The ending Of James Cameron’s Avatar-What Did it Mean?

Ok so we all know that James Cameron's Avatar movie is a hit. And if you aren't one of the millions and millions of people who have seen it at least once (there must be a special room where people like you fit) go out and see it already! You won't regret it.

Avatar is a truly groundbreaking film...for most of the time. It addresses issues like colonisation, environmental awareness, spirituality and the destruction that unchecked greed can cause. The ending though, seems a little inconsistent with the themes discussed at the beginning of the film.

In the early stages of the film where we journey with Sam Worthington's character, Jake Sulley, through the culture of the Na'vi, we see the difference between our culture's attitudes to death and violence. This is played out most strikingly in Jake's first night in the Pandorian forest.

Alone and pursued, Jake is attacked by dog like creatures, known as Viperwolves. He defends himself and attacks them as anyone would if experiencing a similar attack. When Neytiri arrives she is angered not only by his presence but his actions.

She and the rest of the N'avi give animals and others who attack a "clean" death, that is they kill the animal swiftly and offer a prayer to them as they do so, a practice common among tribal cultures worldwide and something modern human culture has lost.

This is such a significant part of the Na'vi belief system that it is not until Jake Sulley can kill animals cleanly and without anger that he is allowed to progress and become a part of the Na'vi culture.

The denouement of the film however, seems somehow incongruous with this belief system.

Once the final battle is enacted the Na'vi seem to take on the characteristics of humans and revert back to a spiritless sense of violence. There is no "clean death" evident at all, not even one remote reference in the last hour when the battle is raging to this belief system that is so strongly ingrained in their culture and their planet.

The battle for their planet is won because they forsake the belief system they previously held so strongly. Is the neat resolution of Avatar justified by the actions it took to get there?

Does this shift in character serve the Na'vi as a culture (albeit fictional), the story as whole or even our ability to derive some sense of meaning from the story as metaphor.

By turning the beauty of the Na'avi culture to one that ultimately embodies a human perception of violence, life and death are we then saying humans have got it right after all? Its a question that is pertinent in our culture right now and will no doubt continue to be so until we can adopt another way of viewing the world. See Avatar for yourself (again) and ponder its meaning for our future.




Inger loves to write and has been writing words on paper for quite some time. When the Internet came along she started writing online too. You can see her latest website which helps people to locate beautiful fair trade clothing at http://www.fairtradeclothing.org/.