The first Avatar movie was so powerful to me. The message was, in my opinion, important. While I understood and continue to understand the argument of the movie being a “white savior” film. I didn’t feel that was the intended point of the movie. Avatar is my favorite film because of the world, the music, the Na’vi, the flora, and the fauna.

The Way of Water struck me differently. I’m being entirely sincere when I say that I felt the film was sort of exploitative. It felt very much like a white man making a film about indigenous peoples. It felt off to me. I think one of the things that elicits this response from me is Jake. After all that time, he still acted more like a human than Na’vi. I get the point of this in theory but that combined with him moving Neytiri and his kids away from their home for seemingly no reason or questionable reasons at best left a bad taste in my mouth.

Anyone else have similar feelings?