HOD in Avatar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeh2KILn7O4 (Avatar movie trailer)

This weekend I went to see the movie Avatar and as I was watching it, I thought to myself, this is very similar to Heart of Darkness. In the movie, people from Earth are trying to take over land that has been inhabited by the natives for years. The humans want their land and the metal over which their land rests. And because they see the natives as savages and as the "others", they have no problem destroying their forest, killing their people, and destroying one of their most sacred trees. Not all the humans are bad, though, one man named Jake Sulley and some of his closest companions join the natives in the fight for their land.

I felt that this movie had a lot to do with Heart of Darkness and imperialism in general because of how the humans felt that they had this right to take whatever they wanted due to their belief of civilized superiority. I pictured the man who has no problem taking whatever he wants, the colonel, as Kurtz because of the fact that he had no problem killing the natives. The man who was in charge of the whole operation I pictured as Leopold because for one, he was never on the actual planet, he spent the whole time inside on a spaceship where it was safe, and two, all he wanted was money and didn't care about what he did to the indigenous population to get it. The main man, Jake, I saw as Marlow because he was the main character and because he actually felt something when he saw what was happening to the natives. In the end he joins the fight with the natives.

I believe that this movie was not only awesome, but that it also had an important message about imperialism. Though people may be uncivilized or look different than us doesn't make it okay for other people to just go in and take over. If the indigenous people didn't ask for help and didn't ask for the civilized people to come, then there is really no reason for them to be there. Whether it is greed that drives you or humanitarian responsibilities, if you are not supposed to go in and help then it's better to just leave it alone. If people had lived their life in a "savage" way then that is all they know how to do. So when we see someone living a life as a "savage", we may think it is horrible and weird, but to them it is just how things are done.