He's *supposed* to be Custer (so obviously that it's rather embarrassing), that's why we're supposed to hate him. But the actual situation isn't equivalent, which is (I hope) why so many people take his side - the Na'vi are actually being unreasonable. So people rebel against the rather patronising message of the movie. Hey, turns out protagonist was wrong to choose an alien babe over his own people!
Also just to clarify, my story was less "Humanity fuck yeah" and more "Humanity OH GOD"
I never could commit to liking the Avatar movie. The motivation of the humans was, literally, "WE'VE STRUCK UNOBTANIUM" and the motive of the Na'Vi was "Wait, who are these feckers on our planet?"
Of the two, the Na'Vi are the more reasonable in base motivation, but they're even more xenophobic than the humans are. What was Unobtanium? Why do we need it? That was always the question that burned me.
The ending of Avatar always seemed so very sad to me. Not because humanity lost, but because the Na'Vi did. This was the chance for a peaceful reconciliation, for a blending of ways. You didn't defeat them, you just took out their ground base. They came in a space ship, and they don't want your trees, or your animals, or you. They want your rocks.
They're not going to land next time, they're just going to put a battleship in LO and burn you from space. Your rocks will survive a planetary strike. Not much else will.