'Avatar: Fire and Ash' – Déjà Blue

Following decades of premeditated development — necessitating multiple script treatments, the advancement of motion-capture and digital imaging technologies, and the creation of an intricate fictional language to support an expansive ecosystem of alien fauna, flora, and religious mythology — James Cameron’s latest (and potentially final) installment in the Avatar franchise has arrived.

Despite long-standing critical scepticism and persistent detractors, Cameron’s Avatar (2009) and its 2022 sequel The Way of Water can be understood as decisive interventions in the evolution of the contemporary blockbuster. Their significance lies not only in the tactile precision and engineering ambition of their visual effects, but also in their reaffirmation of emotional sincerity at a scale increasingly rare in current studio filmmaking. Recent viewings of both films further underscore that they are the products of a filmmaker whose sensibilities were forged during the action-cinema renaissance of the 1980s and ‘90s, and whose commitment to spectacle remains inseparable from an enduring belief in love, connection and narrative idealism.

Avatar: Fire and Ash resumes immediately following the events of The Way of Water, situating the Sully family within the eastern oceanic regions of Pandora, where they remain embedded among the aquatic Metkayina clan. The plot unfolds against the backdrop of a sustained insurgency and guerrilla conflict directed at the Resources Development Administration (RDA), now intensified by the return of the recombinant Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the trilogy’s main antagonist, who’s only gotten pulpier and more xenophobic with each iteration. This antagonistic force is further consolidated through Quaritch’s alliance with Varang (Oona Chaplin) and her militant, fire-worshipping Na’vi faction. Varang is the newest and most unpredictable among Pandor’s rogue gallery; she also offers a romantic angle to Quaritch, who finds kinship in her unapologetically nasty approach to managing the Sully family and Pandora as a whole.

Despite the profound attachment that many viewers — including long-standing admirers of Cameron’s work — have developed toward the characters and world-building of the Avatar franchise, narrative complexity is not the primary mechanism through which these films achieve their impact. Rather, their effectiveness derives from a sweeping, romanticised science-fiction aesthetic that contains some of the genre’s most intense sensory immersion and environmental spectacle which he articulates through a tactile tension between advanced technology and the natural world; his universe can thus be likened to the ecological animism of Hayao Miyazaki’s beloved Princess Mononoke.

It is within this particular aesthetic register that Fire and Ash falters, thus constituting the weakest Pandora joint so far. The film functions less as a distinctive "Avatar 3" and more like "The Way of Water 2". For a filmmaker renowned for both technical audacity and narrative risk-taking, the film’s overall approach is noticeably conservative, relying heavily on familiar structures and visual motifs rather than advancing the franchise’s aesthetic or ideologies. Specifically, this results in the final, climactic setpiece being completely reminiscent — both in tone and imagery — of the previous two finales, portraying a carbon copy of what we’ve already seen prior. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, I guess?

Nevertheless, a good chunk of Fire and Ash works as intended, largely owing to Cameron’s continued precision as a spatial choreographer. At 71 years of age, Cameron’s directorial approach remains notably romantic not only within the context of characters and their motifs, but on an exenstial level of his image-building craff, particularly in his construction and staging of large-scale action sequences.

Cameron and company’s third outing contains sequences that rank among the most technically assured in the franchise, demonstrating his enduring command of cinematic kineticism. Most notably, the movie showcases an appreciation for the aerial. In the latter half of the film, a prison-break sequence evolves into an airborne pursuit, explicitly recalling the trench-run iconography of Star Wars while recontextualising it within Cameron’s persistent interest in militarised technology colliding with organic or ecological spaces. It also includes a technically impressive scene involving hot air balloon-style transport vessels up against enemy banshees which synthesises verticality, speed, and environmental threat to sustain an unusually high level of spatial legibility. These moments completely reaffirm Cameron’s reputation for action image-making that prioritize mechanical coherence and physical consequence.

In addition to its large-scale action, the film mines considerable pleasure from character moments, most notably in the exchanges between Quaritch and Varang. Their shared screen time culminates in one of the film’s most formally distinctive sequences, structured around the ritualised use of hallucinogenic power moves. The ritual generates lustful monologues, culminating in one of cinema's most significant “I can change her” moments in recent memory.

Ultimately, the long-term cultural durability of Fire and Ash may not rival that of the previous two Avatar installments, nor does it appear to stand out within Cameron’s broader body of work. However, its further elaboration of the Na’vi’s spiritual relationship to Eywa deepens the series’ quasi-religious cosmology, conveying a deliberately earnest – even dorky – quality to its storytelling that recalls the moral and mythic sensibilities of John Ford’s Westerns.

Although it pains me to admit it, at this stage, I would welcome Pandora’s richly developed mythology concluding as a cohesive trilogy with this chapter. It has been a clumsy, remarkable theatrical journey. Nevertheless, one cannot help but hope that Big Jim might eventually turn his attention toward long-rumoured projects such as True Lies 2. Please, Cameron, for me.

-Jack