Distance from Kelutral to Vitraya Ramunong?

[Coyote]

An interesting question came up in the RP about how much distance there is between Kelutral (Hometree) and Vitraya Ramunong (Tree of Souls).

We have little evidence to go on, but it would seem to be not very far at all. We don't have an idea about the distance until the attack on Hometree. I'm guessing maybe 20 kilometers seperates them.

The attack seems to take place in the morning, although I admit my "evidence" for this is thin: the sky is bright and clear, and, Quaritch is drinking coffee.

By the time we catch up to the Omatikaya again, they are at Vitraya Ramunong, and it is darker, almost dusk. There is still enough sun for them to see Toruk's shadow as Jake lands, though, but the sky is definitely darker.

From the time they evacuate the site of Hometree's wreckage, and reach the Tree of Souls/Vitraya Ramunong, it appears that they walk. The Na'vi have a much longer stride than humans; however, they are heavily laden, carrying what possessions they could carry and some of them are carrying Grace's Avatar body. They are also moving over rough terrain, since the previous scenes of the area show dense jungle and it is already stated that the Na'vi have no roads.

If they walked the whole way, from late dawn (after attack and time to gather supplies) to early dusk, over broken ground, then that indicates that the Tree of Souls is not very far from Hometree, maybe 20-30 kilometers. That means that Kelutral is very close to the border region of the vortex where flight is difficult, since the Tree of Souls/Vitraya Ramunong is depicted as being well inside the vortex (the RDA, when they come to attack, has to move slowly and pick their way through the vortex area cautiously, and the Na'vi have time to arrange an in-depth defense).

The only thing that might alter the equation is if we know whether or not the Omatikaya left Hometree's wreckage on Pa'lis and Ikrans, even though they are shown to be walking. Evacuating on Pa'lis and Ikrans might add another, what, 30 kilometers to the possible distance?

Any other thoughts would be helpful.

[Txur Txe’lan]

im pretty sure they were all walking. even though some of the Na'vi had Ikrans as you stated, they were carrying all their possessions they managed to grab and i suspect you cant carry much on an Ikran.

I believe that the attack starts more around mid-day rather than the morning. i would say the morning is when the humans plowed over the Tree of Voices. Thats when Jake destroys the cameras on the plow like machine, Quaritch goes and ejects him from his avatar and they go talk in what i think is the control room of Hells Gate. From their Quaritch attacks Hometree. There were never any clues to show that these events happened over 2 days.

The one thing im not sure of is how long it takes to get to Iknimaya. When the team went up there for the first time it looked about mid day as well and they left in the morning. Its hard to say what time though since we don't see the sun until they're already there.

[Ayfa'liyä omumyu]

The needed factor in this equation of course is, how long is a day on Pandora? Maybe this is well known, but I did not find it in a brief search, and it would be critical to determining distance based on what we're seeing of the light in the sky. There is mention by Leri Greer of WETA about the design of the day/night cycle, but no reference is made to equivalent Terran duration. Nevertheless, the varying colours of the sky, if implemented in final production, would make for a more complicated (but likely more accurate) picture of the distances involved.

Actually, one of the few things that bothered me about the film is the time compression. We're presented with this huge new world but it is traversed in hours. Jake rises from distrust and open malice to become a full member of the Omaticaya in... less than three months. That doesn't seem reasonable to me. Sorry to go off track there.

[Txur Txe’lan]

i was thinking about that too. without knowing how long a day is its hard to estimate distances. im assuming that a Pandora day is close to what an Earth day is, since most events take place in sunlight and both the Na'vi and the humans tend to sleep at night.

You could argue that since this is the Na'vi's home planet that they are used to the time cycle and can stay up longer that an average human. So you could say that they days can be longer but since the humans (mostly referring to Jake) interact with the Na'vi on a daily basis, they would both have to be on the same sleep patterns. If not then the humans would eventually be up during the night and asleep during the day.

[magne]

Pandora orbit a Saturn sized gas giant so it should have one side fixed against the planet like earth moon, As I understand it orbit pretty close but the day should be from 3-4 days to over a week, the long night was used for an explanation for the bioluminescence