The helpless cry of an Avatar superfan - Fire and Ash review
FULL SPOILERS WARNING!!!
Avatar has always been about spectacle and wonder. It has never really been about reinventing the wheel in terms of plot or story. The characters are archetypal and their arcs familiar. That never mattered to me because the world was too gorgeous, too engaging. In ATWOW and now AFAA, it's so real as to basically be as good as if it had been filmed on Pandora itself.
The problems I have with AFAA are completely unrelated to visuals, or even acting. In my opinion AFAA is ever more grand and spectacular than ATWOW. It felt impossibly real. Some of the conversations and darker turns of the story also contributed to the realism. These were living people whose struggle could be deeply related to.
Sadly, I'm not one of the many superficial fans of the franchise, who go in and happily have fun with it, then go home and don't think about it again. I tend to analyse what I'm watching, and AFAA has problems in its writing and the way they present the worldbuilding that I just can't push aside or gloss over.
This is an in-depth review/rant/plea/hair pulling/mourning. Considering there are tweets out there with over 10k likes saying "Eywa is the best depiction of god I've seen in fiction", I don't expect my takes will be popular, but I need to get it off my chest.
Too Many Themes, So Little Time.
Despite being 3h17min, AFAA suffers from glaring pacing issues, which are the least of its problems but are bound to be the biggest criticism, even from fans.
I understand that Jamcam is contracted to deliver a film and not a TV series, but he seems to have written a TV series, then shot 6h out of 10 planned, and butchered that down to 3h17. The butchering is visible: while some scenes are entirely lifted from A1 and ATWOW, sometimes shot for shot or beat for beat, other storylines get so buried and neglected, we have to resort to painful "tells", or to our imagination.
The most blatant example of this is in Lo'ak's arc. He seems to be our new central character and narrator, until he isn't. He splits off from the narrative to go "pursue his own path", only for it to become "Lo'ak meets Payakan" all over again. On the other hand, characters who were prominent in ATWOW like Ao'Nung (new official spelling lmao), get so brutally relegated to "side-side character", they could be erased.
Ao'Nung literally has less dialogue than Peylak, another much hyped character who turned out to be a complete nothing burger. Heck, he has less dialogue than Neteyam, a literal dead guy.
Back on track: we are given the bare bones of Lo'ak's "special side story" and told things happened. So many things, so much bonding, that 3 Metkayina kids return to defy the core rules and traditions of their people. Yet we can't see any of it. We're told they're this close now, but we don't see it happening.
I chose this example in particular because it perfectly illustrates how one thing impacts the other: The repeat of ATWOW's scenario with Lo'ak being attacked by sea creatures was not necessary.
Lo'ak, hunted by the deep ones, fights alone, has his ilu hurt/killed, hides in a reef, gets attacked there, runs out of air, is saved by a tulkun, and runs out of air.
We have seen this in ATWOW already! But the Tulkun saving him this time are his friends' spirit sisters and brothers, so why not have Lo'ak turn to his friends directly and meet them? Why couldn't we see a short battle between all 4 of them and the "deep ones", showcasing how close they've become, how good they are at working together? This simple show over tell would go a long way towards making us believe these 4 are a tight group.
Instead, they disappear from the narrative, and reappear when convenience demands it.
There is simply too much to cover and so little time to do any of it justice. I honestly think that only Neytiri and her spout of "racism" gets to have a satisfying arc. Lo'ak and Kiri both have their narratives ongoing. Q is a stagnant character who barely begins to break his mold when he gets involved with Varang, who is entertaining, but ultimately flattened into madness. Even the state of the RDA and the fate of Garvin aren't addressed. So many threads left unresolved or cropped for time.
The villains of AFAA, all Mangkwan but specifically Varang's ash people, suffer from this chopped up narrative the most. Perhaps intentionally.
Worldbuilding As A Wide, Shallow Pool
We are told nothing about the Mangkwan. Nothing at all. Peylak mentions the Mangkwan raiders are getting bolder, and that's all introduction we have to them. They are made more like savages by their practice of cutting kuru, which is explained offhandedly by Jake, as them wanting to steal their enemy's life force.
Because nothing is explained, as you watch them, things become confusing really, really fast, assuming you're trying to make sense of the situation.
