Avatar: Fire and Ash, was this a little predictable???

Now, I had a full mind to make a YouTube video and cover all the Avatar stuff that there was to cover but then again, life kept happening, and now, here we are...

19 days after 19th December and still no where near everything I had wanted has come to pass, not even remotely...

Kind of like Quaritch in this movie really, he had one job, and that was to find and capture Jake Sully and bring him back to base so he can pay for his... "crimes".

But he failed, and he also wasn't able to reconnect with his son, he only pushed him further with his actions made mostly in order to catch Jake.

Well regardless, we are here, and all I can do is hope that this Failure will eventually lead to something over all positive for me just like it did for quaritch...

You see from the Trailers, the clips and the marketing material, it is all very clear that two major things are going to be taking place in this movie, number one: there is going to be a new tribe of Na'vi who use Fire as their element of choice, Along with that they are just going to be straight up heretics and just be completely against Eywa.

And Two: Quaritch is not only going to use these people as a wild card against the Na'vi he actually wants to fight, I mean he is going to do that... but he is also going to bone their leader.

Varang is a very interesting character, it seems that her and her people were once forest people, and just like all forest people they worshiped eywa and the forest... except... their forest burned down... and Eywa didnt come...

This incident actually brings something into light that I was afraid would take this franchise down if it went on like this...

(Sadly something else took down this movie but okay...)

You see while it is all well and good to realize that the trees and animals we so callously cut down in the name of "development" have lives of their own and that there might be truth in some of the traditions of the cultures us civilized people trample over may have truth in them.

But one thing remains to be said, and that is... Technology is often kinder than Nature, Nature shouldn't be destroyed willy-nilly because it has value on its own as it is, but it is... somewhat random... and as a result can be a little... cruel sometimes.

Simply accepting everything that comes from nature isn't always the best for everyone, and in fact can sometimes be a little self righteous and forgetful of the fact that... we are a part of nature?

Eywa maybe a planetary neural network, but as a figure she also signifies a personification of nature itself, and at the end of the day, she is an individual, she has her own will, a will that may not always align with what one wants, some people will get left behind... what is a person like that supposed to do?

What other than make mastery over the element of their destruction? It is either that or keel over and die...

And sure that may have been what Eywa wanted but are we just supposed to just give up?

Varang was the tribe's T'sahik, the primary healer and when their Olo'eyktan was presumably taken by the same fire that claimed the rest of their tribe and home, it was up to her to "heal" her tribe and home.

And as a result she became their de facto leader and taught them the ways of the fire.

All she wants is to survive and fight against the goddess that left her and her tribe to die...

She also likes to make thunder.

Yeah, obviously they had their meet cute over a fucking flamethrower.

Truly a match made in hell those two.

But the strangest thing is, this turns out to be more complicated than it first appears.

Yes, it is absolutely true that Varang and her tribe are a bunch of heretics who raid an kill people for fun, I believe they took their hatred of Eywa a little too far, But the Mangkwan are also N'avi.

And really they hate what was done to them because once they were the exact type of devout followers that they now hunt, believe in the goddess, Eywa will provide, etc. etc.

They loved the nature of Pandora just as much as any N'avi, and they believed their devotion would be rewarded...

Their anger really, comes from the fact that they have been left out of Eywa's great plan, or at least that's what they feel.

Quaritch may tell himself whatever he wants about knowing what team he is playing on no matter the color of his skin, but in a strange way... getting closer to Varang, has got him closer to the N'avi and to Pandora, and perhaps even Eywa?

The connection between Varang and Quaritch is a dark reflection of the connection between Jake and Neytiri.

Those two met when Jake was separated from his party and at risk of being attacked by the wildlife, and Neytiri saved him.

When Quaritch and Varang met, she had his son in captivity, along with the rest of the Sully family, and Quaritch had to let a captured Jake go so he could save Spider from the crazy fire lady.

Whereas initially Jake was very submissive to Neytiri(obviously because he was learning a new environment from her), Quaritch teaches Varang to use a gun or... make thunder as she calls it, and then she ties up all of them while the "Ash People" celebrate...

But why would the Sully Kids end up in this situation?

Well... it turns out, that living as a human child on Pandora is not really feasible considering that Pandora's Air is extremely toxic and any human wanting to live on the planet(wait isn't it a moon?) has to wear a mask in order to have any chance of surviving.

But regardless Spider has been staying with the Sullys this entire time, I mean he is the only family he has ever known, but after a midnight incident where his mask ran out of oxygen while he was sleeping and if it weren't for everyone else, he probably would have died.

There is also the slight problem that Neytiri is racist towards humans, I mean no one will blame her for hating them after all that has happened, but Spider certainly has nothing to do with all that... well other than the fact that he is the son of Quaritch...

Sins of the father...

So Jake and Neytiri decide to send Spider away to live at the human settlement on Pandora, but because Kiri and the other kids are not being easy they decide to all go as a family to drop him off, and are attacked by the Mangkwan on the way.

Spider once again runs out of Oxygen midway through their escape attempt and they can't go back to collect his spare obviously because the raiders are in the way...

It is at this moment that Kiri is forced to use her abilities and develop a mycelium inside Spider using the powers granted to he by eywa and make him the first human to breathe on Pandora...

This while initially a good thing, because Spider didn't die but as Jake points out soon enough, if the humans are already planning to colonize Pandora, can anyone imagine what will happen if they can breathe there?

Between this conversation and Spider gaining the ability to breathe on Pandora, the raiders and Quaritch have their moment, but then Quaritch is captured alongside the Sullys and they are forced to work together to escape.

