Avatar hits DVD today so be sure to check out our interview with both director James Cameron and producer Jon Landau, published today, in which they discuss two Avatar sequels and the Blu-ray revival of the blockbuster got all of us over here at Techland pretty excited about a return trip to Pandora.

Avatar didn’t just give us a great 3D spectacle, it also gave birth to what might be the most thoroughly envisioned fictional planet in movie history. The details on Pandora, from the humanoids to the animals to the flora, are so well detailed and nuanced that it’s no wonder some fans got depressed at the end of the movie. Walking out of the film into a black theater parking lot is kind of a downer, when you’ve just been flying on dragons by day and wading through bioluminescent lagoons by night.

Here in Techland headquarters, Pandora sparked a debate among us, as to what are the all-time best sci-fi worlds. Consider this only our first draft of a definitive list. Peruse our planets, and be sure to chime in as we update for round II. This is a group effort, and we welcome your additions.

So here we go around the universe, in 80 words (or less):

Lists

Better Than Pandora: The Most Memorable Sci-Fi Planets

By Steven James Snyder | @thesnydes | April 22, 2010 | +

@Techland

tereglith

What, no Coruscant? I know four different SW planets would be a bit much, but Coruscant is seriously awesome. A fully realized panopolis with buildings taller than Wroshyr trees, kept alive by an intricate lattice of glowing three-dimensional rush-hour traffic. The mystery of the sublevels, the mythicism of the ancient seas pumped below ground, the elusive level zero. It’s a planet-wide, 3D New York City. Way cooler than just another wasteland desert planet.
grape_crush

I nominate Earth, and you can pick whatever movie. I’m choosing Blade Runner and Brazil.

Good call on Forbidden Planet, btw.
amdv

Want a trip to Padora? Trek to the nearest decent botanical garden. The best are the closest thing to a PERFECT jungle – selected and tended for generations just to excite and amaze, with the perfect little dash of danger held at appropriate distance.

No imagination or special makeup required.
burntheworld

i was going to suggest the planet from pitch black but its already in there so im gonna say Cybertron home of the transformers
qlum

why only movie planets if game planets where allowed tallon iv from metroid prime would be an awesome addition
waldo41

I’m probably a great deal older than your average viewer of this film. I’ve been told the special effects are wonderful and distinguished scholars are already creating a language for the inhabitants of Padora. For me, I rather liked Altair 4 in the film Forbidden Planet, which I think dates from 1956. The desert landscape looks vaguely like Mars with vegetation and the green skies were apparently shot in California. To add to the interest was an advanced civilization, which left only fully functional machinery in a vast underground city. Unfortunately, given the climate of the times, Altair 4 was destroyed but the film itself was a landmark.
jeffdewitt

How on EARTH (so to speak) can anyone put together a list of what are supposed to be the most memorable Sci-fi planets and not mention Larry Niven’s Ringworld. It memorable and creative and won all the major awards. In addition it helped inspire the game Halo and gave physics classes something really interesting to work on.
pawsofdeath

As an all time memorable planet I have to nominate Mesklin from Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity. 20,000 miles from pole to pole and 46,000 miles across at the equator, Mesklin rotates on it axis one every eighteen minutes. The surface gravity ranges from six times earth normal at the equator to 600 times earth normal at the poles. It has an eccentrically elliptical orbit around its sun and an average temperature of -180 degrees. 18 inch long intelligent centipedes sail the methane oceans looking for trade. Clement makes it thoroughly believable and now that we’ve discovered 200 or so exoplanets, it seems even more believable today than when it was written in the 1950′s.