Avatar is James Cameron's first project since the decade-old Titanic. Whereas Titanic was a megahit because it touched a hundred million teeny-bopper hearts (thus being one of the great 'chick-flicks' of all time) Avatar is far more hard-nosed. Superficially it is about a much-improved 3D technology ('cinema will never be the same') but underneath that gloss Cameron makes a thinly-disguised assault on American neo-imperialism shown most nakedly in the takeover of Iraq but which has had catastrophic impacts on dozens of nations around the globe, as documented by the likes of Noam Chomsky.
The word 'avatar' comes from East Indian mythology, in which divinity 'becomes flesh' from time to time, to destroy the forces of unrighteousness. And consequently the resonances with American history are clear - the military commander's contemptuous reference to the Navi people of Pandora whose planet is being colonized for resources as 'savages' (and later - monkeys) mirrors America's destruction of millions of native Americans from whom the continent was wrested; and alludes to similar racial policies in Asia. The use of gas (chemical weapons) to drive the Navi away from lands where the resource is located mirrors the use of similar weapons in Colombia to displace nearly 3 million people.
The conflict between the scientist (Sigourney Weaver) who finds Pandora's trees and ecology have a living and precious intelligence to be preserved and studied, and the colonizing force who simply bulldoze the trees that provide a spiritual haven for the Navi, mirrors the present divide on Earth on the environmental question.
In the movie the would-be colonizers are defeated. When arrows shot from a seemingly primitive Navi bow penetrate the brutal heart of the military commander to whom the Navi are a pestilence to be crushed, it seems Cameron wants to herald the end of American empire......
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