Many will remember the blue alien species facing adversity, but not many will remember (or have even noticed) that the central conflict in Avatar is an allegory for colonialism. An ignorant, aggressive, money-hungry corporation supported by military enforcement wishes to destroy the sacred homeland of indigenous communities in order to obtain valuable resources — sounds a little familiar to me. In fact, James Cameron has admitted that Avatar is based on the colonisation of Native Americans. In court documents from a 2015 plagiarism case where visual effects artist Gerald Morawski claims Cameron stole the idea from him, Cameron produced a sworn declaration detailing how he came up with the idea for the film. “Avatar is a science fiction retelling of the history of North and South America in the early colonial period,” read the statement. “Avatar very pointedly made reference to the colonial period in the Americas, with all its conflict and bloodshed between the military aggressors from Europe and the indigenous peoples. Europe equals Earth. The native Americans are the Na’vi. It’s not meant to be subtle.”
