In the film Avatar, there are many scenes that have strong conceptual relationships to our society today. Many of these scenes involve Sully, the commander, and the leader of the project. In the beginning of the movie, when Jake Sully first gets to Pandora, the commander is giving an introduction speech to all the new soldiers about the planet and its people, the Navi. He tells them that these people are bloodthirsty savages who will mercilessly kill basically any living creature they see. This is an idea that connects with our society very closely. Its easy to see that there is a small sense of superiority felt among white people as a whole. White people tend to always believe that they, initially, have the only correct ways to think or feel. Anything unusual or out of the ordinary is immediately written off as wrong or savage or hostile. This is the feeling that the commander portrays to the new soldiers. That the Navi people are different, they do not follow the human society doctrine, therefore they are savages.
Another very close resemblence comes from a scene where the project manager is talking about exactly why the humans are there on Pandora. It is to mine and collect the element Unobtainium. The humans are driving the Navi people out of their village and away from their “Home Tree” because the humans have their own agenda. In today’s society, any group tends to have this selfish view towards others. If one person has something they want or need to do, they just do whatever it takes without any initial regard for others. The humans in the movie are coming and doing this to the Navi and not thinking about the fact that they are really screwing up their day. All of these scenes reflect our current societal issues in some way or another.
Avatar does take on the idea that white people do come off as introverted in the fact that when they come to the world of the Navi, they say that the Navis are the savages when they are actually the savages who has come from a far away land just to get resources. The white people do not take into consideration that though they are benefiting themselves, they are putting disadvantages onto the Navis' home as well as the other creatures in that world. It relates back to today with our nation taking oil from other countries and not giving enough back as well as how we view other nations. For example, after Pearl Harbor atomic bombing, all Japanese were considered savages and were made outcasts. However, we bombed Japan back for the selfish reason of revenging our people and therefore, are we not savages too? Avatar really reminds me of the movie Pocahontas in so many ways and the fact that the natives are savages through looks, yet the white people are the true savages in this movie is just another way the two movies are related.
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