History Headscratchers / AvatarNavi

* For all we know, Neytiri saw a couple of humans kissing and has been curious about the practice for a while now. The RDA settlement is not unisex, and the school where she learned English probably used video clips to answer students' questions about the world where the little tailless aliens come from.

* For all we know, Neytiri saw a couple of humans kissing and has been curious about the practice for a while now. The RDA settlement is not unisex, and the school where she learned English probably used video clips to answer students' questions about where the little tailless aliens come from.

* You're not factoring in religion. All Na'vi can be assumed to be very devout believers in Eywa (otherwise, such aggressive attacks/counterattacks against human forces wouldn't have happened), and like any zealots (rational or not), their religion takes precedence over everything else in their lives. The Na'vi ''may'' have been interesteed in human military technology for the first few periods of arrival, until the humans started clear-cutting and bulldozing everything in their path and seriously pissed off the Omaticaya. The Na'vi were incurious because in their minds, Eywa was all they needed, and in a way, that's true.

* This is a factor that made me irritated with the Na'vi- for all the claims of a "dangerous world", they are spoon-fed their entire existance. A human needs food, he spends generations breeding and cross-pollenating animals and plants, respectively, to develop a crop/livestock that is usable as a reliable source of food; if a Na'vi needs food, he spears the prey twenty feet away and grabs the fruit off a tree for a garnish. A human needs transportation, he spends money and resources buying/building, and in some cases, developing, a car or plane to do so, having to use difficult-to-find resources that required ingenuity to obtain. A navi can just hop on the back of a native animal and plug it in- not spending years training and breeding them, or taking care of them, just hop on and let it go when you're done. A human is sick, he developes chemistry and biology to create medicine and surgury to heal and recover. the Na'vi just are "super-hardy". A human wants to record his life so his grandson can know of his life, and wants to write a history book so future generations can avoid repeating the mistakes of the past; He develops written language and art, leaving behind the Mona Lisa, or Paradise Lost, as a legacy. if a Na'vi wants to know about times of antiquity, he sticks his braid on a tree and downloads grandpappy's memories. There is no cultural advancement because there is no necessity, they don't need anything, work is comprised of "go over there, kill the stupid animal, make it into loinclothes and meat." They see the human mining as sensless attacks agains Eyuwa because they have never had to develop mining or any other form of industry. Worse yet, I keep hearing paralles between Home Tree and New York or other cities- a city is developed over hundreds of years, built from the ground up into something the builders and the great-grandchildren of the builders can look upon as something to be proud of as an accomplishment. If one was destroyed, that means the livelihood and homes of thousands or even millions of people is gone. For the Na'vi, the destruction of Home Tree means they have to grab their bow and a spare loincloth and move to a different huge tree, or dare I say it, ''several smaller trees''.

** The whole purpose of the RDA trying to befriend the Na'vi was so they could train them to perform the mining work in the humans' place, as the Na'vi wouldn't need exo-pack masks to do it. Having a bunch of drunken stoners operating your mining equipment is ''not'' a good way to avoid the sort of catastrophic accidents that put an end to their mining of the floating rocks.

* Here's the JamesCameron WordOfGod on the matter:

*** I said the audience wasn't '''expected''' to--i.e., that wasn't the goal of the makers of the film, while JamesCameron had the Na'vi redesigned until he was sure that people would want to hit that. I didn't say that nobody did, nor did I say that any attraction had to be "purely physical." What I ''said'' was that it would be harder to get away with a human falling in love with an ugly alien in a movie expected to make mainstream money, whether it's realistic or not.\\\

* Technological progress does not equal societal progress. That's been elaborated several times in this page already. What they have already ''works'', so there isn't really any need to keep going on. You don't try to keep on climbing upwards when you're at the summit of Mount Everest. Viewers "like" this society because it's achieved a lot of things that human society hasn't (no poverty, equal rights, no overpopulation/overconsumption of resources, etc.), and thus technology doesn't mean jack. The Na'vi have already shown zero interest in all the 'cool toys' the humans keep presenting to them, so new tech obviously isn't a big point in their culture. Why they are like that is a question to ask JamesCameron himself.

** You're not listening. The ''viewers'' like this society for the same reasons that you hate it. Also, the 'life expectancy' of a civilization isn't a really big point for most people - they'd rather exist in a utopia that lasts for a million years instead of a bleak CrapsackWorld for a quadrillion. If you want to start arguing whether or not the entirety of the viewers are morons, start it on the discussion page for Film/Avatar. This point is subjective, so we can't continue. And like I said, only JamesCameron can give an answer to "why aren't the Na'vi curious?"

* Or, and this is getting into real[[EpilepticTrees Epileptic Tree]] territory, the planet-wide mind thing isn't one entity, but several, who had to discuss it [[LordOfTheRings Entmoot-style]].

*** Human society did not drop hunting and gathering as "soon as possible". At the time of this posting there are still groups who never stopped hunting and gathering. Those that did, did so for a variety of reasons, most often because they were too successful and were forced to find a new way to feed now bloated populations or watch a lot of people starve to death. If the Na'vi never reached similar levels of "success" or never were faced with any sort of catastrophe that forced them to change their ways then maybe it is hard enough but not so hard to look for something else. Of course, real life hunter gathering societies maintained ties and good relations with pastoral, agricultural, industrial and digital counterparts. That a space age society could not reach some level or understanding with them boarders on the ludicrous.

