Avatar ( marketed as James Cameron’s Avatar ) is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron , and starring Sam Worthington , Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang ,
Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing Pandora , a lush
habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the mineral unobtanium , a room-temperature superconductor. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na’vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film’s title refers to a genetically engineered Na’vi body with the mind of a remotely located human that is used to interact with the natives of Pandora.