Id hope it wasn't anything like earth. Although it probably would be. Without our mass extinction events dinosorids and such would absolutely still be here. And would look very similar, they were largely apex. Meaning life somewhere else would probably be the same
I kept thinking about your classification system when I watched this movie. I saw the Ilu and Tulkun and was like “hey those look like hexapods that took to the water.” This video made me feel like my theories were supported by the top expert in the field. Amazing stuff as always!
You forgot to mention the big planetary sized elephant in the room, and that is Eywa. We could speculate based on the info given by Grace in the movies and through what ways the Navi connect with Eywa that the giant super organism is one of the earliest liforms of the moon, most likely the first. Plantlike or fungal in nature, it kept its billions of years network by integrating itself with other evolving wildlife (which possibly evolved from them), who came to depend on the neural network system for survival. Interesting enough, not all plantlife is able to directly link with animal life (though they still keep connections with each other and other surrounding plantlife through the roots while they feel the animals through sensory ways), mostly select few species such as the Tree of Souls and Voices, including the underwater Tree of Souls have the ability to directly link with Animalia of Pandora. This can also mean that this giant super organism is able to guide, instruct, and influence evolutionary destinies of all organisms on the moon, as seen with the immune response in both movies and how certain seeds guide the Navi (which are in tune with Eywa´s will) at specific critical moments. It is also interesting that Eywa would instruct the Navi not to dig up the rocks from the ground, not make wheels, or make metal tools, as all three of these laws are there to protect Eywa´s neural network from being destroyed, as well as keep the Unobtainium where it is, indicating that the element is critical for the neural network to function. In areas where the flux vortex is the strongest (likely the largest concentration of unobtanium), we see those specially evolved plantlife where Navi directly link with Eywa. A deleted scene even showed Jake´s initiation into the Omatikaya and Eywa neural network in its fractal spiritual glory, indicating its a higher form of intelligent life above the humans, Navi and Tulkun. A bit of a story theory on where the series will go. I believe that the plant or fungal species that makes Eywa will be transferred to Earth (which had most of its natural wildlife destroyed, aka they killed their mother) to reignite/reincarnate its natural ecosystem and prevent the ecological disaster humanity is facing. Seeing how Eywa stores all the knowledge of all the life that existed on the moon Pandora, it could be used as a form of Noah´s ark of immense biological data that will speed up the evolutionary processes and adaptations needed to jumpstart the wildlife on Earth. Humans could also aid in this venture, since they have shown advanced knowledge and capabilities in the fields of biology along with mass replication tech as seen in the second movie´s base being made so quickly. Plus humans dont need Pandoran Unobtanium to make their own, RDA just squashed anyone who attempted in making artificial sources of the element in the past to keep their monopoly over the resource, so the artificial unobtanium humans make could be used to aid this new Earth Eywa neural network. They could also incorporate spiritualism into it and have both Earth and Pandora connect through the vast distances through a cosmic consciousness, which takes inspiration from eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism from which we got the concept of an Avatar that this movie is heavily based on (through the forms of the hybrid Avatar/recom projects, along with individuals like Kiri).
I remember reading from the wiki that Eywa is an entity, that the neural network of Pandora's plant life creates, which act like neurons in our brains. So essentially the whole moon is a one huge super-organism such as that mushrooms on earth can be interconnected by dozens of kilometers, except it's the whole moon in this movie's case and the mushroom is sapient and somehow evolved into a symbiosis with the early life on Pandora, also thanks to the help of the mineral.
Kudos to you! This comment in very well written and quite insightful! I agree with you on the fungal/hive mind (to a certain degree for some particular species) characteristic of Eywa. Your hypothesis on how the story will go on are pretty wild if you ask me, but I'd like to see something like that in the next movies. I'm hoping as well they include some better written humans in the mix. I'd like to see someone in politics and see how these fictional characters would "sell" the exploitation of pandora's resourses as a mean for survival for the species to the human population. Watching other Avatar's related videos I've seen there is a clan of Na'vi with some human-like features: the Anurai Clan. The Anurais inhabit the plains of Pandoras and are artisans and craftspeople, I guess they don't exploit pandora's resourses but they are able to transform some of them by still respecting Eywa's will. It's interesting how Eywa's role has favored the evolution of many sentient animals and many subspecies of Na'vi in contraposition with our history, as humans, of extintion and fusion of some distinct human races (Nehandertals, Denisovans and who knows how many more).
