It’s a call back to the cold war, or earlier. Famously when the CiA was trying to make the SR-71 blackbird spy plane they needed titanium for the airframe, but the ussr produced almost all the world’s titanium and wasn’t going to sell it to them, hence “unobtainium”. So they built hundreds of shell companies to buy up small amounts of titanium and smuggle them back to the kingdom of nightmares… i mean America, and build their spy plane. It only sounds dumb if you don’t know the reference.

Unobtainium has a long and proud history in sci-fi. Cameron using it was just a nod to that. Basically it’s a Mcguffin material, that just happens to do exactly what the plot needs it to.

I like the name unobtainium - it holds within its name the idea that the cycle of extraction and exploitation will never be complete

Unobtanium is a good name because by the end of the movie they don’t obtain it.

“There are writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards.”

I want all my movies to open with a passage from State and Revolution and a 5 minute explanation of how the movies themes relate to that passage

Subtlety is reactionary