It’ll be interesting to see what the humans situation is in the sequel. They’re clearly at a new colony or base - possibly near the seas and oceans to mine more metal or something new in the sea?? Knowing the humans got beat back once you can bet they won’t be as light handed as before. I wonder if humanity has authorised an outright conquest of Pandora after having 13/14 years to plan and prepare? Pumped for the sequel!

Why bother understanding them when you can just initiate exterminatus?

The biggest mistake the humans made in this movie wasn't destroying hometree. It was following the nav'ii into a battle on the nav'ii's terms where they had more even footing. They forgot one of the cardinal rules of the art of war. There is some ground which should not be contested. See, even with the tribes united they didn't have the strength to overrun the human base. It's too fortified, even with insider knowledge. But because Cameron needed a glamorous final battle they decided that the humans were to lose all faculty of reason and march into a confrontation they weren't prepared for.

I like Avatar. The only thing I wish is that the story and themes were more subtle and the villains not 1 dimensional.

One main issue with Avatar's depiction of colonialism is that is does not represent the realities of Native Resistance. If Avatar was accurate to real history, the sad truth is the Na'vi would have been obliterated. The number of countries that managed to stay independent from foreign colonialism or extensive foreign influence in the 18th and 19th century was four: Japan, Thailand, Korea and Ethiopia. Even then, Ethiopia fell to Italy in 1936 and Korea wasn't colonised by Europe because it was under control of either Qing China or Japan. Every other native population that resisted colonial expansion lost. Every. Single. One. Before you point to the Zulus, yes they won a few victories but that was due to incompetence on the part of the British. When the British came in force, the Zulu army was routed. There was one nation that faced European Imperial military power and won completely, that was Ethiopia. Wanna know how they did it? They modernised. They brought modern guns, invited foreign military advisors to train their army, used diplomacy to buy themselves time and implemented government centralization reforms to create a strong state. Thailand was independent because they used careful diplomacy and territorial concessions to preserve their existence and Japan managed to modernzise incredibly quickly. The truth is, the few groups who managed to survive, did not do so because they stuck to their roots and to nature like the Na'vi. In fact, it's the opposite. They survived because they realised sticking to their traditions religiously would doom them, they accepted the changing modern world and took steps to keep up. The Na'vi did not do this.

if this was realistic; The humans would recruit an enemy tribe of the hometree navi and let them fight a war supported by humans. than the recruited navi would take over hometree and do the bidding of humans. Like a proxy army or a puppet state, sort of.

I walked away when he was saying "I might just give you a big wet kiss. I'll do it with minimal casualties..." it took me a second to realize there had been a scene transition

Everysingle performance in this movie is one note.

Dude, I love how even Quaritch standing in front of his corporate boss Selfridge (nice name by the way, selfish) talking about how it is ”humane” to tear gas the indigenous people out of their homeland and destroy it for money has Selfridge looking bored like he just wants to shoot them all and be done with it… EDIT: Selfridge is more so just uncomfortable doing it, but then of course in the next scene he's like shouting and calling them "fly-bitten savages" and justifying his choice, desperately making excuses for why the act won't actually hurt them. It's Quaritch who's after blood, Selfridge just has a boss and he doesn't have the integrity to do anything out of his place.

The final product is a pretty one note movie but the deleted scenes and lore reveal some very interesting aspects of the humans reason for being on Pandora isn't just about money: Humanity was facing an energy crisis that threatened to end all human life. This is going to sound somewhat apologist for their actions but colored in a more complicated light the situation becomes a lot less black and white. Does humanity have the right to strip another species of their ancestral land if by doing so they could guarentee their own survival? I think you could make that argument. This added condition also makes it more complex than the European colonialism its clearly framed upon, where the focus is money. The movie goes to great lengths talking about how valuable unobtainium is, but I suspect the moral complexity was cut out so as to not undercut the morality of out protagonist. If you think about it, had the movie kept everything but the explanation for the unobtainium the same, the story would be of a man who betrays his entire race and dooms them to an agonizing fate for the sake of a whirlwind romance. Not as cheerful isn't it?

Avatar a movie about a guy selling out his entire species just so he could clap some alien cheeks

So basically future Brits in space huh

If guys wanna know that Avatar is happening in real life, in our time. Look up at the biggest and heavily armed guarded gold mine in West Papua Indonesia.

PURGE THE XENOS! FOR THE EMPEROR!

Here is a classic example of why I love Quaritch. He's still the bad guy, but he's a logical, fair, humane bad guy. He doesn't hate the Na'vi. But from his perspective there's no way to protect his boys and shield the Na'vi from destruction. He carefully shows his thinking and then chooses the least violent objectives that still fulfill his mission. Fantastic character

Agreed. He was one of my favorite characters in Avatar. Can't wait to see how he is in Avatar 2 .

