Only Possible Plot?

Formulae are fine, and popcorn films are fun, but the way they left the storyline in the last Avatar, it seems like the only possible outcome is for the humans to return and nuke the planet from orbit. They really only lost due to a stampede of six-legged rhinos (et al.), and they were restraining themselves from obliterating the Navi for (largely) political reasons. Seems like once they got a whoopin' they'd just come back and no longer be willing to pull punches.

Eh...but in retrospect, I feel like T2 is exciting, but way more of a low-pro, popcorn action film. It did have some philosophical underpinnings, but it's honestly all kinda superficial.

My hope for Avatar 2 is that it goes full fantasy to be honest. I don't think that having the humans return would make the movie quite that interesting.

Avatar 3 is just shenanigans in the command centre for the mining colony.

Number 4 is more shenanigans on the ride home (mostly sleeping).

Avatar 5 they come back to earth and find out apes took over.

I have had this thought since the first Avatar ended, so it's possible that I or somebody else already expressed a similar sentiment. It's the only logical result of letting those army guys go back to Earth, especially under no Pandoran supervision. They can spin it however they want to Earth media.

Originality wasn't my gripe. I know it's a re-tread of so many other stories. I just don't see it ending another way, and they'd need a doozy of a logic leap to make it play out differently.

As for wokeness, the original was basically about how the Earth Goddess planet of Native American hippies are always right and the greed-propelled, interfering military-industrial complex of a USA-type civilization are wrongthinking psychopaths, so I'm not sure how much more "woke" it would get.

Sure. Or that. Either way, they'd 100% just obliterate them from space and then strip-mine the whole of Pandora down to the last rock.

Yup. I'm sure Cameron and Co. will come up with a "reason" why they can't just do that (like, "Oh, if we irradiate the unobtainium it won't work anymore!" or something), but they already kinda painted themselves into a corner in the first film where they basically stated that the only reason they're playing nice with the much less technologically-sophisticated Na'vi is political; if they bombard them from space, back on earth there will be trouble raised with the hippy element and they don't want the headache. But if they limp home, they can spin the defeat however they want. "They just started attacking us. They're savages!" etc. and the fact that they're defeated will lend credence to the story. That's a big propaganda lever they can use to drum up support and use it to firebomb the planet until they turn the surface of Pandora to glass, then go down and strip-mine what's underneath.