Hey guys. I was wondering... I haven't watched Avatar yet, but is the planet "Pandora" supposed to be another movie reference? ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-XXDzOJ1m8&fmt=18
If you watch the video for a while you will hear a guy say, "Ladies and Gentlemen. You are on Pandora." Now, this seems a bit strange seeing as Avatar comes out wayy after Borderlands. Any relationship? I doubt that there is a high chance for both planets to be called Pandora. There must be a reason. Hmph. --Phasewalker 14:37, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
Instant Answer... Watch the trailer even further down and when the wheelchair guy merges with his "Avatar" you see the exact same Borderlands spawn effect. Coincidence, I think not. But then again, from what I see, Avatar seems to have a lot of game references like the flying machines in Halo or sth... Can anyone link me with some references? --Phasewalker 14:41, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
Change my mind again... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYoOFm-RoH4&fmt=18 It seems that the names, etc. are just a coincidence, while the effects were indeed probably "inspired"/stolen from borderlands. Hehe, I suspect the special effects artists play too much borderlands.
- The concept of Pandora's Box, among many other ideas, has been discussed in the many threads regarding the naming of Pandora. Besides, given the production schedules of Borderlands and Avatar, with both having been released recently, they won't play a game the moment it's released to look for brilliant special effects.
- I am sick of hearing references to the Halo 3 Hornet. It's rather childish and might as well take it a step further and say that both games are ripping off the Doak. Then the unobtanium deposits were referenced from The Core too? I don't think Avatar is as reference-intensive as Borderlands, and even then Gearbox does it intentionally.
- --Nagamarky 15:17, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
Rather than flaming about. Can you give me a straight answer? --Phasewalker 15:20, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
- No. (Pandora is a cool name.)
- (They ripped off the Hornet.) No.
- In the few weeks since Borderlands was released, the SFX artists played it thoroughly and decided to use the Fast Travel animation. Is that what you're saying? --Nagamarky 15:35, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
- Ok. I see what your getting at.
- But yeah, thats what I'm saying. I can't be wrong on saying that the SFX artists got the effect from Borderlands. Being that the Avatar "linking" animation is 100% correlated to the New-U Animation you get in Borderlands. --Phasewalker 15:39, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
- It's just the animation for a neural uplink; if I wanted to be square about it, I'd argue that they're different colors, but whatever. Unless you can convince me as to how such an animation would be incorporated into the movie in time for screening, I'm gonna go with coincidence.
- I don't think a tunnel of surreal electric colors is a particularly original idea anyway. --Nagamarky 15:45, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
Case Closed. Thanks Nagamarky~! --Phasewalker 15:49, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
- No probs, apologies for the initial brutality, still recovering from Xmas party. --Nagamarky 17:23, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
In this day and age, studios (both video game and movie) often contract out work for certain things, special effects being one of them. It could be entirely possible that Avatar and Borderlands used the same, or a similar effect, for the "teleporting" that was created by the same company. As for Pandora, it's likely just a coincidence. The myth behind Pandora makes for a fitting name for planets that have surprises that can't be put back once you open them. Coincidence? Likely. Inspiration/theft (of one or the other)? Possible. Pdboddy 20:50, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
Anoymous: Feb 9th, 2010
You guys are all arguing moot points!
First of all , Avatar began production and shooting almost 3 years ago. In 2006, previous to all that is when the writing for script was going on, as that is obviously done before the shooting and production. The story of Avatar was written by Cameron probably way before the creation of the Borderlands story and concepts. So IF ANYTHING Borderlands took all the ideas from Avatar. However as had been stayed, I don't think that is the case. There are surprising similarities between the main stories and location. IN Avatar, big company looks to do industrial operations mining for natural resources on a Planet called Pandora. In BL, same deal pretty much except for the main vault story but background is identical, the Atlas people are there to do the same thing> BUT it is possible that this Pandora is a common name usedd for myth and stories like this, after all they have all been stolen from eastern culture and greek culture anyway
Okay... now I just watched Avatar last night again after really getting into Borderlands... there are many many similarities beyond just the name of the planet: Pandora.
-Planet name: Pandora
-Avatar Uplink / New-U Teleport : pretty much identical
-The moon cycles; if you look at the sky in the movie, the appearance is quite similar to the sky in the game; the gas giant in the movie, the moon in the sky in BL
-About 4 minutes into the movie, when Jake Sully's shuttle comes out of orbit and lands on the planet, there is a giant digger in the background, exactly like Thor in the Salt Flats.
-The Personal Armor Mech that Colonel Miles Quaritch wears at the end of the movie is almost eerily similar to General Knoxx.
Those are the major similarities I noticed...
Some smaller similarities; the flying Banshees are similar to Rakk
The viperwolf (the black nocturnal guys) are similar to Skags.
Some major differences: Obviously first, the atmosphere in the movie is toxic to humans... Second, the landscape is far more lush and green than what we're led to believe in BL, however in the game there are major bodies of water (Trash Coast, Treacher's Landing, Jakobs' Cove...) Third, it seems that in the movie, all the animals were six-legged or hexapodal. I wish that I had noticed a gun manufacturer on some of the technology in the movie... Hilarious if the Avatar linkups were made by Hyperion...Jack Monkey Squat 17:36, May 5, 2010 (UTC)
- Greek names like Hyperion have been used in SF for over a century and denotes superior. So it wouldn't be surprising.
- Ya mean just like this real-life strip miner? -- MeMadeIt 19:49, May 5, 2010 (UTC)
- Pandora, Hyperion and some other shit are the names of saturn`s moons. So noone is copying anyone. Case closed.
It has already been mentioned, but Pandora is a good name for planets that have obviously dangerous properties (Avatar - toxic air to humans, BL - mostly everything is dangerous...) But Im fairly positive that there is zero relations between Avatar and Borderlands, yet... I would love to see GBX make a huge reference to Avatar in an upcoming DLC... though maybe with less blue, cat people. Lone-Wanderer 20:08, May 5, 2010 (UTC) (P.S. I loved the movie, probably because of the visuals, but still...)
Yeah I wasn't trying to suggest any kind of cross-media mythology tie-in; just thought that some of the parallels are kind of amusing. (and for the record I thought General Knoxx was a direct reference to Avatar...)Jack Monkey Squat 21:00, May 5, 2010 (UTC)
I noticed that Jak 3 and Borderlands are A LOT alike.
BTW, speaking of stealing ideas - I swear AVATAR is a direct rip-off of a Hammer's Slammer's short story I read many years ago. The scene where the carrier fires the missiles into the home tree - nearly 90% the same as the short story except they fired uber-toxic poison and the big tree and the spirit tree were the same tree. The humans were just there on a military mission and the "Navi" were monkey-men. The short story ends with the tree of life posioned and dying which meant the rest of the planet life would soon die. Believing they had won, the human soldiers prepared to leave, but then they heard a signal and looked up and saw 40,000 tree warriors surge towards them. When I saw these scenes in the movie I nearly came out of my seat! Unfortunately, I've been unable to locate that short story. -- MeMadeIt 08:04, May 6, 2010 (UTC)