made.
Maybe, but that would be as dumb as calling it a MacGuffin, which is basically same thing in suspense thrillers.
"Let's invade this planet and kill everybody for a MacGuffin!"
It's not like he worked that hard at the story. The plot is literally Ferngully, and the name was already in use in another animated series. He was clearly more interested in creating a vehicle for his film tech, which he obviously cared more about than that clumsy story.
Well yeah of course MacGurffin makes a terrible fake metal name. Change it to MacGufftanium and then we've got a real winner
I don't know, I mean, look at the naming that some tech companies use IRL. They use some pretty silly names. The idea of a company finding a metal that's sci-fi grade and calling it Unobtanium as a nod to their love of sci-fi isn't that crazy.
This seems like the same problem that we have with shuffling music, where a truly random shuffle doesn't feel random; if you make it less random, it ends up feeling more random. Similarly, making a movie less realistic can make it feel more realistic.
In real life, poor imagination is acceptable. In a billion dollar movie, we expect better than real life.
I was about to say, we live in a world where Big Brother is about to be fully matured and is unironically named Palantir. I really don't know what else to say, like the point should be clear.
I almost gave that exact example. Yes. Totally on the same page. Irony is dead and we've killed it.
In real life it would have been named after it's discoverer or the planet on which it was found. Most sci-fi shows at least name their made up materials Nequadah, Trilithium, Spice, Red Matter, Really hot tea, etc