Avatar: The Way of Water Shares Key Messages About our Past and Future
Aarushi Dedhiya
Staff Writer
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The movie Avatar: The Way of Water released December of 2022, 13 years after the first Avatar blockbuster.
The Way of Water focuses on the family formed by Jake Sully, a human that is now living as a Na’vi, and his love, Ney’tiri. However, the threat of humans still remains in Pandora. The family knows that they are keeping the Na’vi people at risk of human attacks, so the family leaves to relocate with the Ikran People of the Eastern Sea. No matter where they go, the humans come find them and inflict destruction.
The movie portrays humans as the main antagonists. With new technology, the humans become more powerful in their attacks to take over Pandora, and they become the Na’vi peoples’ most dangerous enemy.
Avatar is more than a three hour movie with beautiful scenes and a touching story. It offers messages of humans’ past. The story reflects imperialism and the colonial period in North America and other continents. The Na'vi represent the indigenous people to those lands, and the humans represent the colonizers who killed the indigenous people to get the land for themselves. Like the colonizers, the humans are ruthless and show no mercy when trying to take over Pandora.
Additionally, the humans overpowered the Na’vi because they had the newest technology and weapons, and this directly resembles how the colonizers took over the native people had machinery that could easily result in massacres.
Along with this message,
Avatar also presents messages about the importance of protecting the environment. They show the beauty of caring about animals and the joy that comes from connecting with nature. The message is clear: humans should care for the environment rather than ruin it.
Overall,
Avatar conveys different, powerful messages that help us, people, think about our past and improve our current actions.