The question that arises in me is this: What would it cost me? If I were to jump between leaves or ride the dragons, would I have to give up reasoning? Would I have to give up planning for the future or remembering of the past? Would I have to give up thinking of myself as a free agent, forming my future and making moral decisions? Would I have to enter the world of the psychotic, believing that every seed is a spirit and every stone is watching me? Would I have to give up self-consciousness? How deep can I plunge into the animist world without losing myself? And is there a way back?

You said:
‘There is no real interest in the quality of their society, they are simply portrayed by the scientists in the film and by the film itself as backward. How could any thought be more tied up with the colonial project?’

The film cannot be read as colonialist. It is anti-colonialist. The main character in Avatar is not depicted as the archetypal great white hope that you imply. His physical disability makes the character more complex, and the ideology of the film more interesting.

It is true that the main character plays a central role in leading the Navi to victory against the human colonialists. However, he himself is only able to find personal redemption by living as they do. The actions of his former life, as part of the human war machine, have left him crippled. The scene near the end, where his Navi girlfriend lifts him out of the thought transferal machine where he lies dying, underlines the overall message that the Navi have restored his life.

Earlier, when he addresses the new leader of the tribal society as ‘brother,’ asking for his help in defeating the human colonialist forces, this is not an empty phrase, but a statement of the truth of their mutual dependence.

Secondly, you said:

‘There is no thought that technology, forever stated as instrumental domination, could be transformed to serve the many rather than the few.’

I read the film’s primary ideological statement as being that technology should be made to serve human nature rather than supplanting it. That is, that tecnology has the capcity to enhance life and to alienate an individual from their own nature.

The single-minded pursuit of capital through technology is depicted as a something that divorces humanity from its own nature – witnessed in the inhumane slaughter of the Navi at their tree. One marine rejects this, refusing to take part in the slaughter. She uses her X-Wing or whatever it is to fight the other marines – adapting the same own technology to what she sees as a more humane cause.

Thought transfer technology enables the scientists / anthropologists to live alongside the Navi and the world of Pandora. The gas mask is used to save the main character’s life. Through these technologies, the main character is able to reconnect with his own nature.

This is not the same as a ‘fetishisation of the natural,’ to use your phrase, but a manifesto for the use of technology in support, or even in the pursuit of the natural, in the sense of human nature.

It is the use of technology for the pursuit of capital that is criticised -as ultimately self-alienating – not technology itself.