In the film Avatar, the story is set on the fictional moon Pandora.
James Cameron’s 2009 science-fiction film follows former Marine Jake Sully after he travels to Pandora, a habitable moon orbiting the fictional gas giant Polyphemus. Humans operate an extraction project there, seeking the valuable mineral unobtanium, while the Na’vi inhabit the moon’s forests and other ecosystems.
The film’s Pandora is not the jar from Greek mythology, although its name deliberately evokes the mythological figure and suggests a world containing extraordinary possibilities and dangers. The moon’s spectacular biodiversity and interconnected ecology are central to the movie’s conflict.
Pandora is sometimes mistakenly called a planet in casual discussion. Within Avatar’s fictional astronomy, it is a moon, and Polyphemus is the planet it orbits. That distinction is important because the film’s setting and world-building depend on the moon’s relationship to its gas-giant primary.