* Or, and this is getting into real[[EpilepticTree Epileptic]] [[IncrediblyLamePun Tree]] territory, the planet-wide mind thing isn't one entity, but several, who had to discuss it [[LordOfTheRings Entmoot-style]].

** Becuase in many cases like MassEffect they had the same concept used as a form of sex and whenever you have something only a couple does it imediatly brings up sex metaphors.

[[folder: Villainous Na'vi]]
* Selfridge and gigantic machinery aside, are the Na'vi villains for disallowing humans to mine unobtainium, which, allowing for FTL travel, is important to human progress?
** No more than Humans would be if the situation were reversed and the Na'Vi were the invaders who wanted to get at some precious mineral beneath the largest human village, expecting the humans to completely uproot themselves for the sake of Na'Vi advancement.''
*** Don't know about you, but if aliens came down to Earth, said they needed to mine the ground beneath my house for something that they absolutely need and I never even knew existed, and then, in return, they'll give me all this hyper-advanced alien technology, I'd take it. I can find a new house. Remember, the humans didn't want to kill the Na'Vi, at first. It was only after the Na'Vi refused that the humans resorted to more unsympathetic methods.
*** ... Except that, whether by bad script or not (YES I KNOW IT'S EXPLAINED SLIGHTLY BETTER IN THE SCRIPT), the Na'vi and humans apparently had a huge communication failure or somehow offended them at the school (Grace says the Na'vi learned all they needed to know about the dastardly [[HalfLifeFullLifeConsequences humens]] in the script (but even then, the incident is different - Neytiri's sister [[spoiler:and her buddies vandalized a truck, tried to hide in the school, and got shot by pissed off Marines]], but in the final cut, it just seems like "lol Na'vi didn't want to share".) Sounds like someone could have asked nicely.
** Actually... in fact, this brings up a whole new can of worms. Selfridge could have asked for a temporary move while they carefully extracted the unobtainium (I remember someone someone claimed that the root system was probably too entangled for discreet mining). Hell, since that's ridiculous (yes, ask a tradition-minded native group that's been living there for thousands of years to leave for a bit so they can get some worthless metal [to the Na'vi] under your house), they could have just asked nicely so they could do it with little intrusion. But of course, Selfridge is a Strawman.
**** Who says they didn't ask, and the Na'vi said "no", leading to the Avatar program and all the other measures we never see?
*** Also by bad script, FTL travel's important for a "dying" planet. Moar resources and stuff (no, it's not just shitty pollution policies, some of it was nuclear war/terrorism).
** You clearly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, at all. '''THERE IS NO FTL TRAVEL'''. Unobtainium is used for power distribution systems and maglev networks as well as containment of the antimatter reaction in an ISV's engine.
* Something that bears consideration: The Na'vi express regret whenever they are forced to kill an animal connected to Eywa, but feel no such regret when they kill humans, at least not visibly. What we could be looking at is an entire species that is force-fed empathy for all living things native to Pandora through something like sensory feedback, not because of a deep spiritual/philosophical understanding. The KillEmAll attitude towards humans would make a bit more sense in that context; they would be the first species the Na'vi encountered that they ''weren't'' forced to empathize with. If they discovered the "thrill of the kill" without the sensory drawbacks, some if not all of them would become bloodthirsty, drunk on the pleasure without personal pain. They would be tragic villains, but villains nonetheless.
** ...except that that attitude was developed after the humans committed widespread destruction and murder.
** That's...one way to interpret it. But since the Na'vi already have a more obvious reason to attack all humans without remorse (ie. defending their home/planet/forest), it doesn't require that much consideration. The RDA weren't willing to compromise themselves, so any 'negotiations' would have failed.
*** Exactly. The Na'vi were initially fine with humans until they started destroying and murdering - after that, they weren't so happy.
*** The Na'Vi were ''never'' okay with the humans. That's the reason why the humans needed to create the Avatars. The Na'Vi do not want to deal with anything that doesn't look like them. DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything?
**** 100% Wrong. Please actually do the research before making ill-informed comments.
* Okay, I'm not sure where people get the idea that the side which doesn't want their home turned into an open-pit mine are unreasonable, but here's how it seems to have gone:
-->1. Humans arrive and discover unobtainum. The Na'vi accept their presence for a sufficient period of time for them to establish a defensible base. Due to the difficulties of transport, we're talking years of at least tolerance.
-->2. At some point, the humans decide to try talking the Na'vi into leaving their homes. The Na'vi are understandably reluctant, because, well, it's their home. Even ignoring the emotional connection they have with it, sufficiently large trees with accessible banshee nests can't be easy to come by.
-->3. The RDA figures they'll have better luck if they look like Na'vi. I dunno how accurate that theory is, but they try it anyway.
-->4. The school is opened up, and relations are okay, but the Na'vi still don't want to leave their homes while the RDA doesn't want to deal with the incredible costs associated with less destructive forms of mining, which would be considerable.
-->5. An unspecified (at least in the movie) incident occurs. The Na'vi become pissed off and throw the Avatars out and start raiding the mining convoys. Presumably the RDA decided to strip-mine somewhere the Na'vi care about. Also, apparently the scientists didn't get much personal respect from the Na'vi, the details of which are unclear but apparently involved refusing to believe something because it conflicted with preconceived notions.
-->6. The movie opens.
