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[Jim H]

I can't say I was rooting for humanity, mostly since I felt the movie was an allegory for what Europeans did when they discovered the New World.

Either way, the ending was a downer. I mean, sure the Na'vi won and got to keep their culture and their world, but humanity was essentially sent to go extinct on Earth. Well, probably not. Knowing us we probably came back with a much, MUCH bigger army soon after, nuked several key sites from orbit, and took the planet over anyway. I somehow doubt an army of animals would do much good against a nuclear bomb.

That thought had occurred to me as well. The atmosphere is already poisonous to humans, they obviously don't give a crap about the local ecology, they'll do anything for the mineral, and they appear to have huge resources. Where are the nukes? Apart from bad publicity (controllable, I would think) and maybe a few moral qualms, there would seem to be no downside for them. And yeah, maybe they didn't have nukes with them because they didn't see any danger of being wiped out or expelled from the planet altogether. Maybe the corporate dweeb in charge wouldn't have gone that far. But the board of directors is sure as hell not going to just give up. There's probably a ship carrying tactical nukes already leaving Earth, with a new administrator who is a bit more of a cold-hearted bastard.

I think the key factor here is the people on Pandora weren't military.  They were private contractors working for a corporation.  And corporations may be powerful, but unless you're in the Aliens universe (which Avatar isn't) or something like it, corps aren't allowed to have that kind of power.  You might recall the massive bomb thing they were going to use towards the end had to be jury rigged, as it wasn't intended to be used to blow up an enemy compound.

Another point is this: imagine trying to FIND the mineral after it has been nuked.  The entire area would be heavily irradiated, so everyone would have to wear heavy radiation suits and the mineral itself would be irradiated, and you would have physically blown the deposits all over the place (depending on how deep in the ground they are).  Beyond that, if unobtanium is a resource for energy (which, IIRC, is never specified in the movie but is revealed in non-film sources), how do you know how it would react to an atomic explosion?  Maybe the blast would blow the mineral itself up, or render it useless. 

A better idea might be napalm or something similar.  Burn everything out (again, assuming explosives and fire don't damage the mineral) then harvest.

Regardless, I expect the humans returning will play a heavy role in the sequels. 

[AndyC]

Actually, nuking them would do less damage to the unobtainium than you might think. An air burst at the right altitude would wipe out the Na'vi and clear a good deal of the vegetation, while sucking up a minimum of debris that would come back as fallout. Something on the order of 15 kilotons (and there are far smaller nukes available) would make a crater only a few feet deep and maybe a thousand feet across, basically saving them some digging. The severity of the heat and blast damage drops off pretty quickly as you move away from Ground Zero. The most radioactive of the fission byproducts would decay quickly, with radioactivity dropping off sharply. The greatest danger of exposure is not direct, but by breathing in radioactive material, so in a matter of days you could go outside for short periods with little more than the breathing mask you needed anyway. And most of the work is done from inside airtight machines, so it's not really an issue.  The radioactivity would be nearly gone in a few months, with the remainder being carted off with the topsoil they need to remove anyway, and things would go on as before, except that there would be no arrows flying around. Assuming they don't care about the natives or the planet's ecology, which was made pretty clear, there really is no downside from the humans' point of view.

There might have been no reason to have nuclear weapons on a mining colony, but this corporation surely has the resources to get them or influence a government to send them. I think the odds are very good that as the Na'vi were celebrating their victory, a ship was already preparing to deliver a basket of mushrooms to them in about six years' time, most likely pounding them from orbit before the Na'vi even know there's a ship on the way.

I suppose a sequel is inevitable, so this all works to Cameron's advantage. The humans will be back, probably not to annihilate the Na'vi immediately, because that would end the movie very quickly, and not with the desired outcome. But they'll have more military hardware, a meaner guy in charge, and maybe even a nuclear threat.

[dean]

I think the odds are very good that as the Na'vi were celebrating their victory, a ship was already preparing to deliver a basket of mushrooms to them in about six years' time, most likely pounding them from orbit before the Na'vi even know there's a ship on the way.

I just realised that the link I posted earlier to the 'alternate ending' spoof wasn't direct, but I'll post the proper link here:

http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/videos?bcpid=51434042001&bclid=41247345001&bctid=62889043001

[Psycho Circus]

I think everyone is kind of going into waaay too much detail and bickering over what's basically a flashy, run of the mill, hyped up children's movie.

[Doggett]

I still haven't seen this film. And I have no wish too.

[AndyC]

I think everyone is kind of going into waaay too much detail and bickering over what's basically a flashy, run of the mill, hyped up children's movie.

Awww, come on. That's the most fun I've had with this movie, making the case that the happy ending isn't going to stay that way.