Why is Peylak not doing more with his caravan if this is the average Mangkwan raid?? Are all Mangkwan people like this? Why are they raiding in lush forests, but go back home to an ashy wasteland? Are you saying to me right now that the forest burned when Varang was "little" and has not regrown since?? Does Jamcam not know how incredibly fertile volcanic ash is? There's no reason for her land to look like this right now, not even with an active volcano in the distance! (Source: part of my family lives on a tiny island made by one of the planet's most active volcano). And if she was little when it happened, who was in charge and why didn't they move the clan to better lands? Since when have they been doing death cult kamikaze shit??
Then the film goes on and you see Mangkwan die like flies, again and again, and nobody caring or mourning, and Varang never even mentioning or addressing those losses. This is despite her clan having several children around. Are you telling me these Na'vi are just without emotions? They are all vile grubby space orcs who can live in ash and kill themselves to please their Tsahik, and they won't ever protest even though they are getting decimated?
Well, you may tell me, there is a visual dictionary! It mentions Varang's father, and her sister who ruled before her, and how she killed her and took over, and they do slavery and yap yap yap and I can only tell you 2 things in return:
1/ I paid 21£ to see Avatar in IMAX 3D, and it didn't come with a visual dictionary. It's not movie lore. It was not handed as a leaflet to read beforehand. No book should EVER be required reading for the enjoyment of a movie. If you need to read the book to like the film, it's a bad adaptation. And of course AFAA isn't adapting a visual dictionary! The visual Dictionary is just trying to fill in grave lacks in plot and worldbuilding to make things seem less dire.
2/This is actually sadder, because now you're telling me Varang used to have depth and her people weren't acting like evil meatbags made to be shot without remorse, but they took that complexity away from the movie… It's a lose/lose in my eyes.
This shallow worldbuilding, more focused on the design of scary bone totems than on establishing the characters in the world they live in, also makes the Wind Traders suffer.
I recall all the fuss about the Traders and their ships! Oh, they can't have pulleys, so here is how we made it work so it could happen if it were real, heehee! Cool, but do you know what would have made them feel actually real?
The trading of INFORMATION!! Peylak opens his mouth once to be the first to drop a racist-like slur (pink-skin) and showcase that Jake has already planned for Spider to move on.
At no point is Peylak used to show the trade of information! Isn't that bonkers? Do you think when the only trading group who behaves like flying switzerland arrives in town, there isn't going to be politics and news and gossip? You're telling me they trade fruits but not intel? That there aren't developments from far away clans to be relayed?
Do you know why this bothers me so much? Because the Wind Traders become shallow right before they die and never come back again, but also because a 2min scene of Jake being invited to sit on a "council" meeting with Peylak and his wife could have done WONDERS to introduce us to Varang and her clan.
Imagine the scene! We could see trade! Cunning! Politics! We could see Tonowari do more than simply sit on his ass awaiting the return of Toruk Makto!
Jake is brought in, and Peylak makes a face. Jake quickly realises he has been used as a bargaining chip. That "showing off Toruk Makto" was the bargain against important information. He sits at the meeting, and he gets to hear about the danger of Varang's clan. Maybe he wants to hear more because he had planned to travel to deliver Spider himself.
We could have a simple line here delivered by Peylak or his wife Yu'nar: "Mangkwan have always been a thorn in our side. We usually travel far from their lands, to avoid their raids, but there is this new one. A Tsahik called Varang. She…" glance at Ronal. "She has recused Eywa and turned to fire."
Much hubbub and spitting and hissing ensues, and Jake seems a little confused. He knows Na'vi don't love fire the way humans do but they still use it. Is that really this bad?
Ronal could have a line explaining how unholy that is. That Varang's clan must be outcast among outcasts.
Peylak could simply smirk and incline his head towards the nearest opening, to his ships beyond. "Fire is the thing we fear most aboard our ships."
Rewrite this scene any which way you want, it would establish Varang's Mangkwan as uniquely different, as well as give insight into the life of Wind Traders, being more than a flying market.
Because as it is, Jake literally choses to travel with the slow, begging-to-be-raided Wind Traders, who are incredibly unprepared for Varang. How are they supposed to survive these encounters? How was going with them a good choice at all? it's not like he can't fly this himself? he's literally done it to arrive at the Reef.
