How Avatar should have ended

Before I came out to Washington DC, I saw Avatar in the theaters.  AWESOME movie.  Loved the concept, loved the characters, LOVED the science fiction elements and how well they were woven into the story.

However, like much of the stuff that comes out of Hollywood, I was disappointed with the ending.  It felt too cheap–kind of like Matrix: Revolutions.

ONCE AND FUTURE SPOILER WARNING!  MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

The ending of the story didn’t really solve the initial problem–it only put off the inevitable defeat of the good guys.  Do you REALLY think that the corporations of Earth are going to let a band of primitive aliens keep them from exploiting the natural resources of Pandora?  No way–they’ll be back, and with much bigger guns than before.  The ending solves nothing.

What they should have done was created an interstellar authority that the corporation needed to answer to–a weak, toothless one, at least initially, but one that becomes more important as the movie progresses.  This is because the real bad guy was the CEO, not the colonel–the colonel always answered back to the guy running the company.  HE was the one who made all the real decisions for the bad guys.

Things started to get cheesy once the rogue pilot sprung Jake, Norm, and Dr. Grace from the holding cell.  She should have hidden the trailer for the outpost, then sprung them out, since the only place they would go after leaving the base was the remote outpost. Where else could they go to access the avatars?

Moreover, Jake and his allies wouldn’t want to hide the trailer near the alien holy place.  That’s one of the last places they’d want to go–the aliens would just kill them, after the destruction of the mother tree.

Capturing the red and yellow dragon bird was a good way to get the legitimacy Jake needed to lead the aliens, but would the young prince really cave in so easily? I think not–especially after Jake stole his betrothed.

And summoning all the other alien tribes from across the planet? This was when I thought things had gone too far–no way was a coalition of bow and arrow wielding blue people take down the human armada.

This is where the interstellar authority comes in.  Without any oversight, the corporation can do whatever it wants.  Even if the aliens drive them off the planet, they or someone else will just come back.  Instead, the authority should have played the key role in defeating the evil corporate bad guys.

The scientists working for the corporation should have been in connection with scientists back at Earth from the very beginning.  Once the corporation pulled the plug on the science operation, it would have created discontent back home–only among the scientific elite at first, but as knowledge of Pandoran biology and its secrets begins to spread, public sympathy for the alien’s cause would grow–and with it, political capital that the scientists could leverage to stop the corporation.

Knowing this, the CEO would do everything in his power to keep the alien sympathizers from sharing their full discoveries with the scientists back on Earth.  To counter this, the good guys would have to either use their spy or covertly break into the facility to transmit the information to the people who can leverage it.

This sets up a “time bomb,” so that the goal of the good guys is no longer to defeat the bad guys in one last spectacular battle (which, let’s face it, they never could have realistically won), but instead to hold out until the cavalry arrives to save them.

There’d be a show down with the colonel, and a big epic battle to save the holy place, but the REAL victory would come when the interstellar authority comes in, arrests the CEO and his staff, freezes their operations, and slaps a whole host of regulations on the corporation, effectively saving Pandora–FOR GOOD.

That’s the way I think it should have ended.  I look forward to seeing how the guys at How It Should Have Ended.com handle it.

In the meantime, check out their take on Twilight:

I agree 110%!