Movie Smarts

Avatar Quiz: Remember Your First Visit?

A few easy wins, a few head-scratchers, and an explanation after every answer.

Published 2026-10-24 Updated 2026-10-24 15 questions

Avatar: The Work Trip Comes With a New Body

A former soldier gets a chance to explore a distant world through a body unlike his own. The place is beautiful, dangerous, and already home to people who have good reasons to distrust the visitors. As he learns their ways, his assignment begins to feel less like an opportunity and more like a betrayal. Choosing where he belongs turns out to be much harder than learning how to move his new feet.

Enjoy the scenery. The quiz would like your attention back now.

1. Who directed Avatar?
- Peter Jackson
- James Cameron
- Steven Spielberg
- Ridley Scott
Cameron wrote the treatment in the mid-1990s and shelved it until performance capture and 3D cameras could do what he wanted, which took more than a decade. It was his first feature since Titanic, and it took the worldwide box office record from that film.
2. Who plays Jake Sully?
- Taylor Kitsch
- Sam Worthington
- Joel Edgerton
- Chris Hemsworth
Worthington was a little-known Australian when Cameron cast him; Jake is a paraplegic former Marine recruited into the Avatar Program at short notice. He played the part on a bare stage in a capture suit, and the Na'vi body was animated from that performance.
3. What is the inhabited moon called?
- Pandora
- Endor
- Arrakis
- Titan
Pandora is a moon of the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri system, with air that is poisonous to humans, hence the masks. Titan is Saturn's moon, Endor belongs to the Ewoks and Arrakis to Dune.
4. What are Pandora's blue people called?
- Kree
- Fremen
- Na'vi
- Ewoks
The Na'vi are roughly ten feet tall, blue-skinned and bioluminescent at night, and their language was built from scratch by the linguist Paul Frommer for the film. The Kree are Marvel aliens, the Fremen are from Dune and the Ewoks need no introduction.
5. Who plays Neytiri?
- Lupita Nyong'o
- Rosario Dawson
- Zoe Saldaña
- Michelle Rodriguez
Saldaña had just played Uhura in the Star Trek reboot and never appears as herself here; Neytiri is animated entirely from her captured performance, down to the facial expressions. Neytiri is the daughter of the clan's leader and its spiritual head.
6. Which film beat Avatar to the Best Picture Oscar?
- The Hurt Locker
- Inglourious Basterds
- Up in the Air
- District 9
The Hurt Locker, directed by Cameron's ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, took Best Picture and Best Director at the same ceremony where Avatar won for cinematography, visual effects and art direction. All four options were among that year's ten Best Picture nominees.
7. What valuable mineral are the humans mining?
- Unobtanium
- Adamantium
- Vibranium
- Dilithium
The name is an old engineers' joke for any material that would be perfect if only it existed; the film's version sells for a fortune per kilo back on Earth, which is the mining company's whole case. Adamantium and vibranium are Marvel metals.
8. Why can Jake use the avatar intended for his brother?
- He speaks the local language
- He built its control system
- He has a matching blood type only
- They are genetically identical twins
Tommy Sully was the scientist the avatar was grown for, and avatars answer to one genome only, so when he was killed in a robbery the company offered the slot to his twin. Quaritch later dangles a spine operation to keep Jake loyal.
9. What is the name of the security commander?
- Parker Selfridge
- Lyle Wainfleet
- Miles Quaritch
- Norm Spellman
Quaritch runs security for the mining operation, has refused to have his Pandora scars fixed, and recruits Jake to report on the clan from inside. Selfridge is the company administrator, Norm Spellman the other new avatar driver.
10. Who plays Quaritch?
- Clancy Brown
- Stephen Lang
- Ron Perlman
- Ed Harris
Lang was a stage actor who had auditioned for Cameron's Aliens two decades earlier without getting a part, and Cameron remembered him. The character was brought back as a Na'vi recombinant so he could return in The Way of Water.
11. What does a Na'vi rider physically connect to a creature to form a bond?
- A spoken password
- A wrist implant
- A metal bridle
- A neural queue
Every Na'vi has a braid ending in neural tendrils, and bonding, which they call tsaheylu, means linking it to the matching organ on a direhorse or a banshee. The same link lets them commune with their ancestors through the Tree of Souls.
12. What are the floating mountains commonly called?
- The Misty Mountains
- The Crystal Peaks
- The Thunder Cliffs
- The Hallelujah Mountains
The mountains float because of the magnetic fields around the unobtanium deposits inside them, which also scramble the humans' instruments, so the gunships fly in half blind. Cameron has cited China's Huangshan range as an inspiration for the look.
13. What is the Na'vi deity's name?
- Gaia
- Eywa
- Hera
- Eru
Eywa is less a goddess than a planet-wide network: the trees on Pandora are linked root to root, and the Na'vi can store memories in it and hear their ancestors through it. Grace, the scientist, is the one who works out that it is measurable biology.
14. What giant tree houses Neytiri's clan?
- Hometree
- The Tree of Time
- The Tree of Souls
- The White Tree
Hometree is a single tree taller than a skyscraper and hollow enough for the whole clan to live inside, and it stands on the richest unobtanium deposit for miles around, which is the whole problem. Selfridge has it toppled with gunships and incendiaries.
15. What makes Neytiri decide to spare Jake and take him to her clan?
- He speaks her language
- He saves her from a viperwolf
- Seeds from the sacred tree settle on him
- Grace vouches for him
Neytiri first lowers her bow when a single seed drifts onto her arrowhead, and after she has saved him from a pack of viperwolves and tried to walk away, a whole cloud of them settles on Jake. She reads that as a sign from Eywa and takes him to Hometree.

