I like the Avatar movies, love them, actually.
Now, I could frame this like this is my dirty little secret, a confession that I’m embarrassed to make. I can see a lot of writers doing that, as hating Avatar is considered the right thing to do for cool people, and liking it is seen as something for the stupids. In this article, I will explain why you are actually the stupids.
Not really, but there is something about Avatar and the way people talk about it that made me realize I wouldn’t want to trade brains with most people. It’s not so much that they have a different opinion of a thing than I do, but that they experience it in a way that is completely foreign to me. Not liking something I can understand, far better than I’d like to if I’m being honest. Not being able to interact with it is something else, but I’ll get to that.
Let’s start from the beginning. In 2009, I did not go to the movie theater to see Avatar. I saw all the opinions from my favorite movie reviewers calling it Ferngully in Space or Dances with Blue Aliens, and decided they were right. I watched it when it came out on DVD, and I mostly agreed with them. On my non-HD television, the special effects didn’t even look all that great. I wasn’t impressed, and I mostly forgot about the movie for the next 13 years.
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In 2022, I knew The Way of Water was coming out, and for some reason, I decided that seeing it was necessary. It felt like an event in a way that movies really hadn’t since Avengers: Endgame. I told Amber we should go when it came out, and then we watched the first one to prepare. Only this time, I just sat and watched it. No phone, no laptop, no distractions. Just the movie on a much better TV, and when it was over, I said, “That rocked,” and got even more excited for the new one. Then The Way of Water came out, and blew the first one away.
What I’m looking for in a movie, a book, a show, or even professional wrestling is a way to transport myself to another world. I don’t want to spend time watching in my world; I want to be in their world. Can I notice good acting, directing, editing, sound design, and all that other stuff? Sure, but it really comes second to me. I’m looking for art that makes me feel something, and in order to feel something, you have to give yourself to it. You can’t have one foot out the door, one foot on the cool version of yourself you think exists in the real world that is ready to punch in your rating on Letterboxd before the credits finish rolling. You have to step into the world and let it take you.
For a long time, I thought this was what everyone was doing. I realize now that very few of us are actually doing that. So many people have such a cynical view of the world that I don’t even think they know how to do it.
A TikTok creator I follow said that if you take these movies seriously, you might accidentally end up liking them. The many criticisms that I see about these movies that never sit right with me can mostly be summed up with that take. If you’re predisposed to hating something, and for many this is a hate that is ingrained for 17 years now, then I really don’t want to hear your opinion on it. If you can’t engage honestly, then please don’t engage.
I think what bothers me most is that dishonesty. Currently, Avatar has made over a billion dollars at the box office. It is trending towards $1.6-1.8 billion at the box office. This is, somehow, a failure. If it ends up at “measly” $1.6b worldwide, that would be the 13th-highest-grossing film of all time. As of now, it’s 29th all-time and third for all of 2025. Yes, the first two rank 1st and 3rd all-time, so there are diminishing returns, but we’re still talking box office numbers that 99% of movies can only dream of.
There is also a part of that where this movie was not supposed to exist. The Way of the Water and Fire and Ash were originally one movie split into two for length. There is a way to look at that where this one is almost free money. It wasn’t an additional production. They had so much footage for Avatar 2 that they made two movies from it, and those movies will have made nearly four billion dollars when it is all said and done. Every word written about the “disappointing” returns for the third movie should be viewed through that lens.
Of course, that’s not what happens. Every dollar this makes less than the first two is all the more reason James Cameron should do something else next. This is, by far, the funniest take for me because it is completely devoid of reality. James Cameron, who had this idea for most of his life, had to wait for the technology to exist (or create it) to make it possible, who owns all of the IP and has endless creative freedom over the project. That guy should do something else. That guy should adapt a novel or a comic book. That guy should do Terminator 12. Instead of playing in his own world, which he created, where he can literally do anything he can dream of. Instead of doing that, he should get a job. Great idea. It’s not happening.
