Honestly, it is a testament to the degeneration of human morality that people think that the protagonist in
Avatar is anything less than a hero (though I agree he was rather thick and grunt-like until right at the end).
Apparently, these people think that it's alright to kill, maim and damage something that is sacred to other sentient being's cultures, in the name of getting some material goods. In fact, this makes them look all too similar to the humans who appeared in the movie, most of which were perfectly obvious villains out there for greed and for greed alone (and if they weren't malicious, they were ignorant and followed malicious orders, which has the same result).
It's not a betrayal to beat down the mercenary humans in the way it happened in this movie. It's not like the native forces killed innocent humans; just the combatants who were blowing their friends up. Meanwhile, think of what the humans did: they crushed those communicative plants used to listen to ancestors, they blew up the sacred tree, they burned much of the land in the fighting, and killed much of the animals the Na'vi used to hunt. Whatever the Na'vi did, simply does not compare to that. Put simply, like any harmful juggernaut, the human advance in this particular story had to be halted.
The whole point of the movie is that the "unobtainium" is just a valuable resource that can be sold for good money, and is not necessarily useful for anything. The weedy capitalist behind the whole operation is the connection we get to that fact, and to the dingy corporate world where profit is considered the only thing that matters.
Remember his key line about the GDP versus native life? That's a disgusting approach to life that he has, and it completely justifies fighting back, especially since it's not like they're compensating the natives - on their own land, what's more - for the material.
Bottom line: you can't go on to someone else's planet or land or any kind of property and destroy it just to "get it out of the way", and take any material that happens to have been found there. That doesn't pass for okay when we do that to other humans on Earth, and it shouldn't pass for okay with other intelligent beings either.
Internet Kraken said:
And I'm not trying to be a stubborn dick. I just think it's unfair that this movie compares us to the Na'vi, a species that seems to be flawless in almost every single way.
Umm, I find that strange, because the Na'vi're not flawless. They're based on the American Indians in many ways. The more you read into it, the more allegorical it gets. The culture, the hair, the dialogue they get, the customs, even the beliefs about the "Sky People"... they all bear similarities to the native reaction to settlers in America.
And many of those beliefs, at least concerning the invaders, and the peaceful approach taken towards them at first, could be considered naive, and naivety is one of the most damaging flaws one can identify in a culture.
