With the language established, Cameron set about naming everything on his alien planet. Every animal and plant received Na?vi, Latin, and common names. As if that weren?t enough, Cameron hired Jodie Holt, chair of UC Riverside?s botany and plant sciences department, to write detailed scientific descriptions of dozens of plants he had created. She spent five weeks explaining how the flora of Pandora could glow with bioluminescence and have magnetic properties. When she was done, Cameron helped arrange the entries into a formal taxonomy.
This was work that would never appear onscreen, but Cameron loved it.
He brought in more people, hiring an expert in astrophysics, a music professor, and an archaeologist. They calculated Pandora?s atmospheric density and established a tripartite scale structure for the alien music. When one of the experts brought in the Star Wars Encyclopedia, Cameron glanced at it and said, ?We?ll do better.?
Eventually, a team of writers and editors compiled all this information into a 350-page manual dubbed Pandorapedia. It documents the science and culture of the imaginary planet, and, as much as anything, it represents the fully realized world Cameron has created. For fans who want to delve deeper, parts of Pandorapedia will be available online this winter.
