I mean, they've been having to do that since the chalcolithic.

Ah, thank you. I was looking for the expression "power creep" to describe this phenomenon. In Japan, we usually call it "power inflation," and I couldn't remember how to say it in English!

I was talking about the beginning, so the big bang, which only produced hydrogen and helium. At least that is the common consensus. The first stars were creating more elements, as they can create everything up to iron. For everything else we need super Nova explosions, which obviously came much later, but that also explains only a part of the universes chemical evolution. The rest could be explained by binary neutron star mergers or exotic types of super novae, but that is still highly debated.

Nice! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibranium

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.

Well yeah of course MacGurffin makes a terrible fake metal name. Change it to MacGufftanium and then we've got a real winner

It is truly a dumb decision because it's got absolutely nothing to do with the film. It's just lazy justification for being there, they could have chosen anything.

I think it's a room temperature superconductor which, ok I can see why that's useful, but if you're in a future where you have interstellar starships flying on a semi regular basis to another star system I think you've probably already invented room temperature superconductors. In fact they must have room temperature superconductors because their starships are powered by fusion drive which needs electromagnetic confinement in order to work. So at least the first ship would have to already have that tech just to get out there in the first place.

I listened to a steampunk opera years ago where the thing they were all fighting over was called an MCG. It took reading the writers notes afterwards for me to realise it was literally a MCGuffin, I did not feel smart that day.

I agree with you in all of the particulars of your argument, but am ultimately unphased by the use of the term. Cameron stopped one step short of calling it MacGuffinite, and I can understand why that would annoy some people. However, within the context of Avatar, it just doesn't bother me.

If I wanted to conjure an in-universe reason for it, I can do so without straining my credulity too much. Aerospace engineers in the 50s develop a term for a hypothetical wonder material that they can't get their hands on: unobtanium. Fast forward hundreds of years, and a material is discovered on Pandora which possesses qualities which were previously only thought of as theoretically possible. Perhaps jokingly, perhaps sincerely, the new wonder material is called unobtanium, referencing the fact it is no longer hypothetical, but it's still damn hard to get a hold of.

Now, I recognize that 1) none of that is explained in the movie, so it's just head canon, and 2) as you say, calling a material you are actively mining 'unobtanium' is stupid. However, I don't think it's any more or less stupid than your suggested alternative courses of action given the context of the plot.

If unobtanium had ANY relevance to the story beyond "this is the source of conflict", I'd wish for more juice there. But Cameron is nothing if not a functional screenwriter. No matter how much lipstick you put on the pig, the sole purpose of the scene is to telegraph the third act conflict (and allegorize the Iraq War, to some extent, but he does more with that elsewhere). The screenplay spends only bare minimum amount of time covering that detail before speeding along to more relevant thematic matters.

So, I agree that it's a dumb contrivance that is clunky. However, it's just so irrelevant that I don't care. Call it whatever you want to, the name, like the material itself, is completely inconsequential. Frankly, I'm actually warming to the idea of calling it MacGuffinite. Put a line in that it was named after the first marine to die on Pandora or some such bs. Have your cake and eat it too, a plausible in-universe name, and a tell to not think about it so much.

Well, I'll start by disagreeing with the premise that an "objectively poor" artistic choice exists, at least in this context. There are choices that work for you and choices that don't, but neither are objective. The name unobtanium was chosen because it represents a hypothetical substance that is everything that Cameron needed it to be to tell his story in a single word. He's practically telling the audience, "look, guys, don't think about it that hard, I'm speeding through the set-up because I know everyone is here to look at pretty shit in 3d".

In another story, one where the specific properties of unobtanium were in any way relevant (beyond being valuable), that sort of handwavey shorthand might perturb me. However, as it stands within the context of the film, it's fine. It's functional screenwriting, and that, to me, is a hallmark of Cameron's style.

Also, I'm not suggesting unobtanium was a placeholder for Cameron. I'm saying that it doesn't necessarily strain my credulity to believe that, if scientists are pre-conditioned to refer to a hypothetical wonder material as unobtanium, and then they actually discover a wonder material, they might continue referring to it as such. Or, if not scientists, at least corporate ghouls like Ribisi who probably can't pronounce the "official" name, if one exists.

Well I just made anti Urest which counters it!