Even better is the pocketwatchers who say that they should make Avatar 4 and 5 with a smaller budget. Why do you care about Disney’s money like that? Especially as they are burning money to make Avengers: Doomsday and live-action adaptations of their animated movies that nobody wants. The Way of the Water is one of the most profitable movies in history, and we’re already throwing that away? Just admit you are a hater. True business heads would bleed this franchise until it was dry.
I would write these people off as what they are, haters and losers, but there is just one problem: the call is coming from inside the house. The critics are Avatar‘s biggest critics. I saw a story recently where Michael Mann called Avatar one of the best movies ever made, and it was treated with derision. I’m sorry, Michael Mann knows more about movies than you.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Avatar: Fire and Ash is sitting at just a 66% from the critics. For comparison, Fantastic Four: First Steps, one of the most rizzless and Xanned out movies I’ve ever seen, has an 86% critics’ rating.
What the fuck are we doing here? Fire and Ash is not a bad movie, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is. A bad Avatar movie still has more creativity, better effects and filmmaking prowess than anything that came out that year. The only thing that can really compete with it is the last Avatar movie that came out.
A bad Avatar without sound or a single line of dialogue, is still more amazing to watch than any blockbuster of the past ten years. Don’t believe me? Here’s a GIF.
And another.
Why stop now?
One more.
This shit rocks.
I don’t even think an Avatar movie can be properly compared to the other movies that came out in the year of its release, because it’s doing something so different that it’s impossible to compare. They are their own medium.
All of this has been a very long preamble for me to actually talk about Fire and Ash. My review is that it is great, probably the second-best Avatar movie after The Way of the Water.
(Spoilers start now.)
There are flaws, of course, as parts of the plot are derivative from the second movie. Is there really a difference between Jake telling Lo’ak “I see you” in TWOTW and “You’ve earned my respect” in F&A? Probably not. Especially not when both happen while they float in the water after a big fight.
The final battle, as a rehash of the first and second movies’ climaxes, does feel a little too familiar at times, but I get what they were going for. This is the end of a trilogy. You are always going to call back to your past in that scenario. This could be the end, and if it’s really the end, you have to play the hits.
The argument that it is just the same thing is one that I won’t abide, however. Everything is much bigger. Just look at these Tulkuns.
Honestly, my biggest complaint is that there was almost too much plot. Things don’t have time to breathe as there is so much happening. It’s very hard to time your bathroom break. More importantly, there wasn’t enough time for character development of the most important character in Avatar: Pandora.
In Avatar, Jake learning about the world, running around on trees, and flying his ikran is the part you just want to live in. In WOTW, you have time for Lo’ak to just ride around on his Tulkun for a while. It builds the relationship and shows just how fucking awesome Pandora and its oceans are. You’re almost disappointed when the action starts, and they have to fight. F&A doesn’t have time for anything like that; it’s all fighting, and I think that is a failure, even as I admit that calling Pandora a character is one of the more cringe things I’ve ever written.
The plot never stops, and so much happens that it barely fits. I enjoyed it far more the second time for exactly this reason. It still felt overstuffed, but it fit much better without the expectation of what came next.
I could go on, and maybe I will sometime, but this is running long enough, and I still want to tackle a few criticisms of this movie/series that have been bugging me.
Avatar is racist
I’ll tread lightly here as I don’t want to attack anyone’s lived experience. Instead, I’ll just explain the literal plot of the movies.
Jake Sully, a white man, is taken from Earth by a soulless corporation to another planet where he will enter into an alien body in order to get close to their culture so that the corporation can then extract all the resources from it without killing all of the natives. They will kill the natives, but they just prefer not to.
