is Avatar an alternative timeline?

[exostrike]

I suspect that the future of Avatar isn't actually suppost to be 'our' future but rather some alternative universe.

The clearest example of this would be the Aerospatiale SA-2 Samson, Aérospatiale's helicopter divisons was merged with another company in 1992 to form Eurocopter and the entire company was broken up in 2000. But since the Samson is to us a future aircraft this suggests that Aérospatiale continued to exist into the mid-21th century. This gives a point of divergense of before 1992.

Given that Aérospatiale's breakup was due partly due to the winding down of cold war miltary procurement, this suggests that either the cold war didn't truely end in 1991 or a new threat emerged shortly afterwards. Possibly calls for greater intervention in world poltics, imagine a successful somalia intervention encouraging the US and other countries to go in a sort out any problem they see, leading to the imperialist attitudes suggested in Avatar.

Or possibly Cameron just deciced in the orginal project 880 script the vechile would be from Aérospatiale and just refused/forgot to change it when the company folded. Still it is interesting.

[Foxhound]

Second Cold war heats up over Iran war and China's space program. Aerospatale is reformed as new weapons are needed. Iran war gets messy. America goes Bankrupt. In effort to clear credit war breaks out between China and US. Several Nukes are fired. US government collapses. RDA leads humanitarian efforts and helps rebuild US and world. Uses Aerospatale's weapons for security and transport and buys and expands the company. RDA sends men to Pandora. Samsons are constructed on Pandora using Blueprints the RDA had from buying company. Blue prints have Aerospatale as name. Soldiers keep name when they get to Pandora.

[tm20]

James Cameron thinks through these things, he wrote a 60 page explenation on how the ISV operates so something like the timeline i'm sure was well thought out. i'm still waiting for the novel.

[Replica]

Yeah i'm sure a lot of us are.

[Scott]

Jim has always been a science and engineer junkie. Check out the old sci-fi flick, Battle Beyond the Stars, for some of his earliest work making model spaceships-some really cool stuff. Personal innovation and real tech are his primary influence. In Aliens, the Vietnam War played an important role in designing ships and equipment and in how the story unfolded. In Titanic, he virtually reproduced the iconic vessel down to the 4 stage reciprocating steam engines. Only Titanic buffs like me would recognize the attention to detail he put into R.M.S. TITANIC Engine Room, so why bother? Because he loves attention to detail. I'm sure somewhere he happened upon one of those euro helicopters and fixated upon it, hence his refined version graced Avatar.

[Ateyo'itan]

I really enjoy it when film makers like James Cameron put in the attention to detail. It adds more depth to the film and features that you can appreciate later.

Here we are over 2 years after the release of Avatar, and we are still finding new things to talk about and people finding new and interesting details to discuss.

[exostrike]

I'm sure somewhere he happened upon one of those euro helicopters and fixated upon it, hence his refined version graced Avatar.

Your probadly right, since the Sampson's fuselage is simliar to a number of Aérospatiale/Eurocopter designs.

[exostrike]

I've come up with an alternative point of divergence set during WW2 (no not that kind), history begins to change when James Lovelock is granted miltary service instead of being refused because of his medical research and he is killed in battle.

(Now ask who James Lovelock is)

[HufweMakto]

I've come up with an alternative point of divergence set during WW2 (no not that kind), history begins to change when James Lovelock is granted miltary service instead of being refused because of his medical research and he is killed in battle.

(Now ask who James Lovelock is)

I know who James Lovelock is (Gaia Theory ftw!).

As for the alternate timeline, that is an interesting take on things, or terrible. Considering that I nearly got a headache reading through all of the timeline theories that TvTropes' staff has complied for the Terminator series alone is staggering and makes all of the theories regarding Neon Genesis Evengelion look tame (I'm not even going to touch on the John Conner is Evil theory; it just goes against the grain of the film in it's entirity). There's already a rumor going around that if Cameron does do "Battle Angel", Skynet is going to be a part of it's backstory. But that's a rumor.

Now that I'm thinking of it, if there is a reference to Wayland-Yutani and Cyberdyne as being some of the companies that were absorbed into the RDA, that would be an excellent nod to the series that Cameron has taken part in and added his genius to.

[exostrike]

The point is that such a deviation doesn't actually change that much in the scheme of things, world history as we know it would still happen pretty much as we know it. The big exception to this is in environmentalisms, see James Lovelock was one of the major minds behind the discover of the concentrations of CFCs in the atmosphere and their negative effects (for which he got a joint nobel prize). This discovery was a major factor in legitimising the environmental banner poltically. Now imagine because of the death of Lovelock the discovery of the effects of CFC is delayed by a few years (5-10) which has the effect of allowing ozone degredation to continue but also the environment not becoming the poltical issue it is today (the Montreal Protocol was a major poltical enivronmental milestone). The result, increased environmental damage, global warning and poltical action that is too late.

This combined with the continued unrestrained captialism of the Regan years would help create Avatar's 2150's.