Both of these complaints really tie into the lack of wonder in this film. In ATWOW we discovered the way of water, we spent time with a new people of Na'vi. In AFAA we don't do anything like it. Wind Traders and Mangkwan are equally superficial. They have no serious inner life, it's all just aesthetics and vibes. And again, I will not take "play the video game" as an excuse for why the 20£ film kinda sucked.
Paul Atreides, Messiah Of Pandora
Ah, the woes of being a Dune fan! And woe upon me for spending years claiming Jake Sully isn't a white saviour! Ah, fuck Jamcam's new compulsory narrative structure! MCU films must end in a big laser battle, and Avatar films must end in a big final battle with a ship, or several ships, and ideally Eywa's Deus Ex Machina.
Anyway, Dune: it's a little film exploring the evils of following charismatic leaders. You may have heard about it. Paul Atreides is made into the perfect leader, through no fault of his own (up to a point), and the people of Dune/Arrakis, called the Fremen, are caught up in a religious myth about a "saviour", the Lisan al'Gaib, Voice from the Outer World, meant to lead them to a green paradise.
It's a core feature of Dune that this religious prophecy was implanted to use and manipulate the Fremen. They are the best warriors in the universe. It's clear they could have united and revolted successfully, but only Paul manages this. He's helped along by Stilgar, who arranges for some of the prophecy's signs to come to pass, and is basically the galaxy's biggest hype man, who drinks his own kool-aid.
Crucially, Dune ends with Paul and the Fremen victorious, and the big bad emperor defeated. You may THINK that's good, but Paul will destroy the Fremen, ruin their culture, and commit the worst genocide in human history across the galaxy. And the fremen will help in all this.
My point is that Jake Sully is Paul Atreides, and Tonowari is the most half-baked Stilgar ever.
Tonowari does NOTHING IN THE ENTIRE FILM. He witnesses with his own eyes what the humans, with one ship, can do. He sees Roa and her calf die for greedy human desires, and then he turns to Jake and basically begs him to become Toruk Makto. And then goes back to fixing fish nets, I guess.
All film long he does nothing, and nothing, and nothing. The calf communion approaches, and still he does nothing. HUMANS COME AND BURN HIS VILLAGE AND STILL HE DOES NOTHING but look to Toruk Makto for guidance.
Jake, as unwilling as Paul before drinking the water of life, returns to Toruk, and rides once more. ONLY THEN does Tonowari BLINDLY LISTENS to Jake's advice. If Jake put a gun in his arms, he probably would accept it. Because apparently only Toruk Makto can lead the clans and order the Olo'eyktans around.
This is so incredibly depressing as a message. I hope everyone who saw this realised that THE ONLY REASON RONAL DIES, IS BECAUSE THEY LACK ENOUGH WARRIORS TO DEFEND THE TULKUN, SO SHE MUST GO INTO BATTLE WHILE GIVING BIRTH. Imagine what the landscape of battle would have been like if Tonowari had gone 10 days ago to clans as far as 10 days ride, huh?
What would 100 Mangkwans with guns that run out of bullets done then? We'll never know, because Tonowari waited until THE DAY OF BATTLE to seek help, when daddy Toruk Makto asked him to.
"Eywa will provide", Ronal says as Tonowari demands Toruk Makto's return. And I died a little inside.
This is the Na'vi Jamcam offers us in AFAA: they are weak and impotent. They would be squished under a human thumb, incapable of uniting themselves if not for the white saviour and his gifted children with 5 fingers.
And yet Jamcam doesn't do us the justice of a speech like Paul's when he claims the title of Lisan al'Gaib! No! We get a borderline insulting voice over from Lo'ak "It was the time my father made the Great Speeches", followed by Jake Sully showing a bundle of arrows in his fist and yelling "many arrows together do not break."
I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but ONE line is NOT a speech, and "many ape together strong" is NOT A FAMOUS OR GREAT SPEECH for anyone to have but apes who just learned to speak english!
