In Part 2, Avatar still sells us the Na’vi’s animal cruelty as animal friendship. But unlike its predecessor, the sequel attempts to correct this annoyance, at least to some extent.
For all its visual opulence, the story concept of Avatar – Setting Out for Pandora and Avatar: The Way of Water is as simple as can be: the evil humans come to exploit the planet and the indigenous, nature-loving Na’vi defend their homeland. For James Cameron, they are “nature’s guardian angels”. The first Avatar film in particular, however, painted a different picture.
For all its forest connection, Setting Out for Pandora had the bitter taste of animal cruelty when the blue natives subdue the dragon-like flying creatures (banshees and ikran) by means of a pigtail connection. They tame Pandora’s animals by violently breaking their will and taking control over them.
The Way of Water now paints a slightly different picture of the Na’vi – making perhaps the best decision for the future of the franchise.
Avatar 2 attempts to (at least partially) correct past mistakes
Avatar: Control in Part 1
Avatar: The Way of Water does repeat this dubious dressage underwater. But when Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his family learn to ride the floating creatures of the Skimwing and Ilu, the beings once again have no say in the matter. Through “bonding” they are simply degraded to riding and pet animals and made docile. Just like their flying relatives, their death in battle is mourned but accepted.
That the Avatar sequel nevertheless learns to pay more attention to the emotional lives of non-human creatures is shown by the introduction of another creature: the Tulkun. While the alien Na’vi, despite their blue colour, still strongly resemble humans anatomically and in appearance, Pandora’s giant sea mammals no longer have anything human about them. Nevertheless, the audience especially celebrated the “space whales” in the sequel.
As synapse-counting scientist Dr. Gavin (Jemaine Clement) informs us in Avatar 2, the Tulkun are “probably even more intelligent than humans”. They understand mathematics, can compose music and understand other languages. Here, for the first time, a non-humanoid life form is portrayed as an equal.
Avatar 2: Lo’ak and Payakan
Instead of submission, a friendship is allowed to blossom between the Metkayina clan and the sea giants: they are “brothers and sisters in spirit” (so-called “Spirit Brothers” and “Spirit Sisters”) and without any forced pigtail connection at all. When the outsider whale Payakan later voluntarily reveals his past to Jake Sully’s son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) by means of a glowing uvula flashback, it has all the more emotional punch as a result.
A brighter future for Avatar 3? The sci-fi series should break away from oppression altogether
Showing that a genuine relationship full of consideration between different life forms is possible without forced mind-melding is an important step in Avatar 2. But the fact that we humans, for all our intelligence, are not necessarily the crown of creation should not remain a marginal note. Not when there are creatures in the oceans of Pandora that reject any form of violence.
As ingenious as the sci-fi idea of a direct nature connection of the Na’vi by means of a built-in nerve plug is: Pandora’s blue natives are not infallible when they (like humans) instrumentalise other creatures for their own purposes instead of relying on voluntary cooperation. That they recognise and change this misbehaviour in Avatar 3 (and further sequels) would be the next big step.
Equal creatures in Avatar 2
As a film, Avatar 2 has already partially learned this lesson with the introduction of the peaceful whales. Moreover, the promising new character Kiri already lives a spiritual nature symbiosis with her “powers”. Now it only remains to be seen whether the sci-fi series will further develop these existing approaches for the better. For a war is imminent for Pandora and Jake’s inevitable fight will depend on the support of the entire planet (and its animals). This would make the Na’vi real role models – and the “guardian angels of nature” that James Cameron wanted to create with them.
