20 Things You Somehow Missed In Avatar

Even the most casual viewer will appreciate that Avatar is a thinly-veiled critique of American imperialism, what with the Resources Development Administration (RDA) serving as the film's cartoonishly evil villains, doggedly determined to mine Pandora for every scrap of Unobtanium possible.

Yet Cameron makes this fact even clearer if you keep your eyes peeled during Colonel Quaritch's (Stephen Lang) opening speech in the RDA mess hall before the soldiers head to Pandora.

During the wide shot of Quaritch speaking, the open blind behind him bears an uncanny resemblance to the striped American flag, and to hammer the point home, if you look closely at the metal sheet in the top-left corner, it even has the number "50" written on it, as in the 50 states of the U.S.

It's easily missed given how engaging Quaritch's speech is, and as a result one of the few genuinely subtle thematic elements in the entire movie.