I am a huge James Cameron fan. I have watched and rewatched all of his feature films, and I love every last one of them. I was a kid when I went to see Avatar in theaters, and it genuinely blew my mind. I knew that The Way of Water would be equally astounding, and, to nobody’s surprise, it exceeded all of my expectations. Naturally, I was excited about Fire and Ash, especially because, after air and water, Cameron was going to bring out the Na’vi that associated themselves with, well, those two titular elements. So, I put on my 3D glasses and returned to Pandora in the hopes of going on another soul-stirring and jaw-dropping adventure. However, after 30 minutes or so had passed, the realization dawned on me that maybe I was watching a stinker. By the time the intermission happened, I was exhausted, and not in a good way. And when the credits rolled, I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a groan of disappointment. I spent the rest of the day figuring out why this happened, and I have come up with 10 reasons. These reasons are personal to me. If you enjoyed the movie, good for you. If you think otherwise or feel that Fire and Ash is the worst Avatar movie, let me know if any of these points resonate with you.
Spoiler Alert
1. Repetitive Scenes
I’m not kidding when I say that, while watching Fire and Ash, I was frequently struck with this feeling that James and his team had slipped in footage from Way of Water. Lo’ak trying to prove himself in the eyes of his father, Jake, had been done really well in the second film. Doing that again, almost beat for beat, whilst not allowing the death of Neteyam to truly weigh on the souls of the characters, felt repetitive. What was the point of doing the Payakan searching stuff again? I just don’t know. The interactions between Quaritch and Spider felt like deleted scenes from the second movie. Eywa coming in to save the day at the very last moment has become a joke at this point.
2. Unnecessarily Long
Yes, yes, it’s the pacing of a movie, not the length, that affects your viewing experience. But I think Fire and Ash is one of those rare instances where it’s the length that spoils everything. A major chunk of its runtime is just made of rehashed plot points and plot threads that don’t really amount to anything or significantly affect the character. If that time had been dedicated to, let’s say, the Varang plotline, Kiri’s superpowers, or Spider’s Na’vi conversion, then the length would have been justified. And, to be honest, the stuff with Varang and Kiri is so interesting that if it got the screentime it deserved, I wouldn’t have been sitting here complaining about the length.
3. Familiar Action Set Pieces
Apart from the attack on the Windtraders and the final fight between Quaritch, Jake, and Spider, nothing about Fire and Ash was all that groundbreaking. And even if James and his team did something new, it didn’t last long enough to be impactful. After doing an aerial fight in Avatar and a water fight in The Way of Water, it was interesting to set a fight in a concrete jungle full of buildings with explosive material in them. It sort of justified the movie’s subtitle. To gloss over that setting so quickly and then rehash the final fights from the last two movies for your third movie seemed outright nonsensical. The worst part was that the movie just kept losing track of some of the characters, as if they didn’t even matter. In the last two movies, James and his team did such a great job of oscillating between all the various chess pieces that you actually ended up caring for all of the rebels. The manner in which they have failed to replicate or build on that type of action storytelling in Fire and Ash is infuriating.
4. No Improvement In The Dialogue Writing
Given how Avatar was made in the 2000s, I thought that it was cute that the lingo of the kids in The Way of Water had some 2000s hangover. But yeah, in Fire and Ash, it seemed really jarring. When it was used for comedic effect through the character of Spider, that seemed fine because it underscored the fact that he was a human trying to fit in with the Na’vi. However, all the kids talking like that actually made me cringe. I think the writers put a lot of care into the Quaritch-Jake and Varang-Quaritch interactions, thereby making me want to rewatch their scenes specifically. I know that James has said that he’s strictly against generative AI, even though he’s on the board of directors of Stability AI, but if I am told that, apart from the aforementioned characters, everyone’s dialogue was written by ChatGPT, I won’t be surprised.
5. A Wasted Antagonist
Varang was such an awesome antagonist that the entire movie could have been about her, and I wouldn’t have minded. We have seen Pandora through Jake’s eyes and then through the perspective of his whole family. What’s the point of doing that again? Varang offered such a welcome change of pace, tone, and setting. Yet, we got a handful of scenes of her in the first two acts and next to nothing in the third act. Why? Because the spotlight had to be given to Quaritch for the third time in a row. Yes, Quaritch is a compelling villain too, but isn’t it obvious that he has nothing new to offer? So, what was the harm in benching him for a while and letting Varang take the stage and reserving their union for another film? I don’t know.
