The plot of the film revolves around Jake Sully, a crippled Marine who has been assigned to Pandora, a moon orbiting a planet in the Alpha Centauri star system. Sully is given an "avatar"--a mind-controlled artificial body in the shape of a Na'vi, the native sentient species on Pandora. His job is use this guise to convince the local Na'vi tribe to relocate so that his fellow human can mine the area for unobtainium--a rare and valuable element. Sully, however, begins to sympathize with the Na'vi, and encourages them to rise up against the humans who are ravaging their world. After gaining their trust, he leads them into battle and succeeds in driving the other humans off Pandora.
There is, admittedly, little about this plot that has not been done by other works. However, mere derivativeness is one thing; outright unfortunate implications are quite another.
The primitive Na'vi (who curiously resemble blue humanoid cat/lemur hybrids, despite every other large animal on Pandora having six legs) live in almost supernatural balance with their ecosystem. Their hair conceals tentacles that, when plugged into the sockets found on other organisms, allows them to communicate and bond with them. This is, of course, contrasted with the technologically advanced humans, who see Pandora as no more than a supply of resources and wish to destroy it.
The idea that people in less technologically advanced societies were less destructive to their environments is a truism that has persisted for centuries, but with little basis in reality. Indeed, a shockingly large number of extinctions in the past have been caused by people with nothing more than stone tools and fire. This is especially true on islands, such as New Zealand, Madagascar, and Hawaii. To be sure, the destruction caused by modern technological society is far greater in magnitude, but the fact remains that humans have never truly lived in "harmony with nature." And of course, humans will never have the mental communication powers that Na'vi do, so it would be impossible to live up to their standard in any case.
With a movie like Avatar, it's easy to forgive flaws like these simply because it looks so good. If only the rest of the movie was as good as it looked. . .
