Nope. I stopped watching after the first one. Not only is it white savior nonsense, it’s not even a particularly good story.

You are not alone! I was unsettled from the first film and completely done by the second one. The Way of Water I have renamed “A Colonizer’s Wet Dream.” Here we have another white male protagonist who inserts himself into a culture, somehow colonizes and ascends the ranks and basically leads them into war with his OG people. I could just picture James Cameron getting off while writing this. He’s even made disgusting comments about the colonization of American indigenous peoples (they should’ve fought harder). Of all the stories to tell and all the ways to tell it, this is verrrry telling. But then again, I don’t expect much from straight white male director/writers. Don’t get me started on One Battle After Another lol Thank you for this post. The franchise is so wildly popular, having this take feels lonely.

basically someone framed it like this: "the avatar movies do a good job of capturing the colonizer's perspective, but not those who are/were colonized."

Nah. I ain't watching that.

ngl i just read the title and that’s how i felt when i watched the first avatar for the first time like two years ago. i don’t support that trope at all especially to the extent avatar does it

They're still doing the white savior trope after the first movie? I stop watching it because of that.

No, you're not

I loved the visuals, but I’m also concerned about how much the movie focuses on white/blue colonizers, because it ends up being mostly about them (the fake Na’vi).

And I don’t like how Neytiri is portrayed as so submissive. How can a priestess be submissive to her husband like that in a people so spiritually connected, unless Western patriarchal patterns are being applied here?

And I hate the part where Jake says she’s racist. She’s clearly traumatized. She lost everything in the first movie. She lost her son. Yes, she can hate them.

The general consensus is that the plotlines and characters in these movies are atrocious but the visuals are stunning and are worth watching in theaters just for visuals. I've heard people compare it to Pocahontas or Dances with Wolves.

Never liked it for this reason...

No. People have been mad since the first one 

The first movie I was ok with. The idea that someone from the domineering culture with superior military might, would have to help the people know how to fight such a practiced military… makes sense. But I didn’t like the second movie for all the reasons you’ve listed. I think having the white lady reborn because she respects the planet and the people’s ways makes sense but she should have been just like any other child. An off handed comment on how much her personality reminds him of grace as she’s learning with the other children would be fine. I also hated that sigourney weaver voiced that child at all.

The fact that they made the white boy spider a character at all is dumb to me. They should have let the focus go back to the naavi and their cultures in contrast to the humans who are colonizing.

I haven’t seen the new one yet, I figured I will watch it at home, but Zoe Saldana being herself… yuck

I didn’t watch after the first one lol that was enough for me

My thoughts exactly. I feel like the Avatar movies are visually stunning, with state of the art movie techniques that make it a visual joy to behold, but when you strip back the pretty scenes and only look at the writing and plot, it centers the White characters and their experiences. I feel like the movies are brought down by its writers. From what I remember, the writers for all 3 movies are majority white, so coupled with the protagonist, antagonist, and most of the special important people in the movies being white or associated with whiteness, means the movies will always fall back on the white saviour trope to move the plot along.

Even just looking at the third movie, the writers will sideline their hyped villain for the movie for the sake of centering the white character that was already defeated last movie. Varang was on all of the marketing, they hyped her up as the new villain that was going to raise hell for the protagonists. So why are most of her actions as a villain being a glorified sidekick to Quaritch. Even when the non-white coded characters are the villains, it's almost like the writers get nervous if a white character doesn't swoop in. Not even mentioning the fact Varang and her tribe are the personification of negative stereotypes about indigenous people. The Na'vi people were already an amalgamation of stereotypes about indigenous people, but the Mangkwan Clan feels like a straight up negative caricature. I watched the movie yesterday, and I felt like something was off, but I couldn't place my finger on it. After seeing this post, I now understand why it felt weird watching some of these scenes.

Also, I learned to just tune out the Avatar subreddit, they are not ready to listen in any capacity. Anyone pointing out this trope, or how the movies sidelined some characters, or basically anything that's not praise for the movies gets downvoted or argued with. I'm so glad you made this post you made this post, because I took a peek on that subreddit after watching the movie, and I started to think I was overreacting for not liking how some characters were treated/portrayed in the story.

Saw the first movie with my family and grandpa said “we could’ve just stayed home and watched Pocahontas”

You’re not the only one, I didn’t make it far into the second film before I realised that in watching it I was just wasting time getting riled up for nothing. The saviourism was too annoying for me to be entertained. Didn’t finish it, and won’t be watching the new one.

I tried hard to watch 3 hrs and 15 mins of it today while completing reports at home and I tuned out after the first 13 minutes for THAT EXACT reason. I was like...WTF were they thinking?? Who wrote this ish and THIS is what the children are being fed???! And the tails just confirm it for me. Lawd ham mercy!!! No wonder poor Johnny can't read or write🤦🏾‍♀️ He's being brainwashed with vibrant colors & obnoxious grunts n snarls disguised as people of color🤦🏾‍♀️ I'm so over this BS!

I like the art and concepts behind this and what they have done for advancing film making

But the story isn’t good.

At this point I only watch them in theatre’s cause I started as a child and it feels bit nostalgic but the stories are very surface level and center the wrong characters

That's the same white savior playbook they've been using since the beginning of time. We all know the truth now and people are waking up to the illusion. It seems like everything is inverted.

Given it's a mediocre series they can't pay people to care about, it's not gonna stand the test of time, so it's not worth getting worked up over.

I didn't watch the second one. I ain't got no 3 plus hours for any movie. But I remember when I watched the first one as a kid, I was really irritated that only a white boy could capture and ride toruk maktu (sp). 🙄🙄🙄

Yea it's annoying but I'm still gonna go see it 🤣

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