Maybe someone was controlling its movements in the background but this is definitely not computer-generated. This animatronic Na’vi shaman, inspired by the movie “Avatar,” can be found singing to guests of the Na’vi River Journey ride at “Pandora – The World of Avatar” inside the Orlando Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom theme park.
During the “TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics” event in Boston, Massachusetts, the skin was peeled from a prototype of the animatronic alien to reveal a complex device full of many small parts working in unison to create believable facial expressions.
Image: YouTube/TechCrunch
The animatronic Na’vi is by far the most advanced creation by Disney. The company has been building animatronic creations as far back as 1963.
Here’s the animatronic Na’vi in its spot on the River Journey ride. Apart from a few sudden hitches, its overall movements are smooth and almost life-like.
If engineers can incorporate this kind of fluid movements to a fully mobile body and then pair it with an artificial intelligence, the human race could finally give birth to the android race as so popularly depicted in science fiction. /ra