The characters in the first Star Wars movie aren't stereotypical, they're archetypal, and the story is certainly something special.

Pandora is lacking in imagination. Big cats, angry lemurs and things that are basically horses. Riiiiiight. Someone got paid a whole lot to come up with animals that already exist and give them another leg or something. It's not even done with panache. It's done with tedium, it just thinks it's being really imaginative.

I'm fine with aliens slaughtering humans, and I'm even fine with a guy having to shed his human form in order to truly be one of the good guys. I get that it's a metaphor for shedding the uglier parts of humanity, etc. The Na'vi are people just as much as humans are -- except that they're lacking in any depth of character. That's what I can't get on board with. Cameron obviously thinks the Na'vi are incredibly wise and in touch with higher spiritual knowledge, but they're idiots who talk to trees and have no personality whatsoever.

If you want to make up a race that is wise and spiritual, make them wise and spiritual. The only reason they weren't pummelled in the final battle is that Cameron resorted to a literal (!) deus ex machina. There was nothing new, special or clever about them, just tired old Deepak Chopra-style hack spiritualism.