Avatar

The movie Avatar is about a paraplegic Marine named Jake who enlists in the “Avatar” program on the planet Pandora. The multinational corporation he’s working for has come to Pandora in search of the precious mineral unobtanium…but the planet’s natives, who are blue-skinned feline aliens known as Na’vi, are proving to be a thorn in its side. The myopically evil Colonel Miles Quaritch promptly assigns Jake to join the Avatar program and broker a peace agreement (primarily involving the relocation of the Na’vi). Jake’s consciousness is then transferred into his Avatar body – a biological “shell” grown from a mixture of human and Na’vi DNA. In such a form, he can explore Pandora’s toxic atmosphere without the use of cumbersome breathing equipment…and …show more content…
Jake is at first slowly assimilated into the Na’vi society, but then the humans start to getimpatient with his lack of diplomatic progress, so the industrialists show up with missiles and gunships and start wreaking the innocent Na’vi. However, Jake has become disillusioned with his Colonel’s murderous tactics and now sympathizes with the Na’vi. In Avatar, the Whatever Device is the military's baffling unwillingness to pay for spinal restoration surgery, which conveniently allows Quaritch to hold hostage the possibility of walking again, with his human legs, unless Jake plays ball in the Na'vi's potential destruction. Avatar illustares Aristotle's idea of eudaimonia, which generally is the notion that one must be "flourishing" in life in order to achieve the supreme goal of happiness. Despite the fact that he knew he was not in his human body, Jake still enjoyed the time he had as a human Na’vi hybrid, also known as an Avatar, and he was able to appreciate the use of legs. Eudaimonia is achieving one’s full potential, doing well, living well, as well as flourishing. It is contentment, complete happiness, and an activity of the soul in accord with complete