James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash picks up things where the second part, Avatar: The Way of Waterleft us. Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), the second son of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), is ridden with the guilt of being the reason for the death of his elder brother Neteyam (Jamie Flatters). Even Sully seems to blame him for the loss; he even spells it out, giving the necessary redemption arc to Lo’ak, who continues to defy orders — just like his father from the first part.
Meanwhile, the Sullys are being accepted by the Metkayina clan, but Neytiri and Ronal (Kate Winslet) keep hissing at each other now and then. The storyline, however, is driven by Spider (Jack Champion), the son of Quaritch, who has clearly chosen the Na’vi’s side, like his adopted father. While he has become a Na’vi at heart, his body continues to be human, and when he is about to run out of spare life-support respirators, Sully decides to take him to the base and part with him for once. Thus, the Sullys take one last journey as a family, but things take a turn as they get raided by Varang (Oona Chaplin), the Na’vi leader of the volcano-dwelling Mangkwan clan and her henchmen.
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In the meantime, the RDA continues being a threat, and Quaritch (Stephen Lang), now in a Na’vi avatar, who doesn’t seem to die, makes a comeback with old memories and a bit of humanly love for his son Spider. He ends up teaming up with Varang, and things snowball into one epic final battle, like always, to yield the same result. That seems to be the overarching problem with Avatar: Fire and Ash: there seems to be very little novelty in terms of story.
There is, of course, an engrossing dilemma Quaritch and Sully find themselves in. Quaritch is unable to hate his son despite him being the traitor of his own race. On the other hand, Sully is forced to get his hands dirty for the future of Pandora itself. These moments leave you pondering about what it is to be human, especially the conversation between Sully and Neytiri about the latter standing by the ‘pink skin’.
What is to be a human when you are a Na’vi
When you cut through all the spectacle, the sprawling story of Avatar is the exploration of an ideal human taking the right decision despite the gargantuan odds stacked against him. While humans get reduced to the demonic ‘Sky People’ in the eyes of the Na’vi, we are reminded that the best of their species, the Toruk Makto, remains a human. The irony is delectable, but Avatar: Fire and Ash doesn’t take things beyond this, which the earlier parts have eloquently put across already.
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Maybe, adding the Satanic Varang to the mix —.to say there are bad apples among the blue skins too — makes things a bit less unidimensional. Whether it is a Na’vi or humans, Cameron wants you to know the choice defines you more than the skin or the species. The problem is that it becomes more so-on-the-nose with every other subsequent iteration.
Inflated melodrama
Added to it is the melodrama, as characters — especially Varang — end up being one-dimensional caricatures. The sequence of Quaritch and Varang’s communion looks shockingly puerile and lacking any sort of subtlety. Maybe that’s the price to pay while painting on an enormous canvas. You lose nuance as your brush strokes need to be huge and something of a spectacle.
World-building is epic though empty
James Cameron does leave you in awe with the world he has created. You have the trading ships of the Windtraders to marvel at Cameron’s imagination. A lot happens in that sequence as the ships get launched into the sky. A lot of it doesn’t matter in the larger scheme of things, but there are intricacies and detailing in there. The same is absent when it comes to the story and the emotions, as there is a sense of déjà vu that prevails throughout it all.
While Pandora remains interesting, the story seems to be losing steam. Now that forest, water, and fire are out of the way, maybe we will move on to air. Maybe it is time for the Na’vi to get into space.
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