If you’ve been on social media in the past month, you might have stumbled across heated debate around James Cameron’s Avatar films and their “cultural relevance.” Essentially, people have been wondering why the first two films are among the top 3 high-grossing movies of all time (Avengers: Endgame is No. 2), and yet Avatar’s world of Pandora and its nine-foot-tall blue Na’vi are never really spoken about unless there’s a film in theaters.
It seems strange to call films with running times of 3+ hours and budgets in excess of $400 million a lesson in restraint but bear with me a moment. With most movie franchises, the films are just the beginning. For the past several years, streaming series – either live-action or animated – have served as the connective tissue between movies. They might not be required viewing, but die-hard fans typically have ample opportunity to whet their appetite for any given intellectual property in-between major theatrical releases, whether it’s Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Lord of the Rings, Godzilla or otherwise.
With Avatar, unless you’re visiting Disney’s Animal Kingdom or seeking out the sparse video game offering or tie-in comic, there’s not much out there to absorb. That might mean less actual conversation online between movies, but it also means less saturation of the brand. More anticipation. People get excited when they have the chance to return to Pandora to hang out with human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and their family, which might help explain why the new film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, has earned more than $760 million worldwide in its first two weekends during a softer year for blockbuster box office.
As someone who has unfortunately contributed to the “cultural relevance” conversation around Avatar in the past and someone who was mostly lukewarm on its predecessor, The Way of Water, I approached Fire and Ash with a degree of trepidation. I’ve always liked Cameron’s 2009 film, but many of the creative decisions in the sequel didn’t quite land with me. I was underwhelmed by the resurrection of the first film’s human villain, Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) as a Na’vi. I similarly thought it was strange that Sigourney Weaver’s deceased character, Dr. Grace Augustine, had a virgin birth by way of the character’s Na’vi Avatar body. I also cringed at Spider (Jack Champion), a human raised by Na’vi in true George of the Jungle form who also happens to be Quaritch’s son. Those decisions all paid off in major ways in Fire and Ash, which officially turned me into an Avatar fan. I’m not going to paint myself blue and grow what’s left of my hair into a ponytail anytime soon, but we’re making progress here.
The story is more or less what you’d expect from this series – the evil humans want to mine resources from Pandora, and the heroic Sully family fights to protect it. The broad strokes are good vs. evil, but there’s substance in the details. Jake and Neytiri grapple with whether their adopted human Spider truly belongs with them. Kiri, Dr. Augustine’s Avatar baby and another adopted Sully kid, develops a deeper connection to the planet and its deity, Eywa, giving her existence some mystical weight. The Sullys’ teenage son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) grapples with guilt over the death of his brother in the prior film. There’s a breadth of emotion and humanity in this film, which brings advanced motion-capture technology and some strong acting together in a powerful package made all the more impactful when you realize the nine-foot-tall blue cats are making you cry.
But Fire and Ash, like its predecessors, is all about spectacle in the grandest sense. Pandora is brimming with beautiful landscapes and creatures that are worth the heftier 3D price tag. I could have used less time chatting with the whale-like Tulkun creatures (they were central to the plot of the previous film and wind up being a major part of this film’s third act), but it’s undeniably satisfying watching these things in action against the bad guys.
And speaking of bad guys, we need to talk about the true villain of Fire and Ash, Varang, played by Oona Chaplin, granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin. Sadistic and cruel, she leads the Ash clan and stands against Eywa and the planet itself. Given that we’ve gotten Quaritch as the big bad two movies in a row, Varang was a welcome, unsettling change of pace, showing that not all Na’vi are in tune with nature. Some want to conquer it.
Taken together, The Way of Water and Fire and Ash serve as an excellent two-part follow-up to Cameron’s groundbreaking original film, and whenever he decides to release the next one, I will certainly be there opening weekend. TBD on the blue body paint.
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