>But even then the odds against evolution
producing such similar animals on different planets is astronomical.
Convergent evolution? Birds, bats, and flying squirrels; sharks, dolphins and penguins; snakes, worms and legless lizards; and so on.
Convergent evolution? Birds, bats, and flying squirrels; sharks, dolphins and penguins; snakes, worms and legless lizards; and so on.
Why do the Na'vi look so human? Nostrils in their heads instead of their chests? Only four limbs? Apes are 94% human - but the fully alien Na'vi are sexy. Why? Because they were made for us.
Why do all the animals on the planet only kick the humans out at the end of the movie? Because Eywah now has what she wanted all along: one set of human scientist memories, and one fully-stocked base. Now she can start to trade on her own terms.
While this movie has been knocked as an example of the What these People Need is a Honky trope, I think that's just the surface, the bait. Eywah gets human memes all too well. She knew some handsome young human would fall for her all-too-beautiful native women; it's in all our movies. So she made a nice, attractive native people who fly on dragons and let, well, nature take its course.
She was probably confused as hell that we were all so short, though. That, and Star Trek had led her to believe all atmospheres are the same.
Really, the Na'vi are more similar to humans than humans look to most other species on Earth. You can't make a convergent evolution argument here unless you believe that intelligence somehow requires upright walking and a human-like face, down to the specifics of what facial expressions mean. I consider this highly implausible, even if it makes for a good movie.
Legs, yes, but if you look at limbs many of the flying creatures had four.