Avatar - Still Doing It the Hard Way

This morning on a hike I noticed a winged insect walking along on the ground. Why would a creature that can fly struggle along on the ground? Last night I saw the much hyped movie, alone, not in 3D, in a sparsely populated theatre in Ventura. Much as I enjoyed the beauty of the Navi and their world, the story fell far short. In essence I saw a mash up of Dances with Wolves, District Nine and all of various techno-war movies ever made. Far more screen time is spent on war and destruction than anything transcendent or spiritually aware. I do believe the movie probably reflects where our culture is at the moment: still believing in war, a bare hint that there is another way. I am grateful that folks who may never have considered that the earth is alive are being challenged to entertain the concept. It is great that Cameron uses a version of a real concept, mycelium, researched by mushroom expert Paul Stamets the filaments that fungi allies send underground for miles to explain how the trees communicate with one another.
Ultimately, however, I read the film as an Oedipal drama. The colonel is a buffed up and stripped down version of the Father, has no doubts, no empathy, no heart. Even when he promises Jake his 'real' legs it is a quid pro quo transaction with no evidence of human feeling. But its no surprise that the "sky people' would be portrayed as violence addicted, greedy robotic action figures, that archetype has been a leading trend in our culture for quite a while. The final battle is the aging father figure and the disabled son, unconsciously revealing the knowledge that the male archetype is a fading, unsustainable template for humankind. Check out the story on NPR about Y chromosome research. Research on the human genome shows that the Y chromosome, which is what makes men men (as we know them, the rascals) is a 'hollow shell' having edited itself almost into extinction. However,there are apparently long stretches of DNA that are quite adaptable to change. Hence the scene of Jake transferring into the Navi body is actually not so far fetched.
What is disappointing is the shallow portrayal of the Navi. They are aware of their connection to the Source of Life, yet Nytira seems to chide Jake for trying to tune into Her before the war. "She doesn't take sides" is the line but no other model of relationship is offered. Is this war for a purpose? Is the lesson that Ewa doesn't live in a tree so She is merely helping the Navi learn, in the most painful way possible, that She is beyond their constructs of Her? Must every thing be done the hard way, with vast contraptions of metal and fire? From the film's point of view perhaps both peoples are still quite primitive unable to imagine that love and sharing between human and human-like creatures can be generalized to become our chosen way of dealing with each other.