What’s interesting about “Avatar: The Way of Water” is that, besides some off-hand mentions, the plot of the film is no longer predicated on extracting the goofily-named element unobtainium from Pandora anymore. Instead, the RDA is attempting to completely terraform Pandora for human occupation, since in the ensuing years since the first “Avatar” film, it seems Earth has become completely inhabitable (rather than just mostly uninhabitable).
We don’t spend a lot of time on Earth, but it seems one of the main issues with the planet in the “Avatar” universe is that it’s overcrowded. However, there is an explanation given to why that is in “Avatar: The Way of Water” that isn’t simply Malthusian (i.e. racist and classist): Once again, corporate greed and unregulated capitalism is the problem. See, during the previously-mentioned tulkun hunting scene, we discover the tulkun brain-goop is used to completely stop aging in humans.
This means that there is a population of people on Earth who are essentially immortal, assuming they can afford the goop. Adding to the fact that workers can seemingly have their memories scanned to constantly be re-cloned as an infinite labor force, it seems the company’s short-sighted, profit-motivated, and anti-labor policies are dooming Earth.
This also goes against the balancing of energy that the Na’vi follow on Pandora. They say the Goddess Eywa gives energy for life, but that it is only borrowed, and that you end up giving the energy back in death. However, humans on Earth (presumably rich humans) are trying to hoard their life — and their energy — and not giving back it back to nature, causing disruption, chaos, and destruction on their planet in the process.
