These people have no idea what a villain or a hero is. Quaritch, despite efforts to make him the villain, remains the best character. The film attempts to introduce a Navi villain but her backstory is absolutely sympathetic and translated into IRL mythology, she is basically Prometheus, except more relatable, if Prometheus was a human instead of a god or titan or whatever.

Since the newer movies came out, I have been hearing a lot of people whose opinions or viewpoints I generally find acceptable, yammering about how good it is to see a positively depicted father figure and a family-centered story. This is steaming hot bullshit. James Cameron's c.v demonstrates he is absolutely not remotely a paternalist champion, but is a female chauvinist simp. Remember the Terminator films before he lost interest? Remember how the whole backstory/future of Sarah Connor was that she was the source of salvation for the human race, because she raised and trained the leader and hero who delivered them from their own creation? Note that the only role the hero's father played was exposition and sperm donation. The central act of heroism for the story, raising the Hero, was entirely a female act. In the sequel, we had a monologue where the heroine rambles on about how a machine would be an ideal father for the Hero, because he lacks the flaws and frailties of mortal men (the benefits and strengths of human men, like with emotions and shit that the Terminator will admit in his last scene he is incapable of, are basically not worth considering). She also gets to tell off Miles Dyson, loving father and husband, who sacrifices his work, his career and ultimately, his life, to avert the bad future, solely on the very shaky, hole-riddled story of a child, a murderous lunatic and a robot whose own veracity is suspect by his own account. What is Miles' crime? Trying to make stuff without being a woman or capable of pregnancy, because no one who has ever carried a child inside them could ever make killer robots or AI (1991 was a happy and innocent time, before the missionaries came to teach us that any indirect criticism of women in STEM was a mortal sin). He is given this lecture, while bleeding from injuries the speaker has just inflicted on him in an attempt to end his life, just to keep this in perspective. We also had Aliens, with all its motherhood themes, and Michael Biehn again reduced to a convenience for the heroine in carrying out her motherhood arc.

Or Titanic. Hey, can you name a character in that movie who is a father, or whose fatherhood plays any part in the movie? Can you tell me anything positive about a single character's father from that film, that doesn't amount to giving them money? There is that one father who seems to love his kid, and tears him away from the heroes who saved the kid and carries him off to certain death (a Terminator would have saved him). The life of the heroine seems to be presented as something wonderful and to be celebrated, and her significant male other for most of it, and the father of her children, does not rate a name, a third reference in the script, or a single image among the veritable gallery she insists on traveling with, even in space-limited conditions, like a helicopter boarding a ship.

You will have a long road to convince me that James Cameron has anything positive to say about fatherhood, despite it playing a major role in the arcs and conflicts of two of the main characters, arguably the main protagonist and villain of the overall story. On the other hand, as should be expected from the prior evidence discussed above, motherhood is a veritable trump card for the characters. The adult female lead Neytiri, is a morally reprehensible monster, but the script does not seem to be aware of this, and the only explanation is that motherhood and her connection to the maternal entity controlling the life of the planet automatically justify all her risible actions and opinions. We also get clarified that Sigourney Weaver's character, Grace, conceived and bore her daughter, Sigourney Weaver's character, Kiri, in an act of parthenogenesis. Needless to say, Kiri is set up as the REAL savior character, long-term, forget JakeSully and his toxically masculine combat skills. Also, Kate Winslet is still in the movies, and we discover that her character really has no point, she's just a background NPC, and yet the actress set a breath-holding record in the strenuous efforts to play the role. But she's pregnant for most of the movie, so she gets to always be right and her opinions or declarations are never challenged or interrogated by the narrative. Naturally, the female villains, Varang, played by Oona Chaplin, last seen by the general public getting shanked in the womb in the Red Wedding scene of Game of Thrones, and a military officer, played by Edie Falco, have not the slightest trace of maternity about them. Despite their facility with violence or fixations on destruction of the sacred Pandoran ecology, they are basically there to enable Quaritch, with his icky testosterone.

If you were invested in the plot of these movies, there isn't much new in the latest one. It's mostly a lot of traveling in circles to end up back where they started and replaying the battles and conflicts of the prior film, just a detail to introduce the Fire-oriented Navi. And of course, they're the bad ones, despite Fire being the best of the four classic elements (it's the only one that obeys the rules, can be controlled and predicted and actually makes all the supposed "gifts" of Mother Earth useful or safe for people - we use fire to smelt & forge the metal, harden the wood & clay and cook the food and kill the infections that come from that grudging bitch's bosom, as well as keeping us warm from the cold of Air & Water). The Navi are portrayed as somehow morally superior for living in balance with nature, despite the fact that they are able to do so with cheat codes, thanks to directly connecting to it, and having some sort of AI plant consciousness helping them do so. Either the downsides of living in harmony with nature does not apply in the Pandoran ecosystem, or the film is glossing over them (which might explain Neytiri's casual disregard for the value of life, come to think of it).

Anyway, somehow, regarding their respective interactions with nature, humans are the bad way, because we interact with animals based on action, win their trust and gain their affection, by good treatment and taking care of them so that they will cooperate with us in efforts to make the world a safer place for them and us (say what you want about leashes & collars and spurs & bridles, the mortality rate and life expectancy is far greater for dogs & horses under human dominion than in the wild), and when we advance our technology enough, we build machines so they don't have to do as much work, or risk their lives in battle beside us, and reserve their employment for recreation and companionship.

Meanwhile, the Navi employ animals by hacking their brains and nervous systems, directly, or through the mass hive mind of all Pandoran fauna, and send them into direct combat with enemies using firearms, and little or no care for their deaths. Repeatedly in all these movies, the Navi abandon their wounded or slain steeds or protectors without a backward glance or mourning. Yes, there are one or two scenes that TELL us they have this deep kinship and are deeply hurt by the loss of their rape-enslaved bonded animal friends, but what they SHOW us, is that the animals die and the Navi jump off and the action scene continues and the outcome of the combat is all that ever really concerns them.

Also, there are Pandoran whales that have other names and a lot of superfluous body parts and idiotic dialogue with Papyrus font subtitles, but they are whales, and somehow we are supposed to accept that they are good and their survival is an inherent good that outweighs anything else, even though their equivalent of spermaceti has miraculous medicinal effects for humans. Also, they are assholes. And somehow they have giant ring-piercings, even though they have no hands to make them, and the Navi group with which they have a relationship views the use, even mere handling, let alone mining & forging, of metal as evil.

The movie does not even try to have a discussion about the morality or where the line is. There is no attempt to engage with the issue of the benefit of one sapient species against another. The official line of the narrative is humans are inherently evil unless they are willing to repent and even then, the best they can do is help the Navi before dying conveniently, but anyway, the greater good or best interests of the human race is not a consideration worth anything. Also technology is evil, and the use of it poisons your soul, and financial considerations are the worst kind of motive.

This, I should note, is the morality and message, without exaggeration or hyperbole, of a movie produced by corporations, charging full prices to view it, shown exclusively to human audiences, and whose main appeal is the celebration of the advanced technology that makes the insipid visuals possible.

The filmmakers from the 80s are done. They are over. Their day as past, their skill and creativity is exhausted. James Cameron can join Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppolla and Martin Scorcese on the ash-heap of auteurs we don't need anymore, and our artistic culture would be for the better if we could place some sort of moratorium on employing them, or using their stories, for any future projects (the same goes for George Lucas, BTW, but alone among his contemporaries, he seems to know his place and have had the decency to cash out).