How disrespectful, not only to the weak, Toruk-needy Na'vi, but also to us, the viewers, who could have rewatched Dune instead and taken less psychic damage. You don't even have the time to make a proper speech? Is it perhaps because the worldbuilding is so shallow? because we needed extra time redoing Toruk's attack beat by beat and reinviting all the familiar faces to Avatar 1's final battle sea-side edition?
Is it perhaps because if you linger here, it becomes painfully obvious that these people should have learned "Na'vi together strong" 18 years ago, if not hundreds of years prior?
I once defended Jake, because in A1 he's not the one who saves the day. The thing he does that saves the day is to go to Eywa for help, something the Na'vi would not think of doing. But since Grace is already with Eywa, it's unclear what motivated her to act. At any rate, he's a true believer, and he gets his ass handed to him. He's reduced to a satisfying 1 vs. 1 with Quaritch, while Eywa and Neytiri have to get together to save the day.
Fine by me.
But this? Come on. Must we always end every single movie with a Jake vs. Quaritch? This is the third time. Must Eywa be a Deus Ex Machina AGAIN, in 2025? Are we not aware that Deus Ex Machina is not considered good writing? That is disempowers characters? Are we truly forced into this pattern, in which the Sullys have to travel, get kidnapped, and freed, and kidnapped again, and the ships show up to kill Na'vi/Tulkun, and there's a big final battle, the Q vs. Jake, and Eywa to put a bow on it?
Is this what Avatar 4 will be like???? Or do you think we could at last move to a different, less predictable narrative?
Speaking of…
Space Jesus and Eywa The Stakes Killer
Something really bad happened in AFAA that made ATWOW completely irrelevant.
You see, in ATWOW we are introduced to Recombinant characters, like Lyle and Quaritch. They are people made from memories and DNA sold for profit by long dead humans, owned body and soul by a super-corporation that could mass produce them if they wanted to. An absolutely incredible concept we will never explore because they were used as remorseless target practice and not as dystopian characters to explore, but whatever, moving on!
The recoms are made because we're told Eywa has learned her lesson after A1! The humans can't fly anywhere without being attacked by animals. Within 10 minutes outside their airspace, they becomes the targets of Ikran. Walking in the forest, it's also implied that land animals become aggressive, as the recoms are tested by viperwolves.
Why can humans go to sea? It's never explained. Maybe boats are harder to assault, and we're also told Tulkun, the largest threat by far, are incredibly peaceful.
Eywa being vindicative with humans is literally what has protected the Omatikaya, and forced the RDA to stay in their carefully cauterised borders.
In AFAA… This is entirely forgotten. It's never mentioned. Humans can go anywhere they want and do anything. Mass hunt Tulkun, show up with every boat in the flotilla. They can take humans all the way to the Mangkwan's land (you're NOT going to pretend that's 10min flight away from the RDA) with zero repercussions.
So the recoms are made redundant, and our understanding of Eywa begins to shift.
Nobody acknowledges this change in AFAA. All we focus on is that Kiri, revealed to be Pandoran Jesus, a fatherless being, literal child of God, can't talk to her God-mom for completely unknown reasons.
Eywa is constantly compared to a computer firewalling Kiri, by people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about. Let's put a pin in that, because my issues with Eywa began with the film's opening.
We see that Lo'ak is seeing Neteyam, revisiting a moment of flying together. This is happening at the same time as Jake and Neytiri being at the pond with baby Neteyam, because when Lo'ak disconnects, we see this is the ending scene of ATWOW and his parents are behind him.
Then Neteyam, who seemed completely clueless and oblivious at the end of ATWOW, asks a gobsmacking question: "How did I die?"
This means that the people inside Eywa aren't MEMORIES, they aren't collected fragments of a person's life, made semi-interactive as you revisit them. It means that the dead are able to self-actualise. They know they are dead. They are conscious. Literal ghosts in the machine. The parallel to a super computer is definitely appealing, so I can see why Norm is making it.
But tell me, WHEN does one become "sentient" and self-actualising within Eywa? When does she begin to generate the dead version of you, vs. simply storing your memories as you visit? Can she sense your death? Ok, Neteyam has been put in the anemone of burial, sweet, what about Na'vi who die in human hands? How about those eaten and shat out by a big shark? Huh? Does someone go visit Eywa and report the death? Or does Eywa bring you online when enough time as passed that you must be dead? Or are such unreported death never "generated"?
