I saw this the night it came out with my wife and two children. We all loved it and, in fact, my wife announced that it is easily one of her top five favorite movies of all time. I am not even going to address the claims about racism. If you really want to be offended by something, you will find a way. As far as how the military is treated in this film, it was pretty clear to me that they were mercenaries. Yes mercenaries get treated badly in this film and for that matter and there are a number of other stereotypes but it was a science fiction movie, not Saving Private Ryan. It was just supposed to tell an interesting story. Somebody had to be the bad guys and the plot dictated that be a military or paramilitary force, so you get mercenaries. It's hardly the first time mercenaries have gotten a bad wrap in a movie, corporations are always greedy and ruthless and they always manage to find the most cold blooded mercenaries known to man. Everybody knows that. Just the same, I enjoyed it. As far as I was concerned it was a retelling of Dances With Wolves with the huge bonus that I was not subjected to Kevin Costner for two and a half hours.

Oh, and I wouldn't read to much into the wounded vet thing. As far as I could see it was just a plot device. He needed to be a former Marine so that he would have a connection to the bad guy and he needed to be a paraplegic so that a) the bad guy would have a huge bribe to offer him and b) to create the huge contrast between the crippled human and the healthy alien. Of course I could be wrong but I don't think it was some kind of swipe at the VA system, especially given that Cameron apparently thought this script up years ago, before OIF/OEF.

SFC W