That's an interesting thing that makes me think this taxonomy map is pretty biased to earth and doesn't take into account that multi species hive mind elephant in the room. The idea that the salmon fish is closer to the land link is very earth centric, if you look to the land fauna that fill the deer evolutionary niche they have similar mouth parts to the otters the same with the panthers. I think it likely the common ancestor for land creatures is that otter or its ancestor, with the Tulkun and Ilu branching off instead of regressing back into the ocean. I wouldn't mark the semi feline Na'vi and clearly primate monkeys as sharing common ancestor but instead coming from two ancestors filling similar niches. It also seems from the life we see and the fact there is two sapient races on the planet, if Eywa affects evolution on the planet, she seems to have the long term goal to promote other intelligent life to form, which would mean less personal security and safety as sapience brings about rebels and church burners. Eywa may be lonely, she may have tolerated humanity so much (til the na'vi insisted that they were a threat,) in the first film because of this loneliness. It wouldn't surprise me if there is 100 years of humanity respecting her that in that time she would encourage the evolution of a species to help us survive on pandora. Similar to the fairy wings for the navi to breathe underwater. I'm kind of interested to see what's going on with corvids on earth in this timeline, and what earth would look like if it received a seed for a world mind.
@@Fluffadoodle its ok to like the film I enjoyed it but it’s also ok to not like the movie also welcome to the internet you don’t have to ask for anyones opinion
The Tulkuns are by far my new favorite creature in the Avatar franchise. A species that, while not really able to develop technology due to their environment, has nonetheless developed sentience and culture. I'm no biologist so I don't know if that's realistic but the idea is very intriguing, and something I feel we should keep in mind if we ever do discover life on other worlds. We're used to thinking of civilization and intelligence is going hand-in-hand with one another but that may not be the case.
We do know that some cetaceans develop a kind of culture. For example there is a group of orcas around the Iberian peninsula who has taking to attacking boats of certain sizes and destroying their rudders. This is a new behaviour that started with a few individuals and then has been spread to more individuals of the population. They definitely have communicated with each other about that.
@@johannageisel5390 I have not heard about that behavior (love it by the way, screw you whalers) but I do know that dolphins and orcas have the capacity for culture, at least in a basic form. Though, I really wish more people took their intelligence seriously. You will not believe how many people have smirked or straight up laughed at me when I tried to tell them that dolphins have language.
It is kind of wild that the different navii populations remained isolated enough to evolve so differently considering they always had access to what are basically just biological planes
In the film the ocean people tell jake and his family that "forest people are supposed to be in the forest" when they first arrive. So I think that despite the access to travel, they simply didn't, possibly because (if I recall correctly) the spirit trees around pandora allow the different populations some form of communication (which i also believe is why all na'vi speak the same language, despite having many distinct cultures)
Not really, all human species except maybe Homo neanderthalensis and Homo denisova, and Homo floresiensis have evolved in Africa and then radiated in the rest of the world. Australopithecus had several species coexisting, and we found in the same habitat both Australopithecus and Paranthropus, so they clearly isolated and evolved into different species while being in the same geographical zone ^^ And it's even more common for other animal species, evolution does not always come from geographical isoliation ^^
Great video! I would like to just add a point to the Reef Na'vi's biology. They seem to have a bigger torax, which could mean 3 things: 1. They have bigger muscles from swimming. If you've ever seen a swimmer's torso area, you will notice they have very wide torax and shoulders, more than their bottom areas. 2. They may have evolved bigger lungs to hold more breath (I haven't watched the movie yet, so idk if they can breathe underwater), therefore, their torax grew to accommodate them 3. And lastly, all of the above. Maybe their wide torax it's a combination of the 2 hypothesis. (EDIT) I ALMOST FORGOT. Are the creatures of Pandora cold blooded or warm blooded? As far as we could see, none of them other than the Na'vi have any fur or hair on them, what could this mean on the evolutionary family tree?
@@bassmantjox1299 yeah but it’s also shown to be always summer so the median temperature could be at a high enough level for sunbasking to be unnecessary
I loved this film primarily from a xenobiology perspective. There are rumours the next one will have "fire Na'vi", which I suspect may be S.America based, probably Aztec or Inca in their cultural style, and I can't wait for more creature designs.
"The possibly-sapient Tulkun" Treyyy, Payakan and Ro'a have entire lines in the script and it's stated explicitly that they're both smarter and have deeper emotions than humans and Na'vi. There's no "possibly" about it dhsjfjgj
I think Tolkun might be related to hammerhead titanotheres because of the head shape. It would also mirror the fact that just like how whales on earth evolved from ungulates as whales are closest related to hippos, the whale-like tolkun from pandora evolved from ungulate-like hexapods
Keep in mind that the Titanotheres and Tulkun could have evolved these structures by convergent evolution. But it is possibly an ancestral feature for them both.