At first, Sully is on board with this plan and works as a double agent against the natives of the planet. However, he soon finds that the native way of life is far better than the human way and becomes increasingly connected to them. Ultimately, he has to make a choice, and he chooses the natives. He does everything in his power to help them, including uniting the clans to fight off the humans and send them away for good. In the final battle, Jake’s human body is his undoing and Neytiri (the symbol of all that is good about the Na’vi) kills Quarritch (the symbol of all that is bad about humans) to save him. After the humans are vanquished, Jake connects with the Goddess of his planet to leave his human (white) body behind and fully live in the alien body.
To summarize, in Avatar: The human (white) people are destructively evil, everything about the native people of Pandora is moral and righteous, and the hero (white savior) has to give up everything about his humanity/whiteness and become part of the Na’vi in order to truly be free and live a happy life.
As far as Jake being a white savior, he sort of has to be for the story. A Na’vi could never understand the depravity that humans would stoop to. Their people might have had wars in the past, but they would never genocide each other. Would they even have a word for it? Only someone from that world, a Marine paralyzed in the resource wars in Venezuela would be able to explain to them just how violent humans could be.
In WOTW and F&A, Jake is now fully a blue alien. He has kids who share some of his genetic traits, but they are 100% natives to this homeland. Jake has been accepted by the people and is fully one of them, and then the humans come back. As the humans come back, and his family is hunted, Jake returns to his human/white/Marine ways. The more he embraces this part of himself, the worse things get for him and his family. Making matters worse, Quarritch (the symbol of all things evil white man) is brought back as an Avatar himself. Only he refuses to do what Jake did, he refuses to leave his old life behind and attempt to ingratiate himself in this culture. He remains a slave to capital and thus will never be free or have a good relationship with his son. It is only once Jake returns to his roots, as seen in the first Avatar movie, embraces his Na’vi side and unites the Na’vi to fight against the colonizers, that he finds any peace or success in his mission to protect his family.
In F&A, Neytiri struggles mightily with grief over the loss of her son and becomes twisted by it. She begins thinking more like her husband, driven by anger and vengeance. It’s only once she symbolically washes the blood off her hands, after coming face-to-face with the ghost of Na’vi Christmas future (Varaang), who she will become if she doesn’t change her ways, that she realizes how wrong she’s been.
In a way, Quarritch and Varaang are Jake and Neytiri if they turned their back on their culture and leaned into the ways of the Sky People. Quarritch and Varaang live awful, empty lives that will only end badly unless they find a way to escape them.
Genocide makes its way into the story again as the humans are fully prepared to genocide all of the Tulkun in the name of profit in F&A. The Tulkun refuse to fight because it goes against their beliefs, exiling anyone who does, but they are forced to take up arms when it becomes clear this could be the literal end of their species. Humans don’t just kill trees and people, they kill wildlife too. There is nothing they won’t kill in search of expansion and profit.
All three Avatar movies end with not just the people uniting against their colonizers, but the animals and wildlife as well. There is a scene in F&A where a character orders the sealife of Pandora to “Kill all the humans!” and it is cathartic. You not only root for this character, you root against your own species. This isn’t a moment where someone loses control or becomes overpowered. This is the morally correct thing to do in the moment. I don’t think the message can be much clearer than that.
There are people, more versed in these things than I will ever be, who say the portrayal of this alien race is problematic because of the indigenous culture it is meant to represent. I believe them, but I also just want to say, take the win.
The portrayal might not be perfect, but the message is the right one. The way of the native people of Pandora is portrayed as the correct way to be in every scene. The way of humans is considered wrong and gross. They don’t belong. They offer nothing to these people. Even the allies, the doctors who do their best to help and understand, never actually help. It is always the native medicine that saves these people, never the surgeons. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that humans bring to Pandora that improves the lives of the Na’vi. They only make things worse for everything on the planet. It was better before they were there, and it will be better when they leave.
Bad dialogue
I think this is the area where people fundamentally misunderstand what Avatar is doing. This could be where someone like me can connect with it in ways others may not, because I understand that the dialogue is not the point. Or at least I don’t need it to be.
