Commentary — ‘Avatar: Fire And Ash’ Is Reverse ‘Star Trek’

In many respects, Star Trek is held up as the beacon of pure science fiction. It showcases how through technology and the right mindset, humanity can escape its shameful shackles of the past and grow into a society that promotes peace and harmony across the galaxy. When looked at through this lens, it’s easy to see how Avatar: Fire and Ash is the exact opposite. In fact, the entire Avatar franchise is built on the premise that when humanity expands across the stars, it will not do so with altruistic intentions. The human race will colonize other planets the same way it did to Earth and treat the indigenous populations it encounters the same, as well.

After Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) turns against the humans and becomes a complete Na’vi, mankind portray him as a terrorist. He’s essentially public enemy #1, and the humans send Quaritch (Stephen Lang), resurrected in a Na’vi body, to capture him. After threatening the village that was hiding Jake and his family, Quaritch convinces Jake to give himself up to save them. After he is taken back to the human base, Jake is put in a cage on display for the media to send pictures of his capture back to Earth.

What enabled Star Trek to be a utopian society was the invention of the replicator. With a device that could make whatever a person needed, humans were able to focus on more optimistic and hopeful pursuits. The Avatar franchise is about scarcity. Humans colonize the stars looking for resources they drained from their own planet. So when they arrive on Pandora, they want to strip it for all it’s worth and turn it into a husk, just like Earth. In Star Trek, humans learned from there colonizing ways and try to treat new species with respect using the Prime Directive. Avatar is the exact opposite. They destroy the Na’vi and cheer the capture of Jake Sully, never realizing he was actually trying to shed the mistakes humans were making in the past.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+.