All the answers

1. Who directed Avatar?

James Cameron

Cameron wrote the treatment in the mid-1990s and shelved it until performance capture and 3D cameras could do what he wanted, which took more than a decade. It was his first feature since Titanic, and it took the worldwide box office record from that film.
2. Who plays Jake Sully?

Sam Worthington

Worthington was a little-known Australian when Cameron cast him; Jake is a paraplegic former Marine recruited into the Avatar Program at short notice. He played the part on a bare stage in a capture suit, and the Na'vi body was animated from that performance.
3. What is the inhabited moon called?

Pandora

Pandora is a moon of the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri system, with air that is poisonous to humans, hence the masks. Titan is Saturn's moon, Endor belongs to the Ewoks and Arrakis to Dune.
4. What are Pandora's blue people called?

Na'vi

The Na'vi are roughly ten feet tall, blue-skinned and bioluminescent at night, and their language was built from scratch by the linguist Paul Frommer for the film. The Kree are Marvel aliens, the Fremen are from Dune and the Ewoks need no introduction.
5. Who plays Neytiri?

Zoe Saldaña

Saldaña had just played Uhura in the Star Trek reboot and never appears as herself here; Neytiri is animated entirely from her captured performance, down to the facial expressions. Neytiri is the daughter of the clan's leader and its spiritual head.
6. Which film beat Avatar to the Best Picture Oscar?

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker, directed by Cameron's ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, took Best Picture and Best Director at the same ceremony where Avatar won for cinematography, visual effects and art direction. All four options were among that year's ten Best Picture nominees.
7. What valuable mineral are the humans mining?

Unobtanium

The name is an old engineers' joke for any material that would be perfect if only it existed; the film's version sells for a fortune per kilo back on Earth, which is the mining company's whole case. Adamantium and vibranium are Marvel metals.
8. Why can Jake use the avatar intended for his brother?

They are genetically identical twins

Tommy Sully was the scientist the avatar was grown for, and avatars answer to one genome only, so when he was killed in a robbery the company offered the slot to his twin. Quaritch later dangles a spine operation to keep Jake loyal.
9. What is the name of the security commander?

Miles Quaritch

Quaritch runs security for the mining operation, has refused to have his Pandora scars fixed, and recruits Jake to report on the clan from inside. Selfridge is the company administrator, Norm Spellman the other new avatar driver.
10. Who plays Quaritch?

Stephen Lang

Lang was a stage actor who had auditioned for Cameron's Aliens two decades earlier without getting a part, and Cameron remembered him. The character was brought back as a Na'vi recombinant so he could return in The Way of Water.
11. What does a Na'vi rider physically connect to a creature to form a bond?

A neural queue

Every Na'vi has a braid ending in neural tendrils, and bonding, which they call tsaheylu, means linking it to the matching organ on a direhorse or a banshee. The same link lets them commune with their ancestors through the Tree of Souls.
12. What are the floating mountains commonly called?

The Hallelujah Mountains

The mountains float because of the magnetic fields around the unobtanium deposits inside them, which also scramble the humans' instruments, so the gunships fly in half blind. Cameron has cited China's Huangshan range as an inspiration for the look.
13. What is the Na'vi deity's name?

Eywa

Eywa is less a goddess than a planet-wide network: the trees on Pandora are linked root to root, and the Na'vi can store memories in it and hear their ancestors through it. Grace, the scientist, is the one who works out that it is measurable biology.
14. What giant tree houses Neytiri's clan?

Hometree

Hometree is a single tree taller than a skyscraper and hollow enough for the whole clan to live inside, and it stands on the richest unobtanium deposit for miles around, which is the whole problem. Selfridge has it toppled with gunships and incendiaries.
15. What makes Neytiri decide to spare Jake and take him to her clan?

Seeds from the sacred tree settle on him

Neytiri first lowers her bow when a single seed drifts onto her arrowhead, and after she has saved him from a pack of viperwolves and tried to walk away, a whole cloud of them settles on Jake. She reads that as a sign from Eywa and takes him to Hometree.