I thought about this too, and it certainly is possible, but there are still some things we need to keep in mind. The Titanotheres boss is seemingly made from solid bone and it's primary function seems to be combat. While Payakan did use his head when fighting, Tulkun horns seem to be more of an ornamental structure, as well as containing the echolocation sensors, which fits with their pacifist philosophy.
I literally just watched The Way of Water in theaters an hour ago. And multiple times throughout it I was thinking about how I can’t wait for you to make a video about all the new species. I was even counting the limbs of all the sea creatures. Perfect timing lol
I think that the parallels between Pandora’s life and our planet’s was intentional and is one of the things that make this series great: giving us a world that’s both very familiar and very alien.
I believe that the Ilu are part of the Xenopterosauira group like the banshee, leonopteryx, and stingbats. this is due to them having long necks and their flippers looking like wings. I think they took a similar evolutionary rout as penguins in that they had a flying ancestor that took to the water and their wings became flippers.
True. Or it actually came from the same ancestor of the banshee, but while banshee took direction toward sky, ilu developing adaptation toward marine existence
I think it is possible that the Ilu are not members of the Xenopterosauria, but are members of a sister clade, as they use their rearmost two pairs of limbs to swim while the Xenopterosauria use their foremost two pairs to fly. They probably evolved from a common longnecked chad-chinned ancestor before going their separate evolutionary ways, sort of like birds and crocodilians on Earth.
congratulations on Graduating! I Just entered college studying paleobiology last fall, and i can't overstate how big a role your channel has played in keeping that passion for prehistory alive over the half decade i've watched your channel. thanks so much for everything!
@@raegardens8339 don't worry about it! The degree isn't technically in paleobiology, but it is a specialization which essentially acts as a minor under a geology major. I'm an undergraduate right now, but if I wanted to further pursue the subject I would get a master's in paleontology. That said, the kind of jobs you'd be looking at with it would be in museums and universities primarily, but you could also be working with federal agencies like the NSF or for mining and oil operations out west, primarily drawing on a background in geology. I'm definitely not an expert since I'm still sorta figuring things out though.
You forgot to mention a neat little detail in the visual dictionary: The skimwings are closely related to ikran, most likely to a closely related ancestor. I really love the wildlife of pandora :)
Them being a branch of the Ikran family that lived near the coasts and hunted fish much like some species of water birds until they evolved into plesiosaur-like animals is a really compelling idea!
@@AntrozLPs I think its more likely the opposite- Ikran are direct descendants of skimwings who became increasingly reliant on breathing air and living out of water, until eventually they stopped returning to the sea.
The reason why I think this is because skimwings have really fish-like basal ray fins and are nothing like the thicker flipper fins of other hexapods that returned to the water. Ikran wings retain some of the elements of ray fins from the skimwings but have otherwise changed to adapt to their new forest lifestyle.
I think you meant the Ilu. Skimwings are the one with the long narrow crododilian snout. The Ilu is the one most of the reef people ride. It's much closer related to Ikran than Skimwings.
I really enjoy your breakdowns! I think the reef navi are also meant to have enlarged lung capacity as indicated by their more volumenous chest. The Sama-Bajau people and other austronesian and malay people of Southeast Asia colloquially referred to as "sea nomads" are an interesting real world parallel and likely inspiration for the "aquatic" Na'vi and their adaption to their environment: Taditionally these people have a seaborne lifestyle and live nomadic on boats as ocean going hunters and gatherers of sorts and will set their foot on dry land only very temporarily when necessary. Interestingly "landsickness" is a not uncommon occurance on such occasions, but the most interesting fact is their genetic adaptation for diving: They have a significantly increased lung capacity and their eyes are able to focus under water as a consequence of countless generations who subsisted of freediving and can stay under water for prolonged periods of time to speerfish or gather from the seafloor. It's a legitimate evolutionary adaption, and if they would maintain their traditional lifestyle for tens of thousands of years in relative reproductive isolation it could actually lead to a subspecies and eventually even distinct species within the genus Homo, just like the (pre-) speciation event shown in Avatar 2. Unfortunatly their culture and traditions are threatened nowadays because they have to compete with commercial fishers who are destroying the reefs, and in addition the surrounding nations' governments aren't happy about their nomadic ways and try to settle them on land and make them abandon their traditional lifestyle, appearently in part because they don't care about arbitrary lines on maps because the concept of international borders is alien to them and suddenly someone tries to explain to them that they can ship around on the ocean right here but definitly and totally not over there, all while their ancestors sailed in these waters for centuries. Sadly it's always the same when some people dare to be a little too free-spirited, a little too mobile..