** That's about it, except the original idea for the avatars was to have them doing the mining as they survive far better than humans, as well as any contact with the Na'vi, but proved too expensive and impractical. What happened beforehand was when they destroyed somewhere important, so Sylwanin destroys one of their bulldozers, so the marines go and murder some Na'vi children. After that, the Na'vi avoided contact with any humans. 'Refusing to believe' something doesn't come into it - they understand the nature of the network better than anyone else - the Na'vi do have a partial understanding but not of the process at the biochemical level. At first, there was no problem, it was only human actions that created it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Quantifiable Goddess]]
I'm not a very religious person, but I just couldn't get over this. "Why shouldn't we destroy this very important religious symbol?" "Because their God is real, and we can prove it with Science!" Hey writers: using science to explain and justify the supernatural is a ''really bad idea''. Remember midichlorians? This is like that, except worse, because it has real-world implications. The quantifiable deity is a bitch-slap to every existing religion (including the religion of indiginous societies) because it establishes a standard with which they can't compete. It says that we should only care about a people's spiritual beliefs if they can be empirically proven. No need to apologize to the bushmen about clearing away their rainforest, since it isn't actually the generous, compassionate God that they think it is. And no need to apologize for flushing the Quuran down the toilet, either, since Allah doesn't really exist.
** More accurately, if some phenomenon can be verified using the scientific method it is by its very nature not supernatural. The Navi's "god" is not a god, it is a half-assed internet with mind uploads. Both of which the humans in this setting already have, so they have no reason to save the tree fort. And if your god is so weak that mortals can kill it then does it really deserve your worship? Real supernatural enites may or may not exist, but at least you can't nuke them as far as we know.
* Saying science and religion are mutually irrelevant is a pretty gross caricature. Ultimately, both are in it for the same thing: the quest for truth. Furthermore, both sides can assist each other in their quests. Two examples include using science to verify/falsify religious claims (Greek myth of Atlas/intelligent design of the universe, although the latter is being debated on its verified status) and religion can solve metaphysical problems that science may run into ("Why does the universe exist in the first place?"). And if you're complaining about how the Na'vi belief in Eywa effectively destroys the truth of all other religious...note that this is a MOVIE. It's ''SCIENCE FICTION''.
** Eh, not quite. Science is the search for truth; religion is a declaration of truth by fiat. He or she is correct in their assessment that anything quantifiable by science is, by definition, not supernatural.
** You seem to be misunderstanding me. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with making a movie that has both science and the supernatural in it: it's what makes TheSecretOfNimh a masterpiece. I'm also not saying that it destroys other religions; I'm saying that it's bullshit that the movie uses the quantifiability of their Goddess as a reason why they shouldn't attack it, instead of focusing on the more important fact that it's ''their Goddess''.
** Isn't it made pretty explicit that Selfridge And Quatrich simply don't care about that? Besides, Grace ''is'' a scientist.
** Selfridge makes the reasonable point that you can't throw a stick on Pandora without it landing on the Legendary Tree Stump of Ultimate Sacredness. If they really were going to avoid touching anything the Na'vi consider sacred then they pretty much have to leave the planet forever, but the fact that Eywa is real gives a valid reason to consider the Tree of Souls as more important than some random object that is arbitrarily declared sacred. Also, I don't agree with your assertion that because the Na'vi view the tree as a goddess everyone else has to as well - Hindus consider cows to be sacred, I respect their right to do so, but I'm not going to stop eating hamburgers as a result. To say I have to treat cows as sacred out of respect for Hindus makes no more sense than saying that Hindus need to treat cows as just another animal out of respect for atheists.
*** That's what I was saying.
* Knowing that the Na'vi's God exists as a physical entity that can be interacted with is quite an important thing to know considering that they were planning to ''attack'' it. "You shouldn't attack because you will deeply offend the spiritual beliefs of the tribe" is a very different thing from "You shouldn't attack because their God will eat you". They no longer cared about pissing off the tribe, so telling them that the attack would be far more serious than they thought was the next best option.
** Remember that Grace is the one talking here, not a Na'vi. If you were going to demolish a church, which of these arguments would you listen to if you are not religious.\\\
1. This is a place of God, and you shouldn't destroy it because we believe that God exists.\\\
or\\\
2. There is a giant server room that serves as the hub of the Internet, and destroying the church would destroy the server room.\\\
I think that the second argument would be get your attention more. The Na'vi, not Grace, believe that it is a connection to their God, which it is. Just because Grace thinks that she understands why it works doesn't make it any less amazing.
*** Technically, it's a ''sentient organism'' and not a supernatural being.
*** Agreed. Just because Eywa is powerful does not make her a god. And, you know, even if one assumes that Eywa is literally a god, it doesn't change how things that are quantifiable and observable carry more weight than things that aren't quantifiable or are unfalsible. For example, horses versus dragons.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Na'vi are racist, and yet are portrayed as Purity sues.]]
* The Na'vi don't seem to like to communicate with anything which isn't [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith like them]]. We never see any human-in-human form contact with them. ALL humans in this movie are portrayed as [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters bad]] unless they are on the Na'vi side or BECOME them. Yes, the humans did start to rip open the ground but the Na'vi never consider why they are doing that, what the "sky people" are even called, whether there could be any other way of mining with harming the enviroment ect. They don't want to learn about the human ways besides thier languages for convience, whilst the humans scientists do. Some of the humans might be calling them [DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything "blue monkeys"]] but at least some of them know about their culture, their goddess, how they respect nature. Neytriri tells him when they first meets he is like a baby and an idiot, just because, like most humans, he does not know how to live in the wild. Why? Because, like most Na'vi, (discounting the more accepting Na'vi children,) she did not care for human ways. So why is this portrayed in such a good light?
