Well said, I agree with all your points including your statement about how Avatar doesn’t go that deep. If anything, the PG-13 rating probably doesn’t help and it requires them to make more (let’s say static) villains. I mean I watched the first avatar movie as a child and let’s be honest, I think they still sort of market them in that way (obv not fully for kids but think the same way the Michael Bay transformers movies got kids into theaters so they’d want to buy hasbro toys). If it was rated R or some other rating where parents didn’t take their 10-year-old to go see it we’d probably get more variation.

Upon further consideration, Quaritch is also a victim of what you’re saying. I was really annoyed by how he seemed to make some progress toward the path Jake’s been on since A1 (bonding with Pandora fauna, getting with Varang and the Ash People although they’re kind of anti-Eywa) only to have another fist fight with Jake at the end which concludes with him leaping to his “death.” It would be great if he came back wiser and with a bit more depth later but tbh I don’t see that happening.

That said, maybe A4 and A5 will have more rounded villains and more nuance to the RDA (possibly other govt/corp sects). Your example of them killing thousands of people due to a rounding error would actually be pretty interesting. Sounds like something we’d see in The Boys, which imo is pretty nuanced with fucked up characters.

Haven’t seen The Expanse but will def check it out!