The creature design in Avatar has been incredible but holy shit the mechanical designs are perfection, those crab mechs might be the most beautiful small real robots I’ve ever seen in a western film. All the near future tech is great for the most part except for those spindly power suits, they look goofy and feel pointless. They should’ve just shown more AMP suit variations instead. I don’t think any other franchise besides Patlabor and some of Gundam has done this much to please my brains endless hunger for more practical and realistic mini mecha.
I think the less armored AMP are like that because it’s better for mobility, since regular AMP are much slower. It’s nice to be able to be stronger but not lose out on mobility, and that smaller suit seems very good inside of a settlement area, like she was.
They should just release them as volumes for each film based on the environment of the films setting. Rainforest, reefs, volcanoes, deserts polar regions etc..
I have returned to the original video many times over the years. I've loved Avatar since I saw it in '09 (I was 9 years old! I'm finishing college now, wow!) and I've always loved anything science related, especially astronomy and biology. Avatar combined the two, and your video is quite literally one of a kind. It's a shame that most yt channels seem to be focused on "x/y/z explained" than actually exploring the little details and missed clues that James Cameron so clearly has put a lot of effort into. You can really tell he deeply, deeply loves Pandora and her story and I'm so, so very happy that I live in a time where you can pick apart a movie like Avatar and have it *make sense*. Everything about this world seeems to have been thought through to the smallest detail, and I can't get enough of it. I think everyone has a mental list of like 5 videos that they always remember when asked about something interesting to watch on youtube. To me, your first video (and now this one as well) is always at the top of that list. Thank you for making this type of content. It's refreshing, and intriguing, and deeply comforting to deep dive and treat Pandora like what we all wish it was: a real world.
Awesome video. I do have one suggetion though, based on the encyclopedia for this movie. It states that the skimwing shares a common ancestor with the banshee, which is an odd thing to say if it were a basal member of all hexapoda. I think it might fit better as a highly derived member of xenopterosauria, that probably split off from the main line close to the base of the group. Also, the external media has also confirmed other animals like the slinth, the austrapede, and the turtapede, among others
Not exactly, since they dont really go too into detail with human and Navi history or characters for this setting that existed prior to the movies. Avatar mostly focuses on the biology worldbuilding, a bit of cultural, but barely any historic.
Perhaps the tulkon’s closest living relatives are the hammerheads from the first movie. similar to how hippos are related to whales. perhaps the common ancestor of the hammerhead and tulkon had two crest like structures on its head as well, then as the two species diverged from one another they used their crests for different purposes. hammerheads use them for fighting and tulkons for hearing (echolocation)
You should totally do one that includes the "flora" - especially given it has sapience and all life forms seem to be able to directly connect with it and exchange data "brain-to-brain"
With the amount of creatures with six limbs and four eyes living on Pandora, one would think The Na'vi would also evolve to share all or some of these characteristics (like that 2 armed monkey in the first movie) instead of just looking like tall humans with cat-like features. I guess anything more alien wouldn't be more marketable/fuckable for the board of directors.
Na’vi are thought to be direct descendants from the lemur thingy. Notice how most hexapods on Pandora have two fingers for each first two sets of legs? The lemur has two fingers for each arm too. So basically what happened was that those two arms converged into one, leading to the Na’vi having four fingers(including thumb) for each hand.
This isn’t complicated. It’s a parallel to the real world creation myth. However Eywa is 99.99% confirmed to be real in the Avatar universe. The Navi didn’t just miraculously devolve two of their limbs. They were created by Eywa as a parallel to God creating humans.
I hypothesize that the Tulkun is more closely related to the Titanothere, as they have similar head crest shapes, and are both the largest animals in their respective biomes. But that could be convergent evolution. And this is more of a hunch, but the Ilu somewhat reminds me of a Banshee, not only in the way it swims reminding me of a Banshee's flight, but their head also reminds me of the Banshee in it's shape. The fact that they have two small fins that appear to be either vestigal or play a very minor role in swimming also helps give me an inkling that this was a Banshee-eske creature that evolved for life in the ocean over flight, similar to penguins and diving birds of today, though this is evidently a very extreme version of that where the organism has entirely specialized for life in the water. We don't know if the Ilu can crawl up on land for a short time yet, but if they can, this would support that idea, and though it's just speculation, my money is on them having some connection to land, thanks to them seemingly being depicted as coastal animals. I imagine something like modern day sea turtles, they have to crawl up on land to lay eggs.