0:56 That line made me laugh hard at the theaters Goddamn lmao

Rookie mistake. You're suppose to give them guns and Christianity.

I wonder what the RDA would've thought about the Na'vi if the Na'vi would've had a society on the level of innovation and 'civilization' comparable to for example ancient Greece, Rome or Persia, having built their own cities, roads etc. Would they've been seen as less savage but still underdeveloped?

The only reason Avatar 2 took so long is because the makers were trying to create a plot where the humans don’t just come back and nuke the big tropical tree their entire civilisation is based around

The sequel if done right would just be orbital bombardment of the planet.

Dances With Smurfs In Space.

Avatar is early colonialism, the few humans on Pandora at still stuck at the settlement/ outpost stage. A far cry from being post colonial

"Alien, you have been here on this world for thousands of generations. Where are your works of art? Your monuments? What achievements can you boast that are not wrought by your parasitic hivemind? Your culture is stagnant, your lives immobile and cowed by the thought of development. Where is your medicine? Your science? You had your chance, but chose to lay in the shade rather than to build. Now, Man will build."

Today: It's 2023! Be better! 2154: This bulls*it

I wish we had a deleted scene where Jake gets that promised big wet kiss :-*

Understanding the enemy is key to victory. A lot of folks have the opinion that the humans are wrong and the Navi'i are good. I don't think it's that simple. Both sides have valid, logical, and justifiable reasons for their positions in this conflict. Humanity has a very simple goal. It is the same goal that has driven human conflict for 10,000 years. The desire for resources. Think about it. The primary motivating factor for deep space exploration isn't science anymore. It hasn't been for decades. Astronomical research doesn't pay well enough to cover the vast expenses involved. What will pay for deep space exploration is rare mineral mining and Pandora is, quite literally, a treasure trove of it. Unobtanium is a game changer for technology, since it is a room temperature superconductor. It's woth $20 million a kilo in its unrefined state, easily justifying massive expenditures of capital and even human lives to secure access to it. From the human perspective, their interests are far more important than those of the Navi'i or the scientists. The Navi'i have a simpler and more relatable position. The land is theirs. It's their home. And they will, justifiably, fight to the death to defend it. However, at the end of the day, the humans have the upper hand. Sure, they've lost Round 1. Lost a lot of men and a lot of material doing it. But the population of Earth could be over 11 billion by 2100. Possibly even larger by 2154, when the film takes place. Earth has not just the economic power but also the political, social, and corporate will to send ships light years away from Earth, loaded with hundreds of personnel and massive amounts of equipment. They aren't about to tuck tail and abandon the resources there. Instead, what's gonna happen is far, far worse. The RDA appears to be an American company, formed in Silicon Valley and with mostly American senior personnel on Pandora. Many of their security personnel appear to be former US military. What this means is that the RDA shareholders will demand Uncle Sam do something and, as it has done countless times before, the United States Military will bomb the shit out of the Navi'i, allowing the RDA to return and collect the mineral resources they want. Given that the Navi'i had no way to destroy the Venture Star or an intention to do so, it is possible, even plausible, that all 12 ISV ships could be requisitioned by the military. That or the military could have access to their own interstellar ships, which would enable the transportation of large quantities of trained military personnel to Pandora. From there, a campaign of extermination is possible. Being almost 7 years away from Earth, the only news getting out will be what the Military decides gets out. The Navi'i will be exterminated or, at the very least, driven from areas that the Humans want. Earth will get the unobtanium. The only question is how many more people will die before it happens.

They left out the part where under Quaritch's governorship they got reliable access to clean water, hospitals, schools, roads and railroads.

The company mining that precious metal in Pandora it's similar to the East Indias Company of the British Empire. And that way to consider the Na'vi as no humans it's also how the europeans empires treat the natives they conquered.

I didn't like this movie nearly as much as I wanted to. I knew even back then that it was gonna be a generic "nature wins over human technology" plot (even though the RDA should by all rights decimate the Na'vi), and learning about the alternate cut ending makes me wish we got that instead.

That army commander was the man.