They think about fighting, but realize that the danger is not over yet, and decide to save it.

The next scene is one of the most beautiful in my opinion as for the first time since Quaritch becoming a recombinant and Jake betraying him, the two of them actually sit and talk.

And in this conversation, while Quaritch still tries to claim his allegiances are unchanged it is very clear he is more trying to convince himself than anything?

And he is clearly struggling with his Identity.

A struggle which intensifies even more once he actually falls in love with a N'avi, love can do crazy things to you man...

The humans back at base only respect him at all because when he brings all the Mangkwan back to base, he also brings back Jake Sully, sentenced to death and to be executed later for his crimes, but it is very clear that secretly, no one likes what the Colonel has become, the General on the base.

But they got a win, so they are taking it.

Just before the Execution Jake tries to get through to Quaritch, telling him that he isn't the man he thinks he is, all he has are a dead man's memories, he has been gifted new eyes, through which he can finally see what he has been missing, but it would seem he just isn't there yet.

But Neytiri is, and in a rescue attempt for the Legends, she disguises herself as one of the Mangkwan and sneaks in with a beacon marking her as one of Quaritch's and helps Jake fly away from there.

But that is really only possible because Dr. Ian Garwin decided to break him out... why?

Well... it is because the so called "Sky People" decided to go too far.

It was already clear in the last movie that he wasn't okay with the excessive Whaling on the planet, knowing what he knew, but right now, the people at the base are planning a massacre at a religious gathering just for... Idk 200 ml of Amrita per Tulkun?

And he just cannot allow that to happen.

That is the problem with fascistic outlooks, people slip through your fingers.

Now, I believe you would have noticed, that the Finale of this movie is just the Finale of the last movie but ooohhh there are Hundreds of Tulkun this time!!!

And that is a problem that many people have with this movie.

You see a lot of interesting things happen here, and I mean a lot!

We have N'avi who hate Eywa, We have Quaritch and Jake having a conversation, Quaritch connecting with a N'avi, Neytiri gets injured and actually has to go to the Human base to get a proper operation, none of the shit like last time where it was very heavily implied that Human medicine does not work but N'avi Tsahik Medicine does...

I mean... they both have their uses right?

The Tsahik of her Old and her mother clan was also there...

And more importantly, while the whole Epilepsy explanation from the humans regarding Kiri's underwater seizure was clearly scoffed at and the religious explanation was given the superior value, here it is expanded upon.

Kiri is a clone of Grace, she is a virgin Birth, made possible by the will of Eywa, which is why she can do what she can do, and the Epilepsy is real, it is like a firewall, for some strange reason...

But speaking of what Kiri can do, making Spider breathe is one thing...

But he grew a Kuru!

See I like the intersection of Religion and science they were going for, but how the fuck did that happen?

Also, it makes Spider less interesting, while it is very interesting that him being able to breathe on Pandora makes him like at the center of the conflict now, leading Jake to almost kill him... there was always the angle of Spider being and outsider but accepted anyways.

Now he is just a Smaller N'avi. He can have his own Ilu and Ikran and everything.

Again, no problem with being able to breathe, definitely problems with the Kuru.

But oh well, at least him and Kiri finally happened.

And while we are talking about all of this, another interesting thing is the Introduction of the Tulkun Matriarch, just huge and having markings and Piercings, and totally anti violent.

But that is a problem, because once again by the Tulkun ways, Payakan is an outcast.

This policy of absolute non violence is often why a lot of indigenous cultures get destroyed, but I am glad to have that touched upon, but also, I was kind of hoping for more fire based creatures?

But glad that ultimately Payakan was accepted, I mean it only took a heavily mutilated Tulkun but okay.

And one aspect that I have forgotten about until now, is that this movie tries to set up Lo'ak as the protagonist in a sense.

I mean the movie opens with him in the spirit world flying with his brother Neyteyam there is a voice over Naration from him, and it is his word that finally gets the Tulkun to listen.

However, the movie also forgets this halfway...?

See there is just so much happening in this movie, and it takes a lot of longwinded detours, and somehow still winds up having a lot of familiar locations.

I mean there are so many things that I haven't even mentioned that Jake recalled upon Toruk and became the Makto again, and Ronal died in battle after giving birth to and entrusting her child to Neytiri whom she has developed somewhat of a begrudging friendship with atp...

Those are things that happened.

And I still haven't mentioned the giant vortex that sucks in everything that Eywa summoned at the end after Kiri overcame the firewall with the power of friendship, aka, many people plugging in next to her and helping her push past it, and we finally saw a physical form of Eywa.

And the final battle ends with Jake saving Quaritch because if he didn't Spider would die as well, and the two wonder what comes next.

Quaritch does the cliche villain jump off with a promise to return, but obviously he is changing...

And the point that I am trying to make is, way too much happened and yet a lot of the new things we were expecting didn't happen?

It still somehow felt formulaic towards the end, I mean the ending was literally the same but bigger as the last one, regardless the visuals were gorgeous.

The point is, I believe things like Toruk being called upon should have been a finale thing, but they happened, and all in all, Avatar Fire and Ash while an amazing film was a downgrade from the previous two, and it says a lot about the quality of this Franchise that this is a downgrade.

But it has already crossed a billion, who knows maybe it will cross two billion like the last two maybe it wont, but a fourth film is coming, and hopefully, we get some improvement, even if we don't I believe at this point most of us are just invested enough that we will turn up anyways.

So we shall see.... I guess...