Hey Trey. Avatar's fandom wiki just stated that the Toruk (Leonopteryx) evolved flight convergently to the Ikran(Banshee), and that they are descended from terrestrial predators such as the Thanator. I believe it, the Stingbat, and the Great Tetrapteron share a common ancestor that was flight capable and diverged from the tetrapods. Also the Skimwing is canonised as sharing a common ancestor with the Ikran. Just stating what I believe are a few necessary changes.
No idea where you found that info, because it's actually been mentioned that the banshee, leonopteryx, and other related flyers are descended from marine ancestors (One notable trait leftover being their distensible jaws, which can clearly be seen in the Great Leonopteryx and Banshee, a trait very common amongst many fish), which makes sense because Skimwings are canonically related to banshees and seem to be the most basal members of their group.
@@gloomyallo1830 Just type ' James Cameroon's Avatar wiki fandom '. All the info there is canonical. The Leonopteryx probably evolved distensible jaws independently of the Banshee. As for why I said that it shares a common flight capable ancestor with the Stingbat and Great Tetrapteron, they all have one pair of legs that remains unmodified to wings. In case of the Leonopteryx and the Stingbat, it's the central pair. For the Tetrapteron, it's the last pair. The latter may be distinct from the former 2 though.
Everyone will be saying Trey is back, but will anyone other than me say Trey is getting back to biology? Welcome back Trey! BTW Avatar 2 was a great film!
I like how avatar teaches us that as long as people aren't white then they'll be kind, decent and in touch with nature. Thankyou hollywood and James Cameron!
@@TheBelrick I'm sorry what? White people are responsible for most of the great atrocities of humankind, but neither are they universally evil, nor are they the only ones capable of such crmes. Heck, James Cameron himself is white. This shouldn't even be a discusssion we're having. Most people are good, and some are bad, and either type can appear in any ethnical group.
@@justusb.plorer8773 you mean atrocities like the black death. Sorry not that one. Nanking sacking? Baghdad raising? how about barbary pirates? Or 200 million eastwards slave trade? How about inca attrocities? Or Aztec? Why did Apache mean enemy anyway? Face it, all this antiwhite hate rubbed off on you But remind me, who invented germ theory saving billions? Or 97% of today's technology? James Cameron is white and works for hollywood meaning he bent the knee (probably involves children) to the hand rubbing low ears.
Seeing the speculative changes between different branches of the Na'vi forest and water tribes reminds me strongly of the T'au castes from 40K. Slightly different traits of Fire, Air, Water and Earth tribes leading to increased changes within the species once the caste system is formalised post unification. With the Ethereals going full planned society, no interbreeding between different castes and average 40-60 year lifespans seeing huge diversification in only 2000 to 3000 years.
I think we can get a bit more information if we look closer at the smaller details. For example, the nerve-endings the Na'vi call "Tzahilu" are located either on the top or the bottom of the head. Also, some creatures have a similar jaw structure to each other (The ikran's jaw is incredibly fish-like). The placement of the nostrils can also give us some clues.
the nerve endings aren’t called Tsaheylu, Tsaheylu is the act of bonding with an animal or plant on Pandora, Neytiri tells that to Jake during the first movie when she’s teaching him to ride the Direhorse and then later with him taming his Ikran
Avatar's world building team making animals for Avatar 3: "Just make whatever you like, Trey will explain it and we'll make that canon." Careful, Trey, they're taking notes.
I’m seeing Avatar 2 for a second time today so this video was great timing. I saw on twitter all the pics leading up to this video and I’m very happy for you that you graduated college. I certainly agree with the points made in this video and one of the main reasons I was anticipating Avatar 2 was because of all the new creatures that used to look like life here on Earth. Can’t wait to see more videos from you in the future.
On the topic of "shark like akula" as 'akula' is just the Russian word for shark. Nothing much more than that, just thought that name for an alien shark thing was a bit funny. And welcome back, Trey, happy 2023.
I think the Tulkun's ancestors flipped upside-down during their transition back to the water. All the terrestrial hexapods have their breathing holes on their ventral side and most have their neural tendrils on the dorsal side, while the Tulkun's breathing holes are on their dorsal side and their neural tendrils are located dramatically on the ventral side. I think it's quite probable that the ancient hexapods that became aquatic to eventually evolve unto Tulkun started by doing a backstroke to allow their breathing holes easier access to the air, and their descendants reinforced that habit until it became the default state for their anatomy.