Worse, do you exist as a sentient, growing entity within Eywa, correcting and adjusting your behaviour and age whenever you connect/upload? Does that doppelgänger of yours get to chill with grandpapa in the mycelium network while you have a life?
Those are obvious and blatant questions, but things get worse!! In the ending we have the reveal that ALL the dead can be anywhere at once. That Eywa is a global network, and the dead from the Omatikaya can show up at the reef. They are happy, capable to grow, to meet new people, and hold rituals. They are decked out in their finest bling.
I'm sorry, I've seen so many people love this online, I feel like an alien for finding it horrifying. Shoutout to my friend Ari for being just as appalled. 2 aliens…
Guys! It's just catholic heaven! It's literal forever happiness just always happy and chilling and looking good. Are they even Na'vi anymore? In the sense of humanity, you know. Do they eat, sing, dance, fuck? Do they have bad days and arguments and lows that make the highs feel better? Or is it a uniform goop of non-existence, until someone plugs in and comes hang?
Do they exist like photons, an undiscerned soup of energy waves, only turning into singular individuals when observed by a visiting Na'vi? Or is every night a Big Party Night at the eternal home tree of the dead? Is there interpersonal conflict?
Those are important questions! I'd like to know if I'm being sold repackaged catholicism, for one things, but also, if it's truly endless bliss, then Lo'ak could have pulled the trigger. Honestly! What's the POINT of being on Pandora alive if your life sucks like Lo'ak's does at this stage? If he dies, he goes to hangout with Neteyam, Tsu'tey, and every cool ancestor, forever happy and spared the details of his death. And then when his dad joins they can make good!
The film literally makes us cry and choke over the death of Na'vi we've come to love, even as side characters (Roxto, never dead in my heart), then goes "Don't worryyyyyy, death is super chill! It's like they've moved next door. You can literally visit any day, any time!" Ronal will see her child more than my mom got to see ME growing up! Do you know how stakes destroying that is?
I understand the appeal, because death is scary, it's final, and it's bad. That's why we cry when a character dies. That's why Neteyam fans were crying tears of blood all this time. Death is bad and we work hard to avoid it. Death makes adventure risky and dangerous. Ruining death, making it a second, better life where you are in a perpetual fun hangout without conflict or rainy days means there are no stakes, adventure is just mindless fun, and risky behaviour (like hunting a very dangerous animal or taking an armoured and well armed human 1v1) is just reckless play that may interrupt your life in this world, but no fear, it won't stop your relatives from visiting you! It means all the characters of Pandora are effectively IMMORTAL so long as Eywa exists.
Why fear death if death is a nicer state of being? And if we go down the catholic route, then there needs to be real reasons to resist the siren song of suicide. In catholicism, you endure life, no matter how harsh, because suicide is a ticket straight to Hell. You are compelled to act in certain ways and avoid certain behaviours to protect your immortal soul and one day be accepted into heaven. But the Na'vi have direct proof that heaven is real and no rules or incentive to stay alive. None that we are shown at least.
Does Hell exist on Pandora? Is that where the Mangkwan go? Because we don't see any of them there, you know. (This is not a nice argument to have, because the much touted visual dictionary apparently says Varang's clan is the only one cut from Eywa, so other Mangkwan who are raiders should still be there).
So, is Eywa sentient?
She's depicted as a giant Na'vi, so you'd think she'd be a super-intelligence at minimum. If the ancestors who died in A1 are also in the reef, then that means Eywa is a global network, and what she knows in the forest she should know in the reef.
Why exactly does she need Kiri to do "Jesus on the cross doubting his father" in order to show up and help? If she is localised, then the heroes had 18 years to spread the word all around, and the dead Omatikaya and Wind Traders have no business being in the reef's afterlife. If she is globalised and knows humans must be killed, as shown in ATWOW, and will gladly kill them when prompted…. Then WHY has she not been doing it? Why is everything she did in ATWOW suddenly disappear?
Reminder that ATWOW ends on the day AFAA begins. She seemingly stops protecting the planet from humans overnight.
Is Eywa a non-sentient super computer that simulates the dead in the worst AI graveyard ever? Or is she a sentient being, alive in every living thing, very much like the Force in Star Wars?
