Avatar Questions

Pandora is a moon; it shares similarities to the planet Earth. Pandora’s environment is similar to a rain forest ecosystem; they both have various landscapes and terrains, and home to many exotic creatures. Pandora’s native people the Navi are similar to humans. The Navi show human like intelligence as well showing a spiritual connection to their God Eywa. There are some differences also like the Navi people have a spiritual connection with their wildlife. The Navi try to avoid having to hurt their wildlife by trying to live in harmony with them, instead of trying to feel superior over them. In the film the Navi people do a prayer to their God Eywa if they harm or kill a animal. Pandora air is also toxic to humans because it is a mixture of several toxins. The name for Pandora comes from the Greek Myth of Pandora’s box, where Pandora is given a box from Pithos and is warned not to open it. She disobeys his orders due to her curiosity; the box then releases the evils of the world. This is represented in the film Avatar, the humans are curious to see what is on life is like on Pandora but some of the human’s evil is shown in order to obtain Unobtanium from Pandora.

A) There is a gap between more technologically advanced and less advanced cultures. In more technologically advanced culture, they tend to feel superior over the other, as seen in the film with the human invasion on Pandora.
In the film the humans and Navi people do not understand each other and clash with each other. The humans thinks the Navi people are savages while the Navi people think Jake is dumb because he cannot not survive on his own. This scenario similar to a book I read call Thing Fall Apart, the book is based on the colonization of Nigeria. In the book when the European men arrived they thought the Nigerians were savages, the Nigerians were not fond of the Europeans either because they were not masculine. Many of the military workers in the movie showed a negative relationship towards the Navi as they wanted avatars to try to manipulate the in hopes of gaining their trust to learn information about the land. Whereas, some scientist like Grace developed a close relationship to the Navi people where they tried to protect them from the potential dangers caused by humans.

B) Human exploitation of natural resources is an unsustainable way of life that strips people from their sustenance and has a large negative effect on the environment. In the film the human’s takeover Pandora to attempt to mine Unobtanium, a mineral that is extremely valuable and can solve the energy crisis on Earth. The humans become threatening to the Navi people in order to access Unobtanium. The humans use weapons that not only affect Pandora’s ecosystem it also harms the Navi people and their wildlife. This negatively impacted the Navi people because they lost their homes, some love ones and possessions. There are some examples that exist on the Earth for example the colonization’s of countries, like the Navi indigenous people were strip from their land and traditions and were force to assimilate. Another example is the deforestation of bamboo; they are the staple food for Pandas bears (who are endangered). The bamboo species may be in danger of extinction because of the continuing destruction of their forest habitats. Even though deforestation has huge negative impact on the ecosystem and wildlife, companies continuing cutting bamboo trees for their own profit, which similar to what is happening in Pandora. Companies are interested in their profits over the livelihoods of others; the humans in the movie willingly