** They learned a lot about the humans, they just didn't need to any more when the marines started trying to kill them.
* You answered your own question with the "rip open the ground" part. If an alien species came out of nowhere and started destroying all of the US (which would be equivalent to the destruction of the forests to the Na'vi) for no apparent reason, would you pause and think "Huh...I wonder why they would do that..." or do your utmost do stop those aliens from eventually screwing the entire planet over? The Na'vi wanted nothing the humans had to offer, and the mining was only seen as further destruction for something so meaningless to them (and there's no such thing as mining without environmental impact), so the Na'vi had the proper grounds to consider the humans as the enemy and fight back.
** Exactly. considering the situation, the Na'vi showed a '''lot''' of restraint. Far more than the majority of humans would do in an equivalent situation.
** Except we are shown that RDA tries to communicate and explain the situation. They set up Avatar program -> Na'vi refuse to listen. They don't use their superior firepower to force Na'vi to run(untill they have no options) -> Na'vi keep harasing them. Heck, humans clearly show that they prefer agreement with Na'vi than full-scale military conflict. If Na'vi would, like, listen. "Hey, you have this '''very''' precious rocks in your soil. We need it to fix our planet. Can you help us?" "Fuck off, sky people". Yeah, Na'vi are real saints.
*** They have every right to refuse to give in to the humans. If someone found an oil well under your house, and wanted to drill it, but did not offer you anything in return, you'd see it very differently, I think. Also, I fail to see how a maglev transport system (the primary use for unobtainium other than the ISVs themselves) 'fixes the planet'. Makes money, yes, nothing more.
*** RDA's unobtanium mining was for profit, not for 'fixing the planet'. The RDA were the aggressors and had all proper grounds to be marked as the enemy by the Na'vi. And you're asking the Na'vi to mutilate their own culture and lifestyle to help a previously unknown species ''dig up a rock''.
*** It has been pointed that Earth is a Crapsack world and that they are trying to fix it. Unobtainium makes it possible, since it's properties allow use of several advanced technologies. And my point still stands, RDA ''asked'' Na'vi to help them, even set up the Avatar program. Na'vi still attack them. Humans try to use diplomacy. Military gets pissed off because its members get killed by Na'vi attacks. So when diplomacy fails, military is given green light. Of course, military here means private security force. Na'vi refuse to listen to compromise. Let's be frank, aliens come and start digging on Earth. They create clones to communicate with humans, offer tech, food etc. and make it clear they need that stuff. Are we going to just say "evil" and fight them?
**** It's a superconductor, not fucking [[Film/{{Spaceballs}} oxygen]]. The Na'vi have EVERY SINGLE RIGHT to tell the humans to get off their home. The Na'vi have only retaliated, and didn't even kill marines until they attacked first (the games are not canon). If the situation happened on Earth, then I would say YES, humans would fight them, especially if the aliens blew up New York.
*** So "more convenient interstellar travel" and "trans-continental rapid transit systems" is supposed to help humanity solve the problems of [[AllThereInTheManual overpopulation, food shortages, water poisoning, nuclear terrorism]], and more. Unobtanium is only used for the purposes I stated in quotes. Your point ''doesn't'' stand because Earth '''is''' a crapsack world, but Unobtanium isn't the solution to fixing it. The RDA has a little side-project that collects scientific data and finds applications for Pandora's flora/fauna on Earth (cures to mass River Blindness, etc.), which the scientific division (and thus the Avatar program) is dealing with. Hey, you see all of the science faculty heavily against the mining and attacks on the Na'vi, so they're obviously the good guys. Problem is that the majority of the staff are in it for mining. The Na'vi were resisting the mining efforts primarily - without them, it would have been perfectly fine with twenty or so Avatars collecting scientific info and ''actually'' help fix Earth's problems.
*** The problem here is not that the Na'vi didn't have good reasons to turn down the humans, but that those reasons were not stated very well in the movie. For example, I don't recall why the school was shut down, if it was the Na'vi's fault or a company decision. Not to mention that the Na'vi ARE a primitive society, and I'm sorry but being primitive is NOT a good thing, ''we'' were primitive once and developed civilization because it was MORE fair for sentient beings that just being part of an uncaring ecology where you're just another predator/prey (notice how no one points this out in the movie.) That they arrogantly consider humans inferior (remember that crack about Jake being "insane"?) without anyone even wondering if maybe they could learn something * from us* only makes part of the audience (the one that isn't buying the whole "they are superior to us because they commune with nature" deal) dislike them. Also, note that there's not a single unlikable Na'vi character in the movie- even Neytiri's mate turns out to be sympathetic in the end- while there are several uncaring or even openly villainous human characters. The whole thing is SO unfairly tipped in the aliens' favor it's truly {{anvilicious}}. Oh, and the movie only states that the Unobtainum is valuable, not WHY- it leaves people wondering if maybe it IS somehow important to our "dying world"- that needed at least a line of dialog to clear up. Again, poor writing.