If so, I would have preferred her to be unrevealed and not called on. I would have preferred the afterlife to remain mysterious. I feel like we've gained a million questions and lost all stakes, all for nothing!
Because even poor Kiri ends the film having no clue what she truly is or what the lesson is for her to take. Again and again Eywa shuts her out and nearly kills her, and Kiri finally gets to reach her after…. Her friend and sister show up and connect over her? Is that the lesson? When Eywa blows on you like the Wolf on a little piggie hut, bring 2 extra people to break through? Sullys together Stronk? Is trhat really the take-away? Is that the lesson she learnt?
Someone PLEASE get in the comments and explain to me what Kiri, in universe, is supposed to think at the end of AFAA. I can't make any sense of it. And the film doesn't bother touching on it. Kiri is seemingly healed from her connection issues and doesn't address her difference or Eywa's attitude in any way.
I don't want to walk away from AFAA thinking Ronal went into battle because she was waiting on Eywa to provide and Tonowari didn't believe in doing anything himself to protect his clan. I can't believe she died in labor for some sort of cool-looking feminism points, only for the narrative to turn to us and say "It's okay, you see, she's happy in the afterlife where she can keep living forever".
I also would have preferred for Spider to have a moment of recognition from the LIVING, not just the DEAD! Damn, this boy just can't do anything well enough to get some actual recognition.
Speaking of Kiri and Spider…. I'm just miserable over the fact that the first thing I told my friend when we left the theatre about them was "Damn, they can unite over the fact that their first time was both with Varang…" and then was mildly taken aback with the fact that Spider is held down by his pseudo-dad so Varang can mind rape him while Kiri has the dubious privilege of being the bigger bad bitch and mind raping Varang herself.
"Eywa wins this round, her avatar can dominate you at your own sick games" is NOT THE WIN YOU THINK IT IS JAMCAM!!!
What a thing to chew on. I'm sure there's an angsty fanfic somewhere in there, but Jamcam clearly never intended for any of that trauma to ever be addressed or unpacked in any way, so I guess it doesn't matter at all. It's never brought up. Spider doesn't have anything to say about Quaritch doing this to him.
Miserable Parting Thoughts
As usual, Avatar provides a fun sandpit for us to play in. But unlike after ATWOW, I don't feel like going home and writing the fanfic of all the missing moments, the epic stories of Lo'ak and co, the unseen kisses shared with Tsireya, the confrontation between Spider and Quaritch after he held him down to be violated, the culture and life of the Wind Traders and Mangkwan, the actual speeches Jake supposedly gave or the philosophy of the Tulkun ("we must fight" is also an ass speech and it would have been easy to make the Tulkun burst into complex talk that Tonowari couldn't effectively translate, showing the Na'vi left behind by the depth of the argument).
I'm just TIRED man. I'm tired of being in fandoms where we have to do homework just to get the media to an acceptable level. In Dune, all I'm ever doing is extra. Arcane season 1 felt the same. The missing scenes weren't necessary, the original media was already incredible. Exploring in depth was all for fun.
Patching up AFAA feels as gargantuan and pointless to me as rescuing Arcane 2 from itself. I just don't have the energy. Especially not when I've already had 2 different people calling me "Varang's alt account" on twitter for being critical of the film's writing.
I invested in recoms and in characters who felt important in ATWOW, and they turned out to have be one-use cardboard cut-outs. I should warn you, Varang lovers! There's little chance your babygirl will be A4, or be spared the Ao'Nung treatment, relegated to 2 scenes with 3 lines of dialogues total, blink and you miss it character.
Avatar is slowly morphing into Star Wars (as everything is always about the Sullys the same way all the galaxy revolves around the Skywalkers) with an unfortunate detour into Dune (White Saviour Jake Atreides, Lisan al'Makto leading the Na'vi to Green Paradise).
Star Wars already stomps on its fans with insulting mediocrity all the time, but at least it has Andor. Dune is flawless (and my darkest secret is for Jamcam to pick Denis as his successor to wrap up the franchise). But now Avatar stagnates in an uncomfortable position for me. More fun than the universe of Star Wars to play in with my OCs, but unrewarding as a literate viewer.
