Avatar 2 - A Psychological Extravaganza
The Avatar is one of the most succesful movie franchises of our times , Apart from the stunning vfx and cinematography , there are some psychological underpinnings in the movie which resonate with the human race and civilization on a deep level
Here are some of them which i could observe and decode from the movie
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The general theme of the movie basically represents a culture war between two different ideologies
The Naavi people on the one hand exhibit tribal Consciousness , are more nature loving and willing to protect it , and on the other hand the humans which came from earth to pandora represent the extreme forms of modern rational consciousness represented by their advanced technology and destroying nature for their own selfish needs -
Retroromanticism - In the first Avatar movie Jake sully who represented the human race on Pandora got extremely distressed by seeing the greed and destruction inflicted by his people on the Naavi and actually went against them to embrace tribal Consciousness and join the Naavis , a process which is called Retromanticism in which a person or group when faced with the negative qualities of a particular level of consciousness or ideology actually regresses to lower levels of consciousness which are more comforting , Jake sully regressed from modern rational Consciousness to primitive tribal Consciousness
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Worldcentric stance - In the 2nd part when Jake sully realises that humans are attacking the Naavis because of him , he leaves along with his family on a different Island which shows a high level of care for the larger group other than his own family
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Migration and Acculturation dynamics
When Jake and his family move to the island inhabited by the Metkiyana people , they are not welcomed at first by the tribe , but are subsequently included in their tribe by their chiefs order , representing another aspect of tribal Consciousness of listening to an authority figure
Initially Jake’s children have difficulty adjusting to the new ways of the culture , representing a pattern of acculturation which is called seperation where they had problems adjusting to the new culture and were not able to leave the old ways of their culture while sully was insisting then to try to fit in with the new ways , an acculturation startergy called integration where he was trying to integratte his old culture with the new one -
Pre / Post fallacy - The ostracized Tulkun who was labelled as rebellious in the movie , actually went against the norms of his group for a higher cause and demonstrated post Conventional morality , but was labelled as a preconventional rebellious member by the conventional norms of his group when in reality he was demonstrating high levels of autonomy and self identity , a concept which is called pre /post fallacy in which the predominant or average mode of thinking of a culture or society now matter how narrow it is regards the levels of psychological development below them and as well as above them as the same , because both of them do not conform to their conventional rules and ideologies
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Nature vs Nurture - The human kid called Spyder in the movie who spent most of his childhood with the Naavi’ s started adopting their ways of life , which clearly shows the role of culture and group dynamics in the formation of one’s personality and self identity
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Parental Dynamics - Jake Sully is shown to be a very strict and authoritarian father , whereas Neyteri is more focused on allowing her children to explore life
Colonel Miles is depicted as a father who abandoned his child and is treated in a very condescending way by his son, but at the end of the movie though Spyder knew his father was wrong still he saved him which showed an ethnocentric stance by him as he saved his father though he knew he would cause more harm to other people