The Essence of Human Nature

I’ve seen Avatar three times. The first time I saw it was in super high definition on a gigantic screen; it was a magical experience, the moved sucked me in from beginning to end. The scene I am choosing to analyze is when the military destroyed the Na’vi’s home tree. This is the scene that I most vividly remember.
Many emotions coursed through body during this scene. I felt extreme anger, sadness and disbelief. I couldn’t believe that the colonel chose to issue the first major attack on the Na’vi’s home tree. I think this is the scene that was meant for the audience to really start hating the colonel, at least that’s when I started to. The fact that he felt nothing, no emotion at all (besides satisfaction) for destroying this magnificent organism that was the Na’vi’s main home, and afterwards callously offers to buy his crew drinks.
When I watched Avatar, especially the destruction of the tree scene, the message that I read from it was that James Cameron was simply trying to portray typical human nature. This scene is just trying to make you start to dislike the characters that are involved in the destruction of the tree. I strongly disagree with the critics who claim that Avatar is a “racist” film; I definitely did not buy into that. The whole movie outlines the flaws of human nature, and by us disliking the people involved in the destruction of the tree, we should really start disliking the part of ourselves and those parts of human nature that are destructive.
The colonel and the people in charge are willing to destroy an entire society solely for personal gain. People are power hungry greedy animals, and that does not ever seem to change. After watching Avatar I saw it as another portrayal of what we had done to the Native Americans, and what we are still doing to other races. The colonel is just a signifier of all the greed, power, death, and destruction in human nature. If another race has something we need we just take it; either surrender to us or we will take what we want by force, no matter what it costs.