“Man comes to appreciate the indigenous tribe and then witness how utterly evil and materialistic humans are.” A4Noob says this despite my explanation on the SAME F’ING PAGE explaining how it’s not that simple. It’s about imperialism. IMPERIALISM. This is not about humans or even capitalism in general. This is about imperialism.
Right. Because imperialism is such a current ordeal now a days that we need a huge budget film to revolve around it. This isn’t about capitalism? That’s pretty funny considering how the entire basis of the movie is on corporations exploiting the poor and impoverished, which seems to be the nucleus of all hollywood propaganda. Oh, and I laughed when they called it “unobtanium”, it’s real ironic. I already mentioned similar parallels like the Spanish invasion of the Native Americans. This is just beating the same dead horse like every other high budget film because script writers think it’s deep to be misanthropists.
For the life of me I don’t understand why you put Iraq and Vietnam in there. The only “imperialists” I would imagine were the Soviet proxies in North Vietnam trying to conquer South Vietnam. But putting that aside, why is the European expansion a couple centuries (and even earlier) a prevalent modern issue? It isn’t and to bring that kind of parallel to an advanced human society is just ridiculous. No one can take it seriously because of how facetious every moment is. Example: The Na’vi tree being burned to the ground with the general saying, “Good job boys”.
What would be realistic? The Na’vi tribes being at war with each other. Similar to how South American tribes committed atrocious sacrifices to their god, which honestly make your examples look like cannon fodder. Yes, we know about Colonial Africa, and British/American conquest of modern-day USA. But are people aware of the brutality that commenced between the Iroquois and the Algonquians? Are people aware of the Arab slave trade in Africa. Hell I bet even script writers of Avatar are completely ignorant of White Gold, yet they’re more than anxious to jot down the condemnations of North Americans / Europeans.
I’m not trying to marginalize what transpired to the indigenous in Florida or across N.A. But the story line was unrealistic and overused. Though, I’m sure that won’t stop the writers from earning an Academy award.
I love how you conveniently ignore that corporations lead and motivated all of the examples of colonialism being discussed. It’s a corporation colonizing a planet to exploit the natives and the land. How the hell ISN’T that imperialism. Corporations have always led imperialism, and that’s why you see a corporation leading it in the movie. Again, let me quote myself to explain unobtanium (since you seem incapable of reading previous posts):
“If you look at a lot of the stuff involving the corporation, it’s incredibly general. The thing they want is “unobtanium.” Both the leader and the security dude are complete caricatures. Why? It allows this story to make it’s focus imperialism in general, and not one specific case of it. Because of how generic that portion of the setting is, it allows references to various points in history and justifications used for things that were occurring then as well as allusions to countless pieces of film and literature with similar themes. If you look at other works such as Dances with Wolves and Heart of Darkness, it’s very easy to associate each piece with a specific conflict (with those two being associated with Native Americans and the Congo, respectively). This can limit the scope of the reader/viewer’s thinking, and undeniably limits the message the piece is making.”
Continuing with that line of thought, it also allows him to make comments about today. Whether you agree with it or not, he’s making connections between what America’s done in the past half century (Vietnam, South America, Iraq) with traditional imperialism, by referencing both in the movie. Sure, it’s not as direct, but there are some clear parallels between what’s America’s done/doing, and what’s happened with imperialism in the past. I’m not going to debate the legitimacy of that message, but I think most will agree it’s not the ludicrous Hollywood BS you want to pretend that it is. At the very least, it’s debatable.