Some see racist theme in alien adventure ‘Avatar’
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Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief of the sci-fi Web site io9.com , likened “Avatar” to the recent film “District 9,” in which a white man accidentally becomes an alien and then helps save them, and 1984’s “Dune,” in which a white man becomes an alien Messiah.
First off, Paul Atriedes in “Dune” starts out as a human, and the Fremen of Arrakis are humans. Paul does sort of become an alien worm thingie in the story after “Dune” (although not in the movie) but at no point in the book or any of the various film adaptations is he ever anything other than a spiced-up human.
And in “District 9,” Wikus Van De Merwe turns into an alien, but he doesn’t become the leader of the aliens. He does help the leader and his son escape, but Wikus himself gets stuck picking through garbage in the new alien relocation camp, waiting for the sequel.