I think the fish with fewer fins might be descendants of the common ancestor in the ocean and their fins have fused over time similar to how the lemur's arms fused into Na'Vi arms at some point.
In the artbooj it says that the skimfish is closely related to the banshees. I thought that this meant that the banshee, skim fish and great leonopteryx were in a group by themselves. It kind of makes sense that the skimfish, already possessing lungs and somewhat flying abilities, could evolve to be fully terrestrial and cabable of powered flight
I forgot how much I was looking forward to this video, having put it off until I could watch the movie for myself. I really love the thought experiment you've made here, and continued from the previous movie.
So me and my brother have been trying to find the name of a certain species in avatar 2. They were briefly shown in one of the scenes depicting the dead tulkuns that were slain by humans. They were a bird like creature that were just perching on the dead corpses like a lot of birds do here on earth. But they weren't stingbats, they were different. I have tried looking it up, but have found nothing yet. So if anyone could find the name of this bird it would be really cool for me, and especially my brother to find out what they are called :)
I noticed them too. They had individual finger wings like the banshees, so they could have been young banshees or they might have been a smaller coastal relative, more closely related than the sting bats.
I think it's safe to assume the two species are interfertile, because if they weren't it would be strange to introduce a romance plot. Like, the fans would riot. With that said, infertile hybrid offspring would also make for interesting storytelling.
I am impressed by how much effort they put into the evolutionary history of Pangea. I would say that the aquatic Na'vi would classify as a different species based on the morphological differences. I agree that the tail structure would have taken around 2 million years to develop though Na'vi live up to 180 years old. They may become sexually mature at a much later age than modern humans. This may have made their evolution much slower. Regarding the forest Na'vi and the aquatic species, there may be many differences in their genetics that are not apparent in their phenotype. You are right about the mating part. If they can produced viable offspring maybe they are much closer related than we might think. Then again, we might be able to reproduce with 2,000,000 year old homo Erectus so who knows. Good video and good thought experiment.
there are people in the south of the philippines called the Sama-Bajau, also known as "Sea-Nomads" where they evolved to have larger spleens so they can stay in the water longer than normal people. they live in houses raised above the water and on boathouses. they eat many kinds of fish to sea urchins and octopi. They speak Sama which is a Malayo-Polynesian language, consisting of both philippine and malysian language. so i guess they are closer to the metkayinas.
Another great video Trey, really makes me appreciate the art design of the movie that much more. Love how much fun the artists get to have with these creatures.
I do wonder how much of an effect that Eywa might have on other species on Pandora. In that it seams symbiotically connected with a lot of things. And Eywa might explain weird evolution. Like with the forest and reef navi.
Another thing some people forget about Pandora's biosphere is the presence of the planet-wide network of neuron-like biological structures that seems to have a large degree of influence on almost every facet of life in the Pandora, that also seems to have a sapient intelligence behind it that the Navi call *Eywa*. Though the extent of influence and sapience of Eywa is unclear, we cannot rule out the fact of tangible "intelligent design", since both movies have shown that Eywa not only provides interconnected communication and storage of memory/soul, but also the actions, habits and instincts of the fauna and flora of the world. This is exemplified when Eywa called the beasts of the forests in Avatar 1, and how Kiri could feel Eywa's "thoughts" and use said connection to influence life around her. It can be guessed that Eywa had some control over the Navi's evolution by way of the Spirit Trees. In fact, I would bet that Eywa uses the Spirit Trees to keep the Navi in their tribal, "primitive" ways, for it knows that if Navi are left unchecked, they could possible run rampant and destroy the planet much like humans did on Earth.
Thats exactly what Eywa did to the Navi, as the expanded lore mentions the three laws of Eywa: must not make stone houses, must not make wheels and roads for them, and must not dig up the rocks under the ground. These laws keep the Navi in the tribal stage, while also providing protection to the Unobtanium necessary for the neural network to function as it does.
The fact that the earliest forms of pandoran life would’ve had 4 eyes lends further credit to the theory that the Navi are the remnants of some kind of “ancient alien” style genetic engineering
Trey! I'm so glad to hear from you again! And a sequel to your first video! Somehow, I did not expect such a thing, even with the movie coming out! You're putting out the quality stuff yet again and I was looking forward to this as I watched the movie! Everything about these movies is an interesting foray into speculative evolution and your videos are the perfect chaser!
You're back!! Congratulations on your graduation :) I'm so glad to see another video from you, you are amongst my top 3 RU-vidrs and I was worried I won't get to see and hear from you again. I've watched all your uploads a few times already, and tho my favorite are cryptozoology videos and paleo profile, I just can't stop listening to you. I just really like your voice and the way you talk and explain things. Keep them coming, can't wait for next one, whenever that will be.
