On my way back from my winter break in Turkey, I watched Avatar: The Way of Water. Although it came out just over a year ago, I never had three free hours to watch the movie. But with 10 uninterrupted hours in the sky, I could finally watch it. While I enjoyed the film, I couldn’t help but think about the parallels it had with the current political climate. While I don’t think James Cameron considered these similarities when filming almost eight years ago, the things I noticed were shocking, especially after rewatching the first movie.

The first thing I noticed, especially while watching the second movie, was the language the female Marine used when describing their plans for Pandora. She talks about how Earth is dying and how her job is to set up camp on Pandora to create a new civilization. The colonization of Pandora reminds me of the colonization of the entire Western Hemisphere. The humans are willing to do anything to colonize Pandora, even if that means killing off the native species—a parallel to the colonization of North America.

Another parallel I noticed was how humans and the Na’vi view the environment. In the first movie, the humans are there to harvest a rare stone, and they don’t care about the environmental impact of their mining. They are completely apathetic and have no concern if they bulldoze an important landmark for the Na’vi. This behavior reflects the oil drilling in different parts of the world and how big corporations and governments disregard surrounding communities and the wildlife they affect.

The last parallel that stuck out to me was the advancement of technology and how it ultimately ruined the mission. The rise of technology in everyday life is increasingly concerning to me. As reliance on technology grows, we, as humans, lose empathy and stop thinking for ourselves. Furthermore, increased reliance on technology means we give more and more money to big corporations, continuing the cycle of exploiting local areas where people cannot afford to fight back.

Overall, I think the movie shows many similarities between the world today and the world in which the movie is set. Hopefully, we can recognize these similarities and avoid repeating them as best we can.