*** The quality of society isn't gauged by how much technology they have, but rather how society has solved issues like segregation, equal rights/benefits among all beings, and whatnot. Humans have multiple societal problems (as stated previously) while the Na'vi...don't. Therefore, Na'vi society is completely superior to human society. It's that simple. And if you're complaining about a wish-fulfilling fantasy being too tipped towards one side... This movie was designed to appeal to literally everyone (except to people with a similar mindset to yours) that it ''had' to tilt towards the "Good guys win, bad guys lose" theme. Avatar isn't Film/TheDarkKnight. Trust me, in terms of being anvillicious and having bad scripts, there are plenty of other movies that are exponentially worse (in this case, "John Q" and pretty much every rom-com ever made since 2000, respectively). Finally, just FYI, the school was closed after Neytiri's sister (Sylwanin) torched a bulldozer with some other warriors, tried to hide in the school, and were shot by RDA soldiers. Unobtainium is a room-temperature superconductor with obvious technological applications, and thus, would cost a ton. The Na'vi didn't need to learn anything from the humans because their society was superior to theirs - communing with nature had nothing to do with it.
** There's lots of simple human technologies that could help the navi. A host of minor technologies could reduce deaths and injuries from falling, wild animals. Ipods are always fun, and it would be a way for any navi to relive their culture any time. Cameras, so you can show people what wonderous sites you saw in the forest. Without having tentacle sex. Mobile phones, to talk to other navi. Watches and navigation devices, to help coordinate forest actions and hunts. Games to allow children to safely learn about nature. Blankets, clothes, gems, lots of cheap stuff that lets you look pretty. The internet, to research topics of interest, and watch porn.
** Seriously, you're only providing pros to tech that ''could'' be beneficial to the Na'vi while ignoring all the stuff the Na'vi already have that replaces its usage. Take a closer look: The Na'vi already have a system of calls and yells while they fly on their banshees that replaces normal speech, designed for quick communication and to sound clear despite all the deafening wind. Communication devices are useless. "Wonderous sights in the forest"? Just find a friend and take him to the same damn spot you were at. Hunts are already well-organized likely due to a prior briefing (the best possible example seen in the sturmbeest hunt included in Avatar SE) and the Na'vi already have excellent tracking skills, so watches/compasses are useless. "Looking pretty" is already provided by all the hand-made anklets/bracelets/necklaces/etc. the Na'vi already have. Blankets are redundant due to the high ambient temperatures. The children have their own games and the 'danger' is part of their training (and it's rare for someone to die from a fall unless it's off the floating mountains). And the internet...hell, sex is obviously sacred to the Na'vi, so porn would be unthinkable.
*** Can a Na'vi talk to another on the other side of the planet? Do they have a method for recording history in a method they can mass produce? Lastly, what methods do they have to treat the illnesses the humans have brought with them? There are things to be gained for the Na'Vi, and they actually have a real world value.
**** Talk directly, no, but there are shared memories. Mass production isn't needed - there are not billions of people on Pandora (and history IS recorded, anyway, through both songs and stories and memories). As for disease (AGAIN), that just shows that you have no understanding of life on Pandora. Firstly, the two species are biochemically incompatible, and secondly, their immune systems and symbiosis with other organisms makes disease of any form very rare (as well as not living in ways that seem almost intended to create pandemics like humans do). As I have said multiple times before, Selfridge's comment there means 'medical experiments' not 'medicines' - there is nothing the Na'vi can gain from either, just the humans.
* Wait, wait, wait. Lets ignore the whole business of trading for a minute and consider the situation.\\
\\
First, the humans arrive looking for Unobtanium, and discover the Na'vi. The RDA tries to negotiate, and the Na'vi refuse. Furthermore, it is implied that the Na'vi are running raids on humans without provocation and without attempts at negotiation.\\
\\
As time passes, the Na'vi still launch attacks on humans without ever bothering to figure out what the are doing. The RDA develops avatars.\\
\\
Jake is sent in, but doesn't bother with much "diplomacy", despite that being one of the prime reasons he went sent in the first place. The Na'vi basically say "No matter what you have to offer, we won't leave our home", which is understandable, but the negotiations effectively end there.\\
\\
The military forces, having spent ages losing troops to raids, give up and attack. Now, the military is at fault for attacking so early, but they were justified in a sense.\\
\\
So the Na'vi were acting outrageously xenophobic, and exhibited no curiosity as to the intentions of strange aliens with giant machines landing on their planet, attacking them rather than negotiating, and refusing to consider things from the humans' point of view.\\
\\
On the topic of if it was aliens landing on Earth, I have to say the comparisons aren't being made correctly. If the movie was inverted in some way, it would be like this: a technologically advanced alien species lands in an uninhabited area and sets up a camp there. They don't vapourize New York, they don't kill everyone they see, they exhibit little hostility besides starting a mining operation (or cutting down the rainforest, or whatever you want as an analogy). Rather than attempting to open contact and figure out what these aliens want, we send Marines out to ambush and murder them. After several years of killing these aliens without trying to figure out who they are, they create human-alien hybrids to attempt to negotiate. They say they require some magical resource located in an important area on Earth (say, under some of our major cities) to power their futuristic technology. They are very willing to negotiate and work with us to figure out a way to extract the resources with minimal damage, not to mention that they will give us some form of benefit (say, futuristic alien technology) in return. We then proceed to refuse without considering the matter, and follow it up by belittling their culture without bothering to understand it, or the circumstances that led to its creation (like how the Na'vi don't bother to consider that humans don't have the benefit of being a part of a giant biological computer, and just assume that humans are evil because they are different). After more and more skirmishes, the aliens get tired of our refusal to work things out and flatten a sizable city (say, Chicago). A crazy alien in charge of their military is then able to persuade the rest of them to go after a very important city (Tokyo, NYC, whatever) precisely BECAUSE we are refusing to negotiate. After we somehow defeat the aliens and drive them off of Earth, we celebrate even though we barely bothered to figure out their motivations, and we assume that beating one alien force is the same as driving them out forever.\\