Avatar is not trying to pop you with clever dialogue like Tarantino. It is not meant to be quotable or funny. Avatar is meant to make you feel something. To share an insight from Griffin Newman that I appreciated, the dialogue is blunt because it aims to convey emotions clearly to a large audience. Whether you are six years old or seventy, you can clearly understand why these characters are doing what they do and who they are. Not only that, but these are huge international movies, and one thing that can’t be lost in translation is emotion. The dialogue isn’t the point, the emotion is.
This goes back to giving yourself to the movie. The characters talk the way they do because that’s how they talk. If you’re caught up in the things they are saying over what they are saying, you’re missing the point.
But they say ‘bro’ a lot. Honestly, who cares? Have you never met a young person?
It’s not a perfect comparison because Buffy put a high priority on dialogue, but it reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The emotion was always the most important thing in that show. They did not care about the lore whatsoever. They had tons of jokes, but they would sacrifice any joke if it betrayed the emotion they were going for. That is Avatar, except in their case, they sacrifice being liked by wannabe screenwriters in order to get the emotion across to a worldwide audience.
Spider
I admit I have a much different relationship to white boys with dreads than most people. I’ve just known so many hippies with dreadlocks in my life that it’s just not something I think about. Most white boys with dreads I’ve known can be best described as well-meaning dumbasses. If that’s not Spider, what is?
The reaction to Spider after The Way of the Water came out was something like: who the fuck is this what the fuck is this why the fuck is this who is this fucking kid. I was probably in the middle there somewhere. Then Fire and Ash came out, and the opinions on him became even louder. I won’t critique Jack Champion’s skills as an actor as a fourteen-year-old because I’m not a fucking asshole. The kid was put into a near-impossible situation, and he did his best. Sometimes he’s very good, sometimes the script doesn’t do him any favors, and sometimes this job is really hard.
Instead, let’s just talk about what happens to him in Fire and Ash. Big spoiler here, he becomes part Na’vi.
A lot of people have a problem with this, and I just don’t get it. For one, the series is about a guy who is transformed by the world into another being. This is too much for you? Secondly, nobody deserves it more.
Spider was born on Pandora and has spent his entire life trying to be Na’vi. From painting his chest, learning the language, and abiding by the culture. Everything about him as a person is Na’vi, but he was born human and thus can never really experience the spoils that this world has to offer. He loves this world, even as this world tries to kill him with its air. When he nearly dies, and Kiri saves him, it makes perfect sense to me. It makes perfect sense to anyone who cares to pay attention.
In the first movie, the woodsprite is introduced as a sign from Eywa. It saves Jake’s life from Neytiri’s arrow. In Fire and Ash, the woodsprite appears, and you know that Kiri is about to save Spider’s life somehow. Her powers may seem godlike at times, but it’s more about a deeper connection to this world and what it will offer you if you give yourself to it. Kiri saves Spider, and he is now able to breathe the air. More importantly, his dread can now connect to things like the Na’vi.
That’s right, the dreads were foreshadowing.
The act of doing this saves his life, but it also puts a huge target on him. One that may be worth killing over, but that’s not the right thing to do. Because Spider is a gift, Spider is a miracle, and no matter how you felt about him or his character at any other point in this franchise, at this moment when his life is on the line, you want him to live with all your heart. If you care to. If you’re willing to give yourself to the movie.
That feeling right there, love against my better judgment and tears against my will, is what the movies are all about. That is the high I am forever chasing in this stupid medium.
When James Cameron talks about Avatar 4, he talks as if it will be the best movie in the series. I believe him. I might be the father of a college graduate by the time it comes out, something that is hard to reckon with when they are still in high school as of this writing, but no matter where we are at that time, we’ll be seated for that movie as soon as we’re able. I hope that when that time comes, I’m still able to give myself to the movie, and that others will be able to too.
It’s far more rewarding that way.
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