Always consider the colonels motives….humanity is dying and NEEDS this resource to survive, time is limited, he has a huge responsibility to humanity being in charge of the security of the mining operation. This is why he is eager to take action, time is of the essence and human survival always comes first. Yes it’s our fault we fucked up our planet and I sympathise with the natives on Pandora, but given the circumstances I can fully see the colonels harsh attitude. Humanities survival is a stake and people are jeprodisring it for the sake of giving human rights to a bunch of savage Stone Age level blue people. Displacing say 300 natives from their home is bad….but humanity dying is much much worse. Pick one!

it seems this comment section is still alive for some reason, people should realise that the movie's ending was changed due to test viewers not liking the ending, in the origional ending (which was designed to make part 2 and part 3 of the movie) the navi were overrun and there was no magical beast heard storm that whiped the humans from the area its going to be interesting how they will adapt the origional story, as part 2 was not meant to continue on the assumption that the humans lost

In this scifi universe, 20 billion people back on earth are counting on the RDA to mine as much unobtanium as possible to save humanity from extinction. In this case, any means would be justified.

Let's be xenophobic, it's really in this year!

That blue alien must have some bomb punany to betray the human race

Did anyone else think this was going to be some kind of hour long video essay that ends basically with “capitalism bad”

I don’t know how you can have a sequel at all. The company would come back and wipe out the ‘savages’ from orbit. Game over.

Humanity needs unobtainium to survive. They did everything they could to strike a deal with the Na'vi. when no other option was available, they used force, and still did it humanely with minimal casualties. Humans are doing what they have to in order to survive. If the Na'vi get in the way and make a nuisance of themselves then purge the xenos

Do I think the well-being (not to be confused with broadly defined prosperity) of mankind trumps the smurfs that needed M1 Abrams' worth of plot armor and a help of a Smurfette simp, to beat a buzz-cut Gargamel? I lean yes, any questions?

If yall really think they gonna be depicting humans as winners in the sequel I can tell you now you're wrong.

I’ve noticed something when it comes to people discussing the Avatar movie, there are two groups. The people that love the movie even with its flaws of which some choose to critic the movie with those flaws justifiably so and the people that spend too much time playing warhammer 40k, I’m just stating the obvious. But in all seriousness I wonder why it’s so divided in that sense, like literal black and white contrast when it comes to the groups that watched this movie.

The worst thing the sky people done was invade Pandora I felt sorry for the navi

I love how the argument to lunch a giant military operation is a diary of some guy that has no importance in terms of hierarchy.

I thought Unobtainium, you know, "that little grey rock" was more important for the humans to get their hands on. What reason do they have to destroy the Hometree? And for that matter, why would the natives stop the humans from getting their hands on a rock which they don't care for?

If only they made a orbital strike :(

The directors cut of this film makes Zack Snynerds cut look like gold.

Sounds like the start of a typical mining operation in South America and Africa. Nothing new.

The problem is the N'avi didn't have a mothership linking other units that could be infected by a virus sent through Windows 95. 🤓

Such a shame the good guys lost in this movie.

The hometree destruction scene is heartbreaking 😭

Basically what the USA has been doing to all other countries.

Hell yeah! Purge the Alien! For the Emperor!

This guy did the best role in the whole movie, period.

SAVAGES SAVAGES! ~Disney's pocahontas

Honestly the next time RDA comes back, they should just drop some stuff from orbit and call it a day. Clear a couple hundred miles for a landing zone

Well...humanity was facing certain extinction and yet they still tried diplomacy first. Understandably, they should have refrained from ostracizing the locals from their obviously spiritually significant homestead. This could have been avoided with proper communication, which the Na'vi were unwilling to engange in. A shame they got psyopped by their sentient tree hivemind.

Stephen Lang would have made a perfect Cable back then

I saw this in the cinemas when it came out and had a crush on Sigourney’s character (i was a kid) not understanding why I thought she was attractive. Now as an adult man I just realise I had good taste haha

They don't want to move we gave them the big boom next.

Every time I watch Avatar, I'm hoping to watch an alternate cut where the humans win. A more realistic answer.

1:49 is like war between human & terminator

The stupid thing I don't like about the movie was that no one. I repeat, no one. Listen to the actual scientists. No one. Heck, when the Top Scientist explain the truth of the Hometree, they called her crazy. I hate this.

This is why if aliens are peaceful, they wouldn’t be here.

Diego Garcia. Still happening.

Humanity first. Always. As much as it's in reference to some of our own history, remember, this is all of humanity. Cameron is a genius filmmaker but terrible with overarching messages.

If I ever meet Stephen Lang and he says he didn't base his character off Major Chip Hazard from Small Soldiers, I'm gonna be really, really disappointed.

You can say whatever you want, but Quaritch was our guy. He was the real one.

I can’t believe I’ve still never seen avatar

had the Avatar Aliens our history and our development, they would do the same. it's not human condition, it's just the emergence of complex lifeforms and the survival of the fittest.