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Look, if it was portrayed in the same fashion the other way around (the perceived and assumed superiority of the Na'vi notwithstanding), it would be pretty clear that we were acting like xenophobic, racist idiots. It would resemble "The Day The Earth Stood Still" more than anything else.\\
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In the end, the Na'vi act in a way similar to, ironically enough, European imperialists by refusing to consider other cultures worthy of any respect or dignity.
* Unfortunately for you, it's all completely wrong and verging on [[FanWank Fan Hater Wank]]. Here's the real version of events: \\
1. Humans arrive on Pandora, make first contact with the Na'vi. The Na'vi are unsure on what is happening or who they are. the RDA did not know about unobtainium until ''later''. \\
2. Initial contact between humans and Na'vi was peaceful, there is an exchage of information between the two cultures. \\
3. The RDA start mining unobtainium. The Na'vi show relative restraint at first, only retaliating when areas that are extremely important to them are destroyed.\\
4. the Na'vi and humans go with very little contact between them. the Na'vi did not attack any humans after the marines attacked Grace's school. \\
5. The events of Avatar (Avatars were developed SIGNIFICANTLY before your mention of them, the original idea was arounfd the time of the discovery of unobtainium).\\
The Na'vi gave the humans far more chances than they should and there wre only a few occasions where they fight them. The developemt of avatars was in no way related to nonexistent 'attacks'.\\
With your Earth example, it would be this: A technologically advanced race lands, destroys a lightly populated (but NOT deserted - remember that all the forest is part of a lifeform) area and builds a base there. There is initially some contact between them - at first, even relatively peaceful and friendly - they learn each other's language and some of the other's culture and way of living, but the aliens then destroy a small city, for something that is known by humans to exist but is considered relatively worthless (say, silica) and generally not given much thought. For some reason, the native species (humans) do not immediately commit to a counterattack to try and drive them off (yet) but wait and see what happens. Later, another small city is destroyed - this time, one group (in your analogy, perhaps a single army group) counterattacks, causing the aliens to go and kill random humans as retaliation. Then, the aliens destroy New York/Tokyo/London/Beijing/whatever - in other words, a large, significiant city, in doing so killing many humans and leaving millions more homeless (yes, millions, it's the same proportion with overall population), which finally causes a reaction and they get driven off, but not before they attempt to wipe out all life on Earth for good.\\
The truth is, nobody would ever have negotiated - in your invasion of Earth example, that would be "OK, you can destroy half our cities". Something tells me people wouldn't stand for that. As it is, the Na'vi showed extreme restraint in dealing with the humans. \\
The Na'vi understood human motivations they are (obviously enough) just alien to them. The Na'vi understand wehat humans did to Earth and don't want that to happen to Pandora. They don't care about unobtainium since it has no use, but they don't see why they should lose their world because other peol;le want it. Neither are they xenophobic - the Na'vi truly care about some humans such as Grace - she showed them that not all humans are the RDA.\\
** Except THIS WAS NOT explicitly stated in the film. So far as we can tell from viewing the movie, the RDA is, at worst, exploiting Na'vi resources (up until attacking, at any rate). We are informed that the RDA is willing to negotiate, are given examples, Jake begins avatar-dom, and we are informed that the Na'vi are raiding and attacking whatever humans they see. When do we see the Na'vi exchanging anything with humans? Do we ever see Na'vi diplomatic parties, negotiations, or any attempts besides mere attacks? No. \\
Furthermore, you shouldn't make things up. The RDA establishes Hell's Gate, which could be construed as ONE attack. After this? I saw no evidence of them expanding beyond that. On the other hand, it is made abundantly clear that the Na'vi hold humans in contempt. Yes, they value Grace; Grace had an Avatar, a Na'vi-human hybrid. How often is the viewer shown them giving a damn about a regular human?
** When were we ever "informed that the Na'vi are raiding and attacking whatever humans they see"? Oh wait, that's right, we weren't.\\
Last time I checked, something was not inadmissible because it was AllThereInTheManual, as MUCH of the background is.\\
You shouldn't make things up EITHER. Hell's Gate is one, the mine nearby is another, and they are NOT the only areas that have been destroyed, just the main human habitation. Ironically, as I said before, far more restraint than humans - I ask you again - if an alien species arrived and blew up New York, what do you think humans would do?\\
As for Grace and avatars, look at how ready Neytiri was to kill Jake, that would give you an idea. Also, sorry to remind you of this, but look a the events - the Na'vi have no problem when they see Grace's (or Jake's) human body - they also meet Trudy, Norm and Max, the later two of who are allowed to stay (and Trudy would have if she hadn't died). The Na'vi have an extreme bad experience of humans with the marines, but most HateDumb are [[FantasticRacism Fantastic Racists]] and forget that the Na'vi are AS intelligent as humans if not more so, and do not judge ALL humans by the marines and Selfridge.
