I saw Avatar for the second time tonight (but in 3D IMax). It was entertaining, not amazing, and I wouldn't have ever seen it again had it not been for the 3D part. I found many politically interesting things, though:
This is the main character, Jake Sully, fighting the evil humans at the end of the movie. He's fighting humans because they want to extract a precious mineral, unobtainium (valuable stuff), from the Navi's (the blue people) home world. Extraction involves destroying the Navi's sacred trees and land, and all the wildlife therein.
James Cameron is a leftist, and the entire movie reeks of corny environmentalism and hatred of anything capitalist and U.S. military (it's great how the 'agenda' always pits those two on the same side, ain't it?). I found it funny, though, that towards the end of the movie, Jake Sully makes a speech to his Navi buddies that they will not let the 'sky people' (humans) take their land. Essentially, the movie ends up being about a battle for property rights. Cameron, whether he knew it or not, blew the chance of Avatar being a propaganda piece for environmentalism. Environmentalism scorns private property, because property owners usually don't care about slugs and ferns as much as environmentalists would like them to.
Cameron, though, couldn't pull out the unifying climax at the end without a rallying point. That rallying point had to be the land owned by the Navi. Americans wouldn't have bought anything less than that. Our culture does not think in terms of the commune-ideal that intellectuals and utopian leftists would like them to.
Even if a given culture did, I'd hesitate before saying that this movie would have been nearly exciting had there not been a battle over property. Think about any 'epic' movie, from Braveheart, to Dances With Wolves, and even Star Wars: they all revolve around pitting property-takers against property-owners.
Ironic, but one could argue that this movie is way more libertarian than it is leftist.
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