Telling human stories using animals as allegories of personality archetypes is as old as humanity itself, it is no surprise regular movie goers would prefer to look a cute cartoon animals over Cameron's uncanny-valley-blue-monkey-cat-xenoinjuns.
A lot has changed since 2009 when the original Avatar came out. The notion of the "noble savage" lost its social and cultural value among every day people. Fortunately now there are historians that have taken an honest look at the true history of primitive cultures and shown the extend of the brutality and merciless nature of people who lived and died in a state of uncivilized wilderness. There is also the issue of Western societies experiencing first-hand being "enriched" over the years by the presence of literal 3rd world savages that care not for the societies or the people that hosts them.
Cameron has become too much of a liberal misanthrope in his opinions as of late and it doesn't help that he is too much of a boomer to notice how the message of his movies do not resonate with the way society is going. The idea of trying to paint humanity as the bad guy by portraying it in the most contrived, cartoonishly evil way possible while at the same time as incompetent just doesn't fly anymore. There is a reason why Quaritch and not Jake Sully is the most popular character in the franchise.
The visuals and technology of the movie may be state-of-the-art but the message is outdated. Cameron hasn't gotten the memo that the audience actually wants to see humanity win.
