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Avatar – The Technological Ambiguities

Cameron, the Director, is attacking modern Western Civilization to a large extent in this movie. (See the special on the DVD, “Message from Pandora,” where Cameron and a few of the actors go to aid the native activists in a South American country to prevent development of land.) Yet, he himself has profited from modern technology by making the movie. Which is it, James? Is technology bad or good? Good for your pocket but not for the corporation attempting to make a profit on Pandora.

In the Colonel’s fight with the huge panther-like creature, he is in a robot suit but can only win in hand-to-hand combat using a primitive weapon, created by modern technology, a huge Rambo knife.

Jake can’t walk unless he’s in his Avatar body, which was created by modern gene-recombinant technology, and Jake could not even be on the planet Pandora without the technology that they later dismantle. Also, certain humans remain on the planet as allies of the Pandorans, but they cannot stay alive without the breathing masks which could not possibly be maintained without the base, which is dismantled or left derelict in the end. Lastly, Jake cannot enter the Pandorans’ world as a native without the technology which the Pandorans hate. So which is it, is technology bad or not.