Avatar story
Avatar (marketed as James Cameron's Avatar) is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. Synopsis: Set in the mid-22nd century, humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the valuable mineral unobtanium. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora.
31 total · 14 major · 17 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| attachment to one's land | major | Central to the story was that the Na'vi were not going to let the human colonists push them off their sacred land. |
| attack from outer space by a powerful conquering enemy | major | From the Na'vi point of view, the humans came down down from the sky to overrun the land they'd inhabited for untold generations. |
| colonialism | major | The RDA mining corporation was going about subjugating the Na'vi based on stereotypical European colonial period practices. In particular, the corporation officials were quick to resort to brute force to get what they wanted when offers of schools and roads failed to win over the Na'vi. |
| extraterrestrial being | major | Pandora was inhabited by the Na'vi, a species of 10-foot tall, blue-skinned, sentient humanoids. |
| habitable moon | major | A main novelty of the film is that it is set on a lush habitable moon, named Pandora, of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system. |
| military related work | major | The viewer is shown what it might be like for ordinary soldiers to have to fight in unfamiliar terrain for a dubious cause. The wheelchair-bound former Marine Jake was a self-described jarhead. |
| mobility impairment | major | Much was made of the wheelchair-bound former Marine Jake savoring the experience of remotely controlling a fully functional Na'vi alien body with his brain. |
| noble savage utopia | major | The Na'vi lived in harmony with nature and worshiped a mother goddess named Eywa. |
| organized religion | major | The religious practices of the Na'vi were much explored. They worshiped a mother goddess name Eywa, practiced a form of ancestor veneration, held all live sacred, etc. |
| resistance movement | major | Jake became the leader of the Na'vi resistance against the human mining colonists and in the end they sent their humans oppressors packing. |