6. Forgettable Score
If you play a piece of James Horner’s score from Avatar, I’ll probably be able to tell the scene it’s associated with. Simon Franglen’s score for The Way of Water managed to surpass the standard set by Horner and elevated every other scene with his music. When it comes to Fire and Ash, I don’t think there’s a single piece of composition that stayed with me. I sometimes forgot that the movie had a score at all, because the sound mixing drowned out the music with all kinds of loud explosions and noises. I knew that editing needs to be invisible. This is probably the first case of a musical score being unnoticeable.
7. The Frame Rate
I don’t know if I should blame the projectionists for this issue or the makers of Fire and Ash, but the fact of the matter is that the frame rate was a major issue in the film. I have dealt with the aspect ratio changes in Michael Bay movies. But I hadn’t even dreamt of watching a James Cameron film where the frame rate changed from 48 frames per second to 24 frames per second, and then back again, several times within the same scene. I don’t know what could have been the intent behind such an artistic choice. If this problem is a result of low-quality projectors, then couldn’t James and his team have anticipated that? This film isn’t only being released in first-world countries whose theaters are equipped with the most high-quality projectors; it’s been sent to third-world countries as well, where projection tech is stuck in the 2000s. Why not make a movie that works the same everywhere? Either way, those frame-rate changes gave me a headache and ruined my viewing experience. Congratulations to whoever is responsible for that, I guess.
8. Sequel Baiting
Avatar and The Way of Water felt like complete movies. Fire and Ash felt like a chapter of a franchise. That might be intentional, sure. But I think we’re done with that kind of storytelling, heavily popularized by the MCU. Movies need to be movies, not three-hour-long, theatrically released episodes of a television show whose end isn’t even in the foreseeable future. Cameron had so far avoided falling into this trap, even though he has planned and executed multiple sequels. I don’t really know what changed this time. Since this is his final Avatar directorial, shouldn’t he have done something more conclusive, thereby allowing whoever is next in line to work with somewhat of a blank slate? Instead, they have to bear the responsibility of tending to the loose threads left dangling by Cameron, which is just so unfair. Am I interested in another Avatar movie, though? Was the sequel bait successful? No. I don’t actually care about more Avatar movies. I’ll probably keep watching them if they keep making them, but yeah, my heart isn’t in it.
9. Convoluted Storytelling
This is an extension of the sequel baiting complaint, but I’ve dedicated a separate section to it because I am starting to find the world-building of the film to be so weird. We don’t know enough about Eywa, the Woodsprites, the kuru, the creatures, and more. There are god-knows-how-many Avatar films in the pipeline. And Cameron and his writers are already making vague changes to an already vague lore? Yes, I’m talking about Spider’s Na’vi conversion and Kiri’s immaculate conception. What’s the point of dropping that stuff on our heads so early in the game? Why not reserve it for later on? The worst part is that I am certain this is going to exacerbate the franchise’s existing storytelling issues. The first movie had a very straightforward narrative. The second one had a lot of moving parts, but it was still manageable. The third one went off the rails, because none of the subplots complemented each other in any meaningful way. How are they going to handle Pandoran Jesus on top of the journeys of Varang, the Sullys, Spider, the RDA, Quaritch, and Payakan? I have no clue. So, all the best to them, I suppose.
10. Has Big Jim Lost The Sauce?
I am not a James Cameron doubter. Everything he touches turns to gold. And I am sure that Fire and Ash will make more money than my tiny brain can comprehend. At the same time, I won’t deny that he doesn’t have the sauce anymore. Every Cameron movie has a barrage of moments where you know that your soul is in the hands of a maestro. While watching his latest flick, I didn’t sense that at all. His signature flair was missing in the action sequences, and the tenderness with which he treats his emotional scenes was incredibly muted. I don’t know what went wrong, but I think this is the right time for him to leave these Avatar movies in the hands of someone else while he focuses on some other passion project. Hopefully it’s not something that involves him vanishing from the public eye for the next decade to research the ocean or something. I am sure he’ll choose his successor, both for the director’s chair and in the writing room, wisely. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the film and why it’s the worst entry in the franchise. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