I guess my final thought is that I should give up on franchises as a whole and stop spending so much time and energy in fandom spaces. Perhaps there's more happiness for me if I can also become someone who watches avatar films without care, going home and forgetting about its flaws. Maybe running events and crafting picrews and all that faff has been a waste of my time and my energies would be best restrained to my own work. Maybe I needed that lesson, when even Star Wars couldn't teach it to me.
Crafting an Alternative, The Fics I Won't Be Writing
This is a thought experiment. What should, or could, change in AFAA to make the film more interesting?
Return to the sense of wonder
We should spend time with Varang or with the Wind Traders. Ideally both. We should recapture this joy of being in a new world because the people are different and teaching their ways to the protagonists. This is the core of A1 and ATWOW both, and completely missing in AFAA. Of course spending too much time with the Mangkwan would humanise them, so it'll be harder to shoot them. Which ties in to next point.
You don't have to use the Mangkwan that way
The film has too many themes it wants to explore. Neytiri racism, Sully family drama, impact of Air Breather Spider on politics, change in Tulkun way, Eywa drama… You gotta pick a struggle, I think, and the Mangkwan are a great way to explore Eywa's inner workings. Maybe Varang could bring the kids back home with her, utterly shocked by Eywa's miracle on Spider. While Kiri is getting grilled and challenged on her Eywa knowledge, we can see the culture of these people through Tuk and Spider's eyes. Meanwhile, Jake could perhaps go to Quaritch willingly for help, having found Spider's mask and believing Q is the only one who could help.
Because Neytiri is MIA, the Metkayina can't fly, and can he genuinely ask the Omatikaya to come die for Spider in a clash with brutal kuru cutters? But if Q is nearby, he's someone with a vested interest in Spider. The dynamic between them 3 can change and evolve as they travel, especially if they fail to catch up to the Mangkwan and now believe they'll pick up Spider's dead body at best.
Wouldn't it be interesting if Varang turns on everyone to ally herself with Quaritch, but ultimately betrays the RDA? As she currently stands, she's an insane death cult leader who doesn't care about her clan being decimated. She never thinks about the interest of her people. You really have to wonder if she cares about them at all. She never seems to plan about their future. She even burns their home while lost in playing with her flame thrower.
It's fun, but wouldn't it be more fun if she gets what she wants and turns on the RDA, but makes a compelling argument to Q to follow suit? What a parallel, betraying humanity for a blue baddy, just like Jake before him… But more importantly we could have a part of the film focusing on the uniting of people against RDA humans.
Imagine if the ending had Wind Traders gliding in, being dismissed as harmless tourists, only for swarms of Mangkwan to spread from them, their boats loaded with ammunition lifted straight from the RDA?
Jamcam wanted to use Jake to give guns to the Metkayina and backed down because it was too much like what happened to real native populations in colonial times, but man, you could have had enemy clans coming together and using guns on the HUMANS instead, without losing your final battle.
Hell, Q could still try to fight Jake despite being on the same side because his beef is "personal" and he's experiencing ego death being in this battle all in war paint and loincloth.
Sacrifice storylines to give film time to breath, or cut it in half again
Having 2 films of 2h would have been better no matter what. But you can already shave a ton of the Eywa scenes to make room for important narrative shifts. And yes, you CAN have an avatar film without a grand final battle. I believe in you Jamcam! You can do it!
We could have followed Kiri as she travels the world to update several Eywa nodes, the conflict arising with the Mangkwan and their hostile views on Eywa. We could have looked at the more widespread presence of humanity outside Bridgehead. They have several bases and train tracks connecting them! The Na'vi could be proactive, in a non-Toruk Makto dependent way. No matter what, Toruk should not have returned. I understand the hype, but hype slop is killing all my favourite franchises and I beg people to want better writing, not hype writing. Hype writing is best left to fanfic writers.
Anyway, that's my thoughts. I don't think I'll be engaging with this fandom going forward, outside of commissions and my own fanclans here and there. I've had enough hostile interactions already, and enough drama in the past. I don't think this fandom is healthy anymore, for me. But I appreciate you all, especially you reading this, all 2 of you who stuck to the end and 6k words of misery haha.
I'm totally just a casual watcher, but damn as usual, every single point you make is correct.
