(mostly inspired by David Brin, who has promised for months he would write a complete review but has so far only given us tiny glimpses)


'Avatar' is the kind of movie that is offending to everyone, with the notable exception of the escapist white messiah in the lead role. That makes it a visually stunning, epic lesson in how not to make a movie with a message. Kinda like 'Kony 2012'.

For one thing, even though the movie claims to be anti-racist and anti-colonialist, in the end it is the white hero who gets to save the day, because, you know, the blue people of Pandora can't do that on their own. The one sent by the mother goddess, the one to lead the nations of Pandora is- surprise, surprise- a white nerd with his techno toys, represented quite accurately as a soldier who is paralyzed from the waist down.

Also, I find it problematic how sexish the Navi are. How are we supposed to expand our potential for empathy by just admiring blue shiny people with slender bodies? They look like a race from World of Warcraft, something smelly little nerds WANT to identify with and masturbate to - again, what a surprise. For a real message of empathy, it would have been preferable to make them a race of giant spiders or cockroaches. Don't feel sorry for them because they look like us, just prettier! Feel for them because they are EMOTIONAL, THINKING beings. But I guess the broader public isn't ready for that yet. ArrGH!! (The more I think of it, the more I wish there were ressources for movies who tackle the stinking boundaries of our current cultural prejudices in a decisive manner. You know, movies that are actually new and interesting. Well, one can always dream).

Another reason the movie is sending an akward message is its complete condemnation of progress and intercultural exchange. When the Navi sent the Earthlings home, proudly sticking out their pretty blue chins, I had to force myself to stay calmly in my seat. Congratulation, bitches! Good luck doing the same with a meteroite, a plague or a pole shift. The bottom line is this: one day, the Navi, as every species in this universe, will inevitabely go extinct, one way or another, and this movie suggests that in their entire history, they will never expand their potential. They will never see distant worlds, never meet other cultures, never learn anything about the universe they live in beyond feeling a "deep spiritual connection" (but that's all there is, in the eyes of those who only have eyes for their own bellybutton).
Nothing suggests that there couldn't be a Navi Einstein, just that the Navi will never allow her or him to ever learn mathematics. There will be no nuclear weapons to kill millions of people- but there will never be millions of people in the first place either (with all their dreams, thoughts, stories), so that argument is moot. Should a navi civilization ever arise, it will probably be destroyed by an alliance of smaller tribes in the name of 'maintaining the natural balance'. Navi aren't supposed to ever leave their current ecological niche. Except maybe on the molecular level when natural conditions change on Pandora (which they WILL at some point. Just ask the dinosaurs.) and they will have to evolve into something different or disappear.

Besides, aren't they a bunch of, ahaem, assholes? They are telling the humans "return to your dying world and leave us alone". They feel no need, no moral obligations to educate them on how to heal a word and how balance is important (of course those who believe morality only requires to punish and to avenge, but not to rehabilitate the convict, won't see an argument here). They don't consider them to be their rotten star siblings. "Your problems aren't our problems. Our world is perfect." That is pretty navi- I mean, naive - in the long term, since we all live in one cosmos where everything is connected and where ultimately there is no such things as "separate destinies".
And besides, I find this complete lack of empathy and solidarity with other sentinent beings rather stunning. Even if you say the evil colonialists don't deserve mercy, what about the other non-human species out there who are being colonialized, who, unlike the Navi, just can't get rid of their human infestation? Don't the Navi feel sympathy for them? Why, with this attitude as the universal measure of all things, humans should just return to Pandora with more weapons to finish the job. After all, why care about others. And the Navi can't complain because these are the rules they agreed on.

Do you hear the sirens of the politically übercorrect, wannabe anti-colonialism ring? Nooo, they scream, civilization is a white thing! Living your potential is a white thing! Influencing other cultures is a white thing! Leave the Navi alone in their little bubble! Which is alright, of course, and I agree that the Navi should do whatever they want and live as they see fit.
They're not an example, however. They're not even worthy of having a movie made about them except if it is a nature documentary about the Pandorian ecosystem. They refuse to teach any lessons. They don't teach us how to grow as sophonent beings. Their only advice is to never invent anything complex, never explore anything, stick with the community we have been born into and use our mind solely for "spirituality" - in other words, as a feel-good device. That is a very narrow view at best.
As the human civilization expands, it is destroying everything in its path. That makes it a bad example (though I find it kinda repulsive to dismiss the idea that all the well-meaning, pro-Navi humans are proof of a human potential for change). But a bad example is still an example! The Navi aren't even trying. They will never bring anything to other people, neither good or bad- even though I'm sure they have so much they could share if they wanted to.
Now of course people will say "Hey asshole, every culture is self-sufficent and has nothing to learn from or teach to other cultures!", ignoring the very essence of what culture is, and I'm fine with that. But in that case you shouldn't add any feedback to what I'm writing here either but just found your own little tribe out there in the woods.

Now all of this could be put into perspective in a second movie that would adress all of these issues. It could focus on the emergence of an advanced Navi civilization that has taken humanity as a bad example. It has realized that it lives in a dangerous cosmos and decided to expand, explore and diversify while keeping their footprint on nature as low as possible. They could pandoraform nearby lifeless planets while maintaing a stable, unproblematic population on the homeworld. Their spirituality and love for harmony and balance could guide them towards new and more complex equilibriums. Their feelers could reach out into the stars while their feet remain rooted in the dirt of their homeworld. They could fight the humans in space to prevent them from colonizing defenseless nations while themselves inspiring these nations with their balanced technology. The second movie could be set in the very first years of this struggle, as the Navi try to figure out how to grow without becoming as kaputt and dangerous for the greater good as the humans. Or it could be set several centuries later, as the humans are defeated by a balanced Navi civilization and start to see the error of their ways. But if the second movie merely reinforces the implicit messages of the first, it will be just another pamphlet for self-righetous narrow-mindedness. A story about a timeless paradise that just needs to be maintained in eternal stagnation. And into which white nerds can escape from their own contradictions and deficiencis without actually having to work on them.