*** A note about "the manual"--as said quite a few times elsewhere in these ''Avatar''-related headscratchers pages, just because it's in the manual doesn't make the initial complaint irrelevant. What matters, what really counts, is ''what's in the film''. Making a viewer do homework to understand a poorly-written plot point is not only ludicrous, but it still doesn't make the original plot-point any better-written. Also as stated elsewhere, supplemental material should only ''expand'' on a movie, it shouldn't ''explain'' it.
*** It does merely expand upon it. There is no difference compared to the fluff in other scifi or non-scifi universes. Gives a bit of context, but by no means required to see what's going on. Perhaps a 'reviewer'', not that you are one, should concentrate on the actual quality and not on how accessible it was to people without the intelligence/inclination to find context first.
*** Tell that to the numerous people responding to genuine and relevant complaints about the film's "plot" with "it's all there in the manual". If that's the answer to the complaint, then by definition the complainer is being told that the "manual" explains the plot--which it shouldn't do. Speaking of quality--a plot-hole or poorly-explained plot-point drags down the quality of the movie. If the viewer is scratching their head, wondering just how in sam-hill whatever they just saw could possibly work even by the movie's internal logic, the film as a whole suffers for it, as it should. To summarize, people shouldn't ''have'' to go out of their way to find context--it should be explained, by whatever means, in the work itself. Supplemental material is grand--I'm certainly a sucker for D.V.D. special features and fan-wikis--but the film should stand on its own, without needing the viewer to go outside of it to find that context.
**** The answers you attempt to cite by proxy (since direct quotes would undermine your own position via blatant hypocrisy even the densest of hipsters could understand) are not for unexplained actual details - details that are covered in supplementary material are incidental, and do not cause any problems understanding actual in-film events. The vast majority of posts here fall under the "derr y dint dey nuke em lol lazors lol" category; which is nothing to od with plot points left unexplained and everything to do with pure stupidity on such a level that they barely count as sentient beings compared to opposable-thumbed apes with a rudimentary understanding of stock under-researched claims who would be better suited sticking to things where humans are unequivocally in the right because everyone else are Bad People so as not to upset the people who are not yet capable of understanding anything more nuanced. As I said earlier, an example of supplementary detail done RIGHT is that the atmosphere is inhospitable to humans, but a scene describing the exact composition and causal process behind its formation as such would be completely out of place and bore or confuse the vast majority of viewers. To be even-handed, Avatar does do it wrong in two places - The deleted scenes regarding Grace, Sylwanin and Neytiri should always have been in there, especially considering the huge modification it makes to the early tone of the film; and the line about unobtainium's physical properties was another one, albeit far less important, that provides detail that, when missing, reduces the apparent consistency/plausibility. Read this page again and you will see that the vast majority have no complaint about the presence of background detail and are simply complaining because it wasn't the film they wanted, whch is a lost cause. I hated that abysmal Abrams film that defecated all over the good name of Trek, but I don't go and make stupid posts on tvtropes about it, I just don't watch it and ignore or skip over mentions of it.
** You're forgetting: the RDA is (in Na'vi eyes) destroying ''the'' most sacred thing in their lives - the forest (and by extension, Eywa herself). All the statements you posted is nullified by that single fact. The Na'vi have every single justification for their stance.
** So, humans violate something they had no way of understanding ahead of time, and to understand what they are violating they have to be there (and, by extension, they have to violate it in the first place, as they have to make a base to even live on Pandora). That reminds me uncannily of the Kadeshi in Homeworld, and they definitely weren't portrayed in a positive way.
** Exactly - plus, the fact that it is ''their'' world, their home. The humans are guests at most and invaders at worst, if they want to be on Pandora, they should respect the way the Na'vi want them to do things.
** But so far as the viewer can tell, the humans were not told of this ahead of time, and as said above, could only have discovered their crime after the fact.
** Doesn't change the fact that first contact was a long time before the RDA started sending marines to shoot them.
** When you notice the natives going "OMFG WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!" when you uproot a tree, I think it's a good idea to stop and listen to them for at least several seconds instead of ignoring their cries and continue like nothing happened. The RDA cronies had zero intention of halting their mining project for the sake of 'peace', and any negotiations were all half-assed since they weren't willing to compromise themselves (10 years of Grace's work and trust is ruined by a few dumb grunts and several gunshots). The RDA is not one willing to stop the destruction after their discovery, and thus the Na'vi fought back to save what was so precious to them.
* PS. just out of interest, why do {{Fan Hater}}s refer to Pandora as a planet? I am genuinely curious about this.
** More of an issue with how people think about space; I personally make the mistake sometimes as well, so it isn't limited to any group. We usually think "planet" when there are (sentient) life-forms on said chunk of rock, rather than "moon" or "asteroid". Additionally, Pandora was never really mentioned as a moon of Polyphemus in the movie, even though it's obvious every time there's a shot of the sky.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Why doesn't Jake tell the Na'vi...]]
About how they're completely fucked when the angry humans come back on their giant ships, equipped to murder the everloving fuck out of some stupid blue space elfcats and get their fucking unobtanium from those communal hippies? If there's one thing humans like to do, it's gather up and kill people/things that Aren't Like Them, and the Na'vi are a bunch of xenophobic, racist shitclowns who managed to win a lucky fight against some under-armed mercs. What happens when the reports about the fucking MOTHERLODE of unobtainium(that name is fucking retarded) get home and some politician gets a hardon and sends out some real military types who are custom-trained to come down and slash and burn some kitty-cats? Something tells me that the POWER OF THE FOREST isn't gonna do much when said forest is being razed to the ground... My point is, they won the fight, but the prize was a few years of peace before the real bastards show up and start using their intestines to decorate their custom-built NA'VI STABBER 2000 combat mechs while orbital bombers turn the other Big Tree into the Big Hole In The Ground.[[/folder]]