How in depth are those artbooks? I'd be down for a full ecological guide of the wildlife of Avatar in the vein of the World of Kong book for the Peter Jackson King Kong film. On that note, I hope the Avatar game does similar stuff with like different creatures interacting and predator-prey mechanics. Maybe wishful thinking, but both games are by Ubisoft and both films are by Weta, so? In any case, from what I saw in the video, I do think some of the wildlife could be a bit weirder: A lot of it seems very deriative of IRL animals and genuses. I know convergent evolution is a thing, but the "whales" and the "otters" etc are a bit much. I do like 6 limbs and two eyes being a shared basal trait, though!
Discovered your channel through the first avatar video. Really enjoy these speculative type videos and hope to see a part 3 following the next Avatar release :)
Oh hell yeah!! I was hoping for a video on the sequel! Honestly my opinions on the movie is that is was pretty mid. It was way too long and the overarching plot was just a rehash of the original and the “nature good, human bad” messages are just as hamfisted. A lot of the characters just overall felt underdeveloped. Also, The decision for Jake and his family run was rushed. They should’ve spent more time on it because I still feel like they abandoned their people too easily. Quaritch came back from the dead. What makes them think distance is going to be enough to protect them? Considering what they did to the other island clan who they had no proof was harboring Jake’s family, what did they do to his?
it’s such a shame that the artists didn’t give the na’vi the same six limbs and four eyes of all of the other creatures. i get that they made them more humanlike so the audience could relate to them but man :( at least the new sea people have a bit more of a creative design
Yeah, if they took the dumb romance out I'd take an actually alien design any day over the safe and boring humanoid designs they went with. EDIT: Actually I just remembered that an artist named juniorWoodchuck made a really cool Na'vi redesign on DeviantArt!
I agree with this sentiment. I am disappointed that the Na'vi looks incredibly similar to humans. Heck, at least give them 6 limbs and 4 eyes like the majority of creatures on the planet! Easily one of my top pet peeves in science fiction: Making the sapient alien species look like blue/green humans.
They basically do have six limbs though. Notice how the lemurs in the first movie had two fingers for each arm, and how they only diverged from the elbow up? Well, it’s thought that the Na’vi directly evolved from them, and in the end the arm(s) converged into one, leading to the Na’vi having four fingers. Basically, the Na’vi were already on there way to being a tetrapod millions of years ago, with the lemurs being evident to that.
Good to have you back Trey! Also, there are rumors of Avatar 3 featuring and I kid you not...Fire Na'vi called the Ash People. So we have a Navi tribes of the land, sea, and fire. So are flying Na'vi next as in they have wings of their own? This is sounding a little too familiar. Anyway, I know organisms can survive in extreme heat like the tube worms that live in hydrothermal vents, I'm just curious how organisms can survive in an environment that's always on fire and even possibly volcanic
I wonder if after making the rest of the movies, Mr.Camron will try to tie it into the animated Avatar franchise or find a way to put the remains of the Titanic in space, on it's lumbering pace to Pandora so that the ghost of Jack can become their king and unite them by drawing tasteful nudes of anyone who will approach his throne, in the intergalactic ghost ship that sink so long ago, back in 1997. Will the humans try to take the remains of space Titanic back, and use the metal to make bullets, as to suppress the kitty Indians? That'd be a good story, not the tie in to animated Avatar, but raising the Titanic again but all the way this time, and reconfiguring it into a spaceship... With a ghost captain, Johnny Depp as undead space pirate Jack, not Sparrow. Rose is gone now, forever, but she shows up just long enough to let Jack know her heart has moved on, and Kitty braids are fair game. Someone play that piano music from Titanic.
I was really hoping you'd include the "corals" of Pandora. I'm so curious about your opinion on them, as they just look like copies of earth's Anthozoan
I thought this was a Curious Archive upload before I saw the channel name. I don't think I've seen you look at this kind of stuff in a while. If anyone wants to see more speculative biology, that channel is fantastic.
If 4 eyes and 6 limbs are such a common motif among the wildlife on Pandora then it's interesting how the Navi themselves lack both of these traits. I wonder at what point in their evolutionary history they lost these features and also for what reason
There might be no particular reason, or rather, environmental pressure. Evolution is driven by genetic mutations that are passed down and work for survival. That's why two headed snakes and cyclopses exist, but do not survive enough to reproduce. Na'vi probably lost a pair of eyes and since they're social, maybe those additional pair of eyes didn't have to be on a single individual, but on their tribemate and that worked enough, so such mutation passed down.
