The problem that any allegory regarding imperialism has is that it loses it's credibility the moment it starts talking about the noble savage. While the main allegory of the movie regards Native Americans, I'm not one. So let me say this from an African American perspective. Alright allow me to adjust my writing style to angry black guy. Haven't done it in a while.
Alright I'm ready.
I hate to admit it, but the Europeans were technologically more advanced than my ancestors. I can't get around it. I can't negotiate with it. It is what it is. That however did not give slave traders and European governments the right to do what they did. Setting up the noble savage says, "genocide, rape, slavery and murder are wrong not because they're universal evils, but because the savage's culture is in someway superior to our own". Cultural inferiority or superiority shouldn't matter. Culture is not like technology. There isn't a best . When I get a new computer I stop using the old because the new one is just better. Culture with some exceptions isn't like that. My Monday shirt isn't better than my Tuesday shirt; It's just different.
Furthermore the notion of the noble savage ignores several poignant realities that are important even today when talking about race and foreign relations.
Technology can make people's lives better. No matter what culture you are from somebody in that culture will realize this. People perceive technological superiority as cultural superiority, even though they aren't the same fuckin' thing. (I'm sorry. As is usually the case I get a little heated when talking about racism.)
A children's book painted the picture better than Cameron did. (Animorphs taught me so much about life. It should be required reading for every young sci-fi nerd.)
"Marco must have read my mind. He drifted up beside me and whispered in my ear, 'We give in now, they own us.'
As often was the case, Marco was seeing things I'd overlooked. He was right; The human race had just opened their first negotiations with an alien species with far superior technology. If this relationship started from an acceptance of Andalite superiority and human weakness, it would always be that way. We'd end up being second-class citizens on our own planet."Jake from K.A. Applegate's Animorphs #54 The beginning.
In a situation like that it generally would be considered advantageous to have access to that technology, but unless you're very careful it will be construed as accepting social inferiority.
(Which is also why Detroit is the butt of every joke. You have one more time Stewart. One more time.)
Most developing countries want access to medicines and education that can greatly improve quality of life, but want to adapt those technologies into their own cultures, governments and legal systems as well as be accepted as equals on the world stage.
In short the histories of Africa and Native America, show what happens when they fail and technological superiority is mistaken as cultural superiority and cultural superiority is taken as license to do whatever the hell you want, no matter how morally reprehensible.
P.S. Negotiations should always come from a position of strength, which is regrettably the reason for a hell of a lot of war. People want to force the other side to come to the table on their terms. Conquest hasn't been the cause for most of the war of the in the later half 20th century. It was getting the other guy to talk to you and give you favorable terms. Which in reality was the tactic the Soviets were trying in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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