* I can't be certain, but didn't Neytiri's mom have at least two braids tucked into her bead shirt, [[{{Bleach}} Unohana]]-style? Having two of those things would certainly help in the "communing with Eywa" department; maybe losing one uplink and one pair of limbs was a "trade-off" for becoming a sapient humanoid.

*** The quality of society isn't gauged by how much technology they have, but rather how society has solved issues like segregation, equal rights/benefits among all beings, and whatnot. Humans have multiple societal problems (as stated previously) while the Na'vi...don't. Therefore, Na'vi society is completely superior to human society. It's that simple. And if you're complaining about a wish-fulfilling fantasy being too tipped towards one side... This movie was designed to appeal to literally everyone (except to people with a similar mindset to yours) that it ''had' to tilt towards the "Good guys win, bad guys lose" theme. Avatar isn't TheDarkKnight. Trust me, in terms of being anvillicious and having bad scripts, there are plenty of other movies that are exponentially worse (in this case, "John Q" and pretty much every rom-com ever made since 2000, respectively). Finally, just FYI, the school was closed after Neytiri's sister (Sylwanin) torched a bulldozer with some other warriors, tried to hide in the school, and were shot by RDA soldiers. Unobtainium is a room-temperature superconductor with obvious technological applications, and thus, would cost a ton. The Na'vi didn't need to learn anything from the humans because their society was superior to theirs - communing with nature had nothing to do with it.

* The Na'vi don't seem to like to communicate with anything which isn't [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith like them]]. We never see any human-in-human form contact with them. ALL humans in this movie are portrayed as [[HumansAreBastards bad]] unless they are on the Na'vi side or BECOME them. Yes, the humans did start to rip open the ground but the Na'vi never consider why they are doing that, what the "sky people" are even called, whether there could be any other way of mining with harming the enviroment ect. They don't want to learn about the human ways besides thier languages for convience, whilst the humans scientists do. Some of the humans might be calling them [DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything "blue monkeys"]] but at least some of them know about their culture, their goddess, how they respect nature. Neytriri tells him when they first meets he is like a baby and an idiot, just because, like most humans, he does not know how to live in the wild. Why? Because, like most Na'vi, (discounting the more accepting Na'vi children,) she did not care for human ways. So why is this portrayed in such a good light?

**** It's a superconductor, not fucking [[{{Spaceballs}} oxygen]]. The Na'vi have EVERY SINGLE RIGHT to tell the humans to get off their home. The Na'vi have only retaliated, and didn't even kill marines until they attacked first (the games are not canon). If the situation happened on Earth, then I would say YES, humans would fight them, especially if the aliens blew up New York.