Avatar producer Jon Landau is doing a geeky deep-dive into Na’vi culture with his latest interview, which is promoting the imminent release of the new franchise game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which invites players to “Become Na’vi” in a “first-person, action-adventure game set in the open world of the Western Frontier of Pandora.”
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Naturally, the opportunity for Avatar fans to jump into the world of the film, and inhabit the character of a Na’vi person, raises a lot more specific questions about the nature of the aliens, their culture, and of course, their big, blue, phsyiology.
Can Na’vi Grow Hair?
“Yeah I would say some Na’vi clans can,” Landau explained to ComicBook.com. “Again: I think it’s a cultural thing. It’s a biological thing. And we want to present different clans – but I would say ‘Yes,’ Na’vi can grow facial hair.”
Josh Izzo, the Executive VP of Franchise Development for Avatar directly contradicted Landau in his own statement, claiming that “the answer is no,” when it comes to Na’vi facial hair. That said, Izzo did distinguish between the native Na’vi people of Pandora and avatar body transfers like Jake Sully (Sam Worthington):
“Now Jake, though – and if you notice this it’s very interesting in the film [Avatar: The Way of Water] – Jake has biological children and one adopted child. His oldest son Neteyam and youngest daughter Tuk have more of their mother in them, whereas Lo’ak … the middle son, has more of him. Because Lo’ak has four fingers and a thumb like Jake as an avatar – but also Lo’ak has eyebrows, whereas the other two… biological children do not. And neither does Neytitri. So Jake has eyebrows, and Jake can – to a degree – grow different types of hair, because they are a biological mix of human and Na’vi DNA, whereas core, on-moon Na’vi don’t have that gene. And Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), their adopted daughter, she also has eyebrows because she was born from an avatar.”
With the amount of insight that Izzo just provided, it seems pretty clear now that John Landau isn’t necessarily in touch with all the details about the Na’vi. James Cameron and the Avatar franchise team clearly thought-out the details to such a degree that even the rules of facial hair growth seem to follow an established path of logic and consideration – and that’s before a team of animators has to make all that hair growth (or non-growth) like 3D photorealistic.
Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water are both streaming on Disney+.
