James Cameron’s 2009 environmental odyssey makes a solid (and very digital) case for leaving humanity behind.

Without an oxygen mask, a human on the faraway moon will die in four minutes.

What a lovely place to asphyxiate, though: Think electro-Eden after a deep cleaning.

By night the green rainforests shine with dangly neon foliage, and the moss lights up to the touch.

See the bird-like insects with helicopter wings, see the noble hammerhead rhinos.

The year is 2154.

Earth is an offscreen mystery.

That’s it for specifics.

AllAvatarneeds you to know is something bad happened to Jake and his planet.

“There’s no green there,” Jake warns Pandora’s oversoul.

“They killed their mother.”

He’s already distancing himself, and his story ends triumphantly when he self-emancipates from his own human body.

Cultural memory sillies upJames Cameron’s epic: theFernGullyjokes, the questionable space-race politics, the blue natives.

But the film features the single most chilling science-fiction line he’s ever written.

“The aliens went back to their dying world,” Jake narrates near the end.

He’s talking about us.

The first film returns to theaters next Friday.

It’s a bizarre rewatch, and weirder than it needs to be.

In theory, he struggles internally between two sides.

Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) represents Jake’s military past and Earth First humanity.

He rides a pterodactyl, and then a dragon.

So the choice is: muscle-bound jerk who never goes outside vs. gorgeous cool warrior offering flight lessons.

That non-conflict extends to individual character dynamics.

(In the immortal words of Grace: “Oh s—!")

Forgiveness comes quick, and the romantic triangle unites against the Sky People.

Thirteen years before we ruined the word from overuse,Avatarwas happy to be a vibe.

No digital effects age well for long, or is that just my opinion?

But there are very recent, ludicrously expensive special effects that already look worse thanAvatar.

The director maintained his run-and-gun sensibility in the performance-capture wilderness.

When the Na’vi scale the Hallelujah mountains, you feel stratospheres.

CCH Pounderplays Neytiri’s mother.Wes Studiis her father.

Whatever your thoughts on the aboriginal allegory, there’s a clarity in this casting.

So the real-world parallels are obvious but wasAvatarever about the real world?

Pandora may symbolize an unpolluted Earth, but that sounds precisely like the internet.

Imagine if the internet was real!

Now we’re in history’s flux vortex.

Jake’s life on Pandora is often described as a dream.

Yes, there are the epic battles when when Shoulder-Mech killers battle the Na’vi cavalry.

The patter (“Who’d you expect, numbnuts?")

sounds retro more 1950s than 2150s but that’s an additive flavor.

If the screenplay is sentimental, it’s also inventing a whole new flavor of fatalistic sincerity.

Jake starts to look pale, unshaven, half-starved.

Another science-fiction story might use this opportunity to make some point about getting lost in fantasy or technology.

He could be a drug addict.

ButAvatar’s complex message is that Jakeshouldleave humanity behind.

His body is a caterpillar husk.

All hail the blue flesh.