I personally think that ilu are very closely related to the banshee since I remember them having a very similar mouth compared to other animals in the movies.
Possibly sapient? The Tulkun are EXPLICITLY sapient in the movie. The brains of the Tulkun are explained as having both more neurons than our own AND having more connections between neurons, they (Tulkun) and the Reef People regularly communicate with each other in what is clearly a complex language, they're described as having their own unique culture, traditions, philosophy, etc, etc. Possibly my asscheeks. Did we even watch the same movie?
Well, there's one detail you seem to have overlooked. In the visual guide to the Way of Water, it says that the skim-wings share a common ancestry with Ikran.
The Ilu seemed distinctly like they were intended to be close to the base of the Banshees, possibly even having a flying ancestor, making them more of a penguin or. maybe more accurately a hesperornis analog, with their first pair of limbs being remnants they retain that more derived Banshee line ""birds"" lost. Also I still wish they did more with the cnidarian equivalents, they seem to literally just be coral and anemones and etc copy and pasted for the same reason the plants are mostly copy and pasted, they're seen as environmental decoration and not as alive. Which kinda sucks as a big cnidarian head. As for the movie... I might have liked it more than the first? The boring white savior plot was still around but I enjoyed the greater diversity of life (always bugged me how there was seemingly, like, only 2 phylums counting the anemone things in the river) and the plot had more going on with it that the first. Like a shotgun blast, by having more characters you actually developed basically have chances of making an entertaining one. I like the banished Tul'kun character a lot and the concept of another unrelated sapient creature living in migrational symbiosis with the Na'vi and I thought they did a decent job showing the general guy's clone's internal conflict over whether he was his own person or not, that's way interesting sci fi and character building than anything in the first movie imo.
@@monkeymanchronicles yeah. If that was indeed the intention like I suspect, I wish they learned into it by having the edges the flippers maintain that transparent insect wing like texture, or even maintain the winglet finger things as small steering surfaces, something to push it past being just a space plesiosaur. Still, I think the Ilu were my favorite creatures in the move, very pleasing designs to look at and very fun to speculate about due to their anatomy
It's actually the Skimwings who are the actual confirmed relatives of banshees, you can see several similarities such as them both sharing distinct sloping crests jutting from their chins, and skimwings are also six limbed unlike the banshees.
@@gloomyallo1830 Confirmed as in stated somewhere? Because if so, by all due respect I find that dumb as hell lol. Why would a display structure carry over between two amazingly different creatures? Why do they look like relatives of the various hyper earthlike fish? If they were meant to be banshee relatives they were designed with no regard for displaying it anatomically.
@@Ezekiel_Allium Yes, the information is literally in the Visual Dictionary for Avatar 2, where it's directly stated to be a relative of the banshee. Also, they're aquatic, a banshee would not be a good swimmer with it's aerial anatomy, hence Skimwings are much more streamlined with longer snouts for catching fish (Banshees have shorter snouts and different teeth due to their diet of varying terrestrial prey, Skimwings have jutting interlocking teeth to trap slippery prey), fins which likely became a banshees wings, and their chin crests (Or display crests in general) are likely just a common trait amongst their group similar to many dinosaurs or pterosaurs sharing features such as distinct crests, cranial formations, or unique dermal traits despite their taxonomic variety.
Great timing, thank you for this video. I have intermittent insomnia and your videos are the only thing that makes me fall asleep 100% of the time (you're not boring! Your content and voice are just soothing) I think I've fallen asleep to this video every night since it's been out 😅 I still have no idea what it's about
Since the Na'vi have 4 limbs I think it would be cool if they were descended from a separate group of 4-finned fish adapted to land, and not hexapoda. With the reef Na'vi retaining traits from a transitional stage and the forest Na'vi being a relatively new sub-species that adapted more to life on land
Thank god we’re getting 3 more Avatar movies because the Way of Water is doing so well. Remember when everyone thought this movie would bomb? I love seeing Pandora on the big screen.
What a pleasant coincidence! I just saw this today so I can finally binge on Avatar 2 videos, and one of my favorite creators happens to upload abut it!
This videos exist because Avatar had a staying power and cultural relevance to warrant a speculative biology video. The biggest thing Avatar gave us is the speculative biology aspect, along with other visual, thematic, and story blends. Before the Avatar franchise, I didnt see many people conceptualize bioluminescent planets for their sci-fi settings that much, if at all.
