Avatar: Fire and Rehash

Sometimes my wife tries to take me to movies that weren’t meant for the big screen, Six Days in August, The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever, Boys in the Boat but, The AVATAR movies do not fit into that category. They are meant for the big screen and when I saw it was coming to the mega screen, we actually bought our tickets several weeks in advance. We were ready to visit the wonders of Pandora again and hold tight to our seats for a wild action-packed ride.

Before I begin, I would like to go over my beefs with Way of the Water as it ties in. I felt like they killed the wrong brother in that movie. The black sheep wayward son should have been brought to redemption by dying for his sins of arrogance but in a way or growth. The good obedient brother should have lived… or so I thought.

The 3rd installment of Avatar jumps straight into that issue. It starts out with us seeing both brothers flying on their dinosaurs (I couldn’t tell you what the brothers names are, nor what the creatures they fly on are called) but essentially it is a dream that they are in heaven. This movie fixes what I had issues with, as the younger brothers redemption ark is not finished, which in turn makes the how Way of Water is written ok. When my wife and I went back and watched movie number 2 after seeing number 3, I liked the movie more than the first time I watched it.

Now back to why I titled this Fire and Rehash. The movie repeats the same simple plot as Way of the Water. The Sully’s are a danger because the sky people are hunting him and Spider (The human boy) isn’t really one of us (the Navi). We see the Sully children repeat the same disobedience and getting captured by the sky people. Also, the sky people are still hunting whales, which I thought was resolved in the previous movie. Guess I was wrong. Even those same characters come back.

The guy whose arm got ripped off? Yeah, he's 39 still driving boats with a robotic arm still hunting whales. The only new feature to this film are the Ash Navi Tribe. They are remnants of surviving Navi who prayed to Awa to save them but she never did, so they turn to being savage and attack other Navi. However, their main villain is still unfortunately replaced by Miles Quaritch. They team up but he for some reason says in Way of Water “I’m not that guy, just his memories” but then continues to be THAT GUY. I’m annoyed, confused, and cannot figure out Spider and Miles relationship. Stop toying with us and just tell us what the hell is going on? Do they want to be father son? Or NO? we’re six hours into this plot (Way of Water and Fire and Ash combined) and we still don’t know what’s going on.

Just like Way of Water, this movie ends with a big battle while the sky people try to hunt more whales. It is the exact same down to the point of Miles and Jake fighting over guardianship for Spider.

So, like I said, this movie was meant to be a popcorn fest eye candy for the big screen. Its action and cgi are perfect! The plot is a rehash and that is what hurts it. I cannot imagine where they plan to go with the 4 th movie. It truly needs to bring a sort of conclusion to all previous issue in a rebirth but then bring in a new threat, or idea, or thing that truly moves the story forward beyond father son relationships and talking whales.

Lastly, I read online that Way of Water and Fire and Ash were originally to be 1 whole movie. This actually helps the two movies to make more sense, and I honestly think they could have reworked them to be one movie, although it may have been 4 hours long, if not more. We could have met the Ash people in the previous movie and mushed all the battles and hunting of Jake Sully by the military into one show. I am ok with both movies, as the Firs and Ash fixes things from Way of Water. But we just need to give this story more closure and start giving more answers than creating questions.

If it wasn’t for the rehash aspect of things, I would give it a 10/10, but due to its repetition of Way of Water I’ll have to go with a 8/10.