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Which was the first movie that used the word "Unobtainium" to identify an element?

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Unobtainium can refer to any substance needed to build some device critical to the plot of a science fiction story, but which does not exist in the universe as we know it. A hull material that gets stronger with pressure in the film The Core (2003) was nicknamed unobtainium, but the concept under different names can be seen in the anti-gravity material cavorite from H. G. Wells' 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon, as well as the super-strong material scrith from Larry Niven's novel Ringworld, which requires a tensile strength on the order of the forces binding an atomic nucleus.

The term was used in James Cameron's 2009 movie Avatar, as a substance that was named (in the film's dialog) unobtanium (note the slightly different spelling). In the film, it was mined on the fictional moon Pandora, and was a room-temperature superconductor.

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  • Ah, I see, it's not a film original. So I have seen the first film that used it and I did see it in the year 2003.
    – John
    Oct 4, 2016 at 11:00
  • >>unobtainium, but the concept under different names can be seen in the anti-gravity material cavorite from H. G. Wells' 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon<< I think that the term "Unobtanium" implies that the substance is 1) naturally occurring; 2) rare or otherwise difficult to procure; and 3) extremely useful (because it possesses some weird physical properties). By that definition, cavorite would NOT be an example of "Unobtanium." Cavorite was a synthetic substance easily made using Helium - albeit it did exhibit exotic properties.
    – Alex
    Jun 19, 2020 at 15:42

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