'Avatar: Fire and Ash': Cameron's Biggest 'Avatar' Swing Yet
When James Cameron brought audiences back to Pandora after over a decade, little did we know that he had set in motion one of the most ambitious narrative arcs ever attempted in his prestigious career. Cameron is not known for “threequels”, which escalates the already immense pressure that lies on the shoulders of Avatar: Fire and Ash as the deciding film for the future of the Avatar franchise. Can Cameron capture the imagination of global audiences for a third time and deliver the kind of legendary box office performance that is all but required to produce these staggeringly technical films, or will his darker, third installment in the Avatar saga fail to resonate with moviegoers who, before now, have largely been drawn by spectacle over substance?
In just three short days, the jury of fans will deliver their verdict.
For our part, Kelutral had the privilege of being among the first in the world to see Avatar: Fire and Ash at the World Premiere in Hollywood, CA on December 1st. The film, for better or for worse, is dense with detail, technical achievement, drama, and some of the series’ best character work to date. Where its predecessors have traditionally leveraged significant swaths of their three hour runtime gratuitously exploring the beauty of Cameron’s personal Eden, Fire and Ash hits the narrative gas from the first seconds and never lets off. Every moment in this film is dedicated to driving forward the conclusion to the narrative arc that began in Avatar: The Way of Water, drawing its protagonists into a final confrontation that feels familiar on the grand scale, while holding significantly higher stakes on the personal one.
As a direct continuation of The Way of Water, taking place mere seconds after the conclusion of the previous film, the first two acts of Fire and Ash grapple with the immense grief, shame, rage and despair that invades the hearts of the main cast of characters following the death of the eldest Sully child, Neteyam. What struck us the most about the way Fire and Ash approaches these topics is how “human” they feel. There’s no glamorous, manufactured hollywood veneer to the choices each character makes in this film. They are raw, flawed decisions that stand as earnest explorations of human emotion instead of curated plot devices. In a media culture increasingly devoid of nuance, critics of Avatar may fail to appreciate the sharp intelligence of Cameron’s approach to these topics.
Central to this conflict is young Spider Socorro who finds himself ensnared in a complicated web of emotions emanating from a grieving Jake and Neytiri Sully, and his resurrected father Colonel Miles Quaritch. As Spider’s own life is thrown directly in the path of the RDA’s colonization efforts, Jake and Neytiri are forced to reckon with a startling new reality, stretching their relationship to its limits. The culmination of the escalating tensions and beating, emotional heart of Fire and Ash comes in the form of a scene shared between Jake Sully and Spider that is all but certain to spark heated debates among fans of the films, but is one of the strongest character moments Cameron has ever written.
Meanwhile Quaritch, unpacking his own growing feelings towards his biological son, will stop at nothing to find him and bring him back to the RDA headquarters at Bridgehead, going so far as to recruit a dangerous new Na’vi ally. Franchise newcomer Oona Chaplin delivers a legendary performance as Na’vi villainess Varang, the self-appointed leader of the vicious Ash Clan. Chaplin’s performance is mesmerising, channeling a feral, almost childlike energy as she explores the newfound power that an alliance with the RDA offers her and her outcast clan. As a narrative inversion of Jake Sully’s own journey a decade prior, Quaritch and Varang provide a fascinating look at both what could have been, and what could yet be if the RDA is victorious on Pandora.
On a technical level now commonplace for the Avatar franchise, the film still found new ways to dazzle and surprise. We are not sure how the wizards at Weta Workshop pulled off this magic trick, but in the three years since The Way of Water, they have managed to advance the visual fidelity of Avatar another decade forward. Nothing else in Hollywood could compete with Avatar blow for blow on visuals, but Cameron didn’t stop pulling punches. There are multiple, frankly gratuitous, fully CGI shots in this film that are indistinguishable from a live action capture.
In addition, the experimental variable frame rate (VFR) technology that was used in The Way of Water is present again for Fire and Ash, but has seen an exponential advancement in quality. Where the sudden change in frame rate in The Way of Water could be jarring or unrealistic, we dare say Cameron has cracked the tech for Fire and Ash, using the high frame rate sequences to expertly complement the action and visuals of the film.
Finally, and of special note, the cinematic score for Fire and Ash finally executes on a modern Avatar vision in the way we had hoped The Way of Water would. One of our true criticisms of The Way of Water is that the film spends entirely too much time retreading familiar ground, shot for shot, beat for beat. This was especially true of the score which, on multiple occasions, appropriated entire segments of James Horner’s original themes from Avatar to complement the film’s emotional beats.
In a conversation with Composer Simon Franglen after the screening of the film, we had the opportunity to ask about the dramatic difference between the scores and, as expected, Franglen was given far more creative freedom by Cameron in the execution of the score for Fire and Ash. The results sing for themselves. Franglen’s thematic work, which was present in The Way of Water but not given the time to truly shine when the film needed it most, is on full display in Fire and Ash. The result is a score that blends the themes of all of the Avatar films so far into something new and perfectly attuned to the visuals on the screen, well worthy of a Best Score nomination that was notably absent from The Way of Water.
While we will always love the original Avatar for many reasons, as an iteration of the Avatar formula Fire and Ash stands head and shoulders above its predecessors. This is Cameron firing on all cylinders to deliver a satisfying conclusion to a story three decades in the making. Technically unparalleled, dynamic, with the most compelling character work demonstrated from an Avatar film to date, Fire and Ash is a satisfying finale to a three film arc while still leaving plenty of room to explore (that Eywa reveal, hello?!).
For those not invested in the plight of the Sully family or in Stephen Lang’s resurrected Colonel Miles Quaritch (or for those who are too invested, as fate would have it), the overarching story of Fire and Ash may tread dangerously close to the previous films. This is especially true of The Way of Water, which Fire and Ash feels like a “part two” of. Whether the big swings this film takes with its characters are going to be enough to convince general audiences that this is not just more of the same remains to be seen, but if you enjoyed The Way of Water, you will enjoy this film and as lifelong Avatar fans, that’s all we could hope for.
Avatar: Fire and Ash arrives in theaters globally on December 19th.