This is a firmly science fiction movie that has a tried and true plot with enough twists to make it interesting. I have heard it described as a science fiction version of dances with wolves and I can definitely see the similarities, but this description glosses over some of the major points of the movie. This movie seems like dances with wolves because the main character essentially "Goes Native" but that is because the two movies have similar themes in that the "Less Advanced" culture has many things to teach our society. That similarity is where these movies diverge however since the Na'vi are in fact not that much less advanced than the world the hero is from. It just looks that way.
The natives of Pandora, the Na'vi, have solved many of the problems we use technology for with biology. They have flying mounts as strong as the helicopters they face, and their options of ground transportation is anything on the planet that can hold their weight. They have nighttime lighting via bioluminescent plants, and they can mentally connect to not only the animals of their planet but the plants and the entire ecosystem as well. In fact looking at the Na'vi as a race is a bad way to think of them as they live on a thinking world named Eywa by the Na'vi. On Pandora humans are faced with not just the Na'vi, but everything in the environment with the Na'vi serving as a thinking planetary immune system.
This story is a familiar one of mankind expanding to a new area and exploiting the resources found there. The resource in this case is "Unobtainium", a term often used as a placeholder in science discussions for materials that are not available, but have a certain set of properties. Unobtainium in the film is a material with gravity shielding properties. The humans want this material, but the Na'vi are in the way. Their hometree happens to sit on a giant deposit of it. In order to better study the Na'vi the humans have developed avatars that look like them and can breathe their air. They are so good that biologically they are Na'vi with traits modeled on their human operator. To use these avatars operators climb into a sensory deprivation pod and transport their consciousness to the avatar. The whole process reminds me of the anime "Ghost in the Shell: Stand alone complex", or the movie "The Matrix".
The story is told from the point of view of one of the operators, named Jake Sully, who is a military veteran. Unlike the scientists he approaches the Na'vi with the attitude that he is willing to learn from them to learn about them, and has much more success than his traditional scientist counterparts. This is also in part because Eywa recognizes something different and valuable in him, and sends signs to Neytiri who stands as sponsor and mentor for him.
The company running the operation just wants the Na'vi out of the way and uses the avatars, particularly Jake, to gather intelligence on them. In the end the Jake decides that the Na'vi are in the right and decides to help them. His task is made more difficult because they have found out he was a spy. This is made personal to him by the fact that his Na'vi mentor and lover Neytiri rejects him for his treachery. To regain their trust he must step into their culture as a legendary hero, by taming the toruk, a massive, wild, dragon like beast. Having regained their trust he seeks to unite the clans to fight the humans, but he fears that it may not be enough. On the eve of battle he speaks to the world consciousness Eywa and asks for help. In the final battle when the tides have turned against the Na'vi Eywa does intercede in the form of stampedes, and roaming predators joining the battle side by side with the Na'vi. After the battle the humans are largely ejected, and Jake, his surviving human friends, and the Na'vi are left in control of the planet.
This movie is available streaming or on disk at www.amazon.com
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