How I'd Write the Avatar Sequel

James Cameron claims that Avatar is, essentially, "Dances With Wolves ... in space ... sorta". Yet it's clear to me and others interpreting the movie that, at the very least, the setting is a post-singularity world, or at least something similar. Obviously movies often have more than one plot, sometimes layers and layers of plot. While I find it hard to believe that Cameron would accidentally put so much in Avatar about transhumanism / post-singularity humanity issues, I suppose it's possible. But a work of art is, of course, a living thing that is more than just what the creator intends.

A sequel has been announced, and possibly a trilogy, an I'd like to chime in on what to me would be a logic plot for a sequel, given my own interpretations of Avatar.

Earth Tries to Retake Pandora

This is the most obvious step for a remake. Earth needs this precious metal, and given the instability of the planet Earth that was alluded to in Avatar, they will come back and take it by force. This could go two routes:

1. Earth misunderstands local politics and treats this as a regional, rather than planetary revolt. Plot possibilities open up for cross-tribe tensions, possibly hinging over the acceptance of a human (Jake Scully and company), or possibly over getting rid of humans. Maybe other tribes *did* like the technology humanity offered and was benefiting, even if the Na'Vi we saw in the first movie didn't. Ultimately, Earth's counter-offensive will need to come to an understanding of the global connectedness of Pandora, predictably too late for the invaders.

2. Earth understands it's a global revolt, and sends an overwhelming force. Having underestimated their opponents the first time, they do much more human intelligence gathering. The natural movie trope is to have an anti-Jake Scully, who befriends another tribe with lies and generally is deceitful. Jake will have to once again face his own self. Maybe his brother was brought back to life somehow. In any event, if this is the route Cameron takes, it's much more interesting than (1), being that it isn't a basic rehash of the original plot.

Na'Vi are related to humans

If Earth does come guns blazing, and with superior force and a much smarter approach, even the god/supercomputer Eywa won't be able to stop them. Instead, there is a logical reason why Earth forces would have to stop - we're from the same race. This could go down several ways:

1. Humans left Earth thousands of years ago and were technologically superior. It's the classic Atlantis myth. They genetically modified themselves to this new planet as a survival method, since it would take years to develop industry on the planet. Either they chose to live simple, under the guidance of Eywa, or something happened - war, disease, cosmic event, whatever - that destroyed much of their inorganic technology; over the millennia, their culture forgot that they came from another planet, or perhaps it's still preserved in myths.

2. Humans and Na'Vi come from a proto-race that colonized both Earth and Pandora. Perhaps we get to see a third race by the third in the trilogy. Maybe even see remnants or citizens from this proto-race. Or even more far-out: the proto-race is really post-singularity beings that don't normally have physical bodies, but choose to colonize planets with physical forms. Hollywood's dumbing-down mentality would probably kill this idea for being as weird as what I've heard the Wachowskis original Matrix plot was - nano-computers infecting human brains.

Or maybe this proto-race is evil - creating races for them to ultimately develop new technology and terraform planets, only to be reconquered and new technology and planets harvested once they're ready. Then the humans and Na'Vi would need to align together to stand side-by-side, thus mimicking the humanity-balanced-with-technology philosophy the Matrix delivered. (albeit delivered in the form of 2 awful sequels.)

SPOILER: (what I just described was the plot of Mass Effect)

Human Race is Transforming into Cyborgs

Given my analysis previously that Avatar is cautionary about cybernetics, and given James Cameron has covered this topic before in Terminator 2, I think we might see the human race even more corrupted by machines. Maybe the humans come back, but the suits are more directly connected to their bodies; maybe the humans can't even leave the suits at all. Maybe computer AI winds up controlling human organization and delivers orders. This could be a cool plot scenario, as it gives the humans a chance at redemption in the act of rebelling against their cybernetic dehumanization, and stand with the Na'Vi.

So, we'll see. I suppose that's all I have to say. I'd love to hear your ideas as to what an Avatar sequel might be like.