Y'know... I just want to point out that everyone calling Edsan and the Pundit out about the whole 'anti-human' aspect has yet to offer any counterargument more substantive than 'confirmation bias'.
What? Are you all screeching hairless monkeys that can't mount anything better than parroting some cool phrase you were exposed to on the internetz to defend your point of view?
Show me, the guy sitting on the fence, why you are actually right and the Pundit/Edsan crowd is wrong... 'cause right now? They are getting my vote.
Well I would think from a narative perspective it is common to explore other cultures through the eyes of a observer that the viewer is able to identify with. This is perhpas lazy but I it is common and its a given that the audience needs to be able to identify with the hero. So that is why, A Man called Horse, Dances with Wolves, The Emerald Forest, Tarzan and John Carter of Mars all have white male protagonists its a standard trope. So Avatar needs to set up some hero in this model. However, because Cameron wants to make the aliens part of his new world, and here I think he got cautious and I expect it was due to the studio or technical considerations but I expect that the first Na'vi had an extra set of limbs like every other creature on the planet (but I digress). So the avatar concept is used and lets face it its a great concept. If you have that it logically follows that there needs to be funding for said project gives you 2 choices. First a government investigating the Na'vi. Second a corporation who can reap great rewards from the Na'vi.
Now a blockbuster movie is aimed at a core demographic and the typical core demographic for such movies is 14-25 year old men. This group likes action and movies all need conflict of some sort.
So you could have a goverment agent who is investigation the Na'vi and has a range of internal conflicts about the expolitation of a people might be good. Or you have a conflict over resources between a group of natives and the future equivalent of Blackwater. The second option has guns, explosions, some cool mecha shit.
Then you add the Hollywood liberal politics and the fact that 90% of Western Civilisation between the ages of 9 and 30 are tree hugging socialist sympathisers.
I am really not sure how the Film could have turned out any different. Yeah they should have asked Tom Stoppard to cast an eye over the script (I mean you are paying $300M for the film you may as well chuck Sir Tom 100K to sort the dialogue out) but taking the basic premise of movie making I really don't know where else it would have gone.
Please enlighten me as to what film they should have made based on :
Realise entire Alien world
Explore a new Alien Species
Need for Human protagonist
Need for lots of explosions
Need to satisfy political sensibilities of target audience