The part where he says "They're fly-bitten savages that live in a tree" could be taken so out of context

Hah, funny how Parker tries to convince himself about all of this...

Avatar's reflective impact shown in a example of a strongly mirrored "real" world conflict issue " The Real Avatar 2: Strength In Numbers "

"Shouldn't we atleast talk to them before starting an all out war, say that they have no choice in the matter we will use their resources?" General- hehe, big tree go boom.

Just imagine if the humans had bothered to pack modern optics, CIWS, drive the long way around the mass of floating islands or simply drop rocks from orbit instead of flying one of the only 2 space capable vehicles into a tree for “reasons”.

Jake with beard looks like Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Still rooted for the humans.

I always rooted for us Humans in Avatar. Blue furries have an entire moon and we only want a few a rocks. They loose a bit of land (which will regrow anyway) but we can save our planet.

Post Chadism in Avatar

Jake: marine for how long. Suddenly discovered that Colonialism is a thing🤣

This movie described how US deal with nations who does not want to give up their resources to them.

This special is the kingdom Jake sully come

' It will be Humane More or less.' That line scared me so much it showed how little he cared about the navi

I want an alternate ending where the humans just haul some asteroids and bomb the Naavi from orbit I mean come on! The Nazis with 40s technology were able to do that in Iron Sky!

Avatar, turning the average citizen into Imperial commissars

Avatar became much more interesting in the second half of the film.I remember that when I saw the film then

At the time this movie came out these effects were fucking amaizing

Why does this scene's better than i remember

Funny how Avatar gets almost everything wrong about colonialism Certainly, the warrior based humans in this side of the world wouldn't make pacts with the white bad man to kill their enemies faster and to acquire the fire stick, nah, that's just bullshit

The moment Parker knew the Na’vi couldn’t be reasoned with, he should have sent the bleeding hearts on the first trip back home in order to prevent any interference from them.

Jake never really told the navii what the humans wanted though

The comment section is super wierd and makes very little sence.

The way this movie simplifies natives is so ridiculous it gets close to been racist.

In reality the military would of won with no problems.

I would’ve ordered the avatar body’s killed just to be safe. If they had done that we would’ve won the first time.

1:19 Lars Ulrich?

this movie blew my mind when i saw it as a kid, its not a masterpiece but it delivered the broadest anti colonial message of its time to hollywood which should be commended.

What I hate in Avatar is that they made humans too dumb, and basically lost all knowledge of military strategy. If I was Quaritch, I'd basically promote and help with CAS (close air support) another tribe that would be at odds/openly hostile with the Omatikaya. I'd funnel some weaponry as a proxy to this tribe but keep in check the ammunition given to them so they'd never have the opportunity to revolt/stop doing my bidding. What is dumb in the movie is that the Skorpion gunships never seem to use seeker missiles, and arrows strangely go through the canopy, by the year Avatar is set in, I'm sure drones are very advanced and have a massive payload of missiles and bombs to deliver. With drones you'd have to destroy the places where the Na'vi get their ikrans, or even develop a virus and debilitate/neutralize their air combat capabilities. With CAS going in with infantry, you'd start making up some forward operating bases on the flying islands, where you'd set up some artillery and anti air positions. Drop a few refuelling stations for the Skorpions and you'd have a great FOB despite the anomalies that render GPS worthless. Missiles rely on laser telemetry and marking, once a blueberry on his flying bat gets marked, he's history. Avatar drivers would be used strictly by SecOps marines and would be organized as specialized special forces, hitting deep within the jungle, setting booby traps in hunting/gathering places of the Na'vi and retreating back. Psychological warfare without direct confrontation. The psychological effect of going hunting and being scared that you could hit a mine is one great weapon when you are outnumbered. Regarding the last Battle where Quaritch died? Hell, I'd just lead them somewhere against wind and deploy some sarin/vx nervin gas, and then mop up the place with CAS and mechs/or setting up a meeting with the clan leaders (and the tsha'ik) and ensuring that I capture and keep them as hostages to ensure the survival of my species. Earth is dying because we made mistakes, but I would never bid my species' survival just for some blueberry ***sy. PS: And by the way, where are jets? If Hell's Gate had 20x A-10s singing their brrrrrrrrt in the pandoran skies and a few F22s you'd have air superiority in one month.

I don't know how this is post-colonialism, and not just colonialism.

There really is just two choices. A. Risk a great chance of Humanity as a whole dying, costing billions of innocent men, women, children, animals, etc. B. Care about an Alien Species that refuses to cooperate, refuses to empathize and contains a population not even 1/100th of the Planet Earth in totality.