Avatar: The Modern Pocahontas?

If you have seen the new movie that has hit theaters recently during this holiday season, than you may not have even thought of the story line like this. As soon as I saw the movie I thought about what the story reminded me of. I couldn't remember and finally another friend said 'It was like that Indian girl movie'. Of course, being a guy, he had not been raised with Disney Princess movies. But it hit me, Pocahontas.

Pocahontas was a native American who was living with her tribe minding their own business when the Pilgrims came over and wanted to take over the New World and make the natives learn their ways that they brought from London. They did not care about the people, they only saw money and power in their eyes and wanted to use the land for their own uses. In Avatar, the clan of the Na'vi were in their home, which is a huge, magnificent tree on the planet of Pandora. Humans from this world travel and are part of the 'Avatar' program and are wanting to get in well with the Na'vi because they want to teach them English and other ways of humans. You end up learning in the end that the military only want to be on Pandora because underneath the tree, there is a composite of minerals that are worth a good chunk of money, and they humans want to take down the tree and get to it. All they see is money and what they want, and they care nothing for the people and their home.

Pocahontas rescues and meets John Smith in the movie. In Avatar, Neytiri saves Jake Sully. In both, they start becoming friends and they learn traits about each other. In Avatar though, Jake is pretending to be one of the blue, ten feet tall natives, and in Pocahontas, John does not pretend to be anything but himself. He just learns about the Native Americans and their ways with the foreign lands. In both, the couple fall in love. In Avatar, Jake is supposed to be getting along with the natives and earning their trust so that he can try to persuade them to move from their tree to some other place before the tow trucks come and tear it all down, limb from limb. John Smith has no secrets really like that, Pocahontas knows that he is a part of the Pilgrims that are trying to take over the Indian's land. He is asked to be the spy for the English with the Indians and then he informs Pocahontas of things, as well. In Avatar, Jake is supposed to be the insider with the natives for the Americans. They both are supposed to be some what of a spy and then they realize that they love the girl and want to help save the girls race and clan. Both movies are all about love and the will to protect others.

I do not know whether or not Avatar was inspired by Pocahontas or anything, but I do know that once I watched this movie, I put the two together and realized that there were many similarities. In my eyes, the movie Avatar was a kind of futuristic Pocahontas.