Avatar Fire and Ash

Savannah Diaz • February 28th, 2026

Although most people refer to the Avatar movie series as the “blue people” movie series -whether or not the name is to humiliate the franchise- the latest and highly anticipated movie has finally been released, Avatar: Fire and Ash with a hiatus of only three years, running time of three hours and it is an absolute hit because it has made one billion dollars in just eighteen days (The Hollywood Reporter). For many avid watchers, the hiatus for this movie was more tolerable than that of the second movie, Avatar: The Way of Water with a hiatus of thirteen years after the first ever Avatar film released in 2009 (Avatar Wiki). Many first-time watchers give up on the franchise due to the first movie having a run time of two hours and forty-two minutes.. Who could blame them? …Yet it only gets worse from there. Loyal Avatar fans probably have better patience than a mother of three children or a child got dragged along for errands with their mother right after school!

Junior Kaori Figueroa is a prime example of this.

“Yes, the movies are extremely long, but I wouldn’t say ridiculously long [even though some fans] would say so.” Figueroa says. “I grew up with Avatar and am used to excruciatingly long movies.”

For newcomers, Avatar is centered around the idea that Earth was overpopulated, found a “planet b” and wanted to invade that planet because it contains rich materials that can be used for technology or to improve life on Earth. In order to successfully invade this planet, Pandora, the military comes up with technology and gives soldiers “avatars” to disguise themselves as the Nav’i (the blue people). The main character, at least of the first movie, Jake Sully, is a former marine who does not have the capability to walk. Along with his other colleagues, he infiltrates Pandora in his avatar disguise but inevitably falls in love with Neytiri and changes his ways- his colleagues do this as well. In one instance Sully and his colleagues get suspended from using the advanced technology and cannot hone back into their avatars. This ends in a violent struggle to connect into their avatars again and at one point, Sully transfers his consciousness completely into the avatar alongside his friends. Earth and Pandora go to war and the Nav’i defeat the military for only a certain period of time until they come back in the later movies. The Avatar franchise released comic books to show what life was like during that peaceful period when the military wasn’t hunting down the people of Pandora for their materials or trying to actively kill them. Jake Sully was never at peace, always staying cautious and anxious about the human’s return.

In the most recent movie, Sully and Neytiri have three biological children together and one adopted child, Spider. Spider is a regular human boy who grows up among the rest of the Nav’i children. His overall presence in the storyline is very random, but overall enjoyable. Spider and Neytiri’s characters faced backlash from the fandom. Spider for being a random theatric element to the story that nobody was expecting or had asked for in the first place, and Neytiri for nearly killing Spider- the boy she raised since he was a toddler. Spiders subplot made sense thankfully to a lot of viewers, directors feared that it was a filler. That overall scene with Neytiri holding her bluff was stomach churning and heavily anxiety inducing as she gripped the blade right across Spider’s chest! Sophomore Aadya Kasiredy agrees with the statement.

“I liked Spiders subplot, it wasn’t anything groundbreaking but it reinforced the theme of family. Though it was [obvious] how things would turn out and it was an already [packed] movie. I do think that it was overall important for the plot to move forward and see his side of things and to sympathize with him and root for him to be with the rest of the family.” Kasiredy says. “However, I do not believe Neytiri was justified for trying to kill Spider. It was really understandable as she wanted the safety of not only the rest of her family but also the future of the Nav’i.”

Neytiri is justified in every way in how she acted, even though she scarred her own adopted son. She lost her oldest son recently and it’s reasonable to see how she did not want to lose any other important part of her life. The scene where she threatens to cut Spider is the scene where her daughter is forcibly taken from her! Zoe Saldana who plays Neytiri captivates her anger perfectly and the anger of a mother can be burned into one’s soul just through the screen. Plus, Spider is not really her own son and rather a traitor because he’s the son of the antagonist from the first movie, Colonel Miles Quaritch.

When it comes to overall theatrics of the movie, the movie was a ten outta ten experience. Many fans were grateful for the use of CGI and absolutely no AI use. Nowadays, people refer to AI as “AI slop” and they’re right. It’s something made by a machine, not by a human with sentimentality. Sophomore Malia Hanada is very passionate about AI but overall appreciated how well the movie was put together although the run time was three hours!

“The movie was a little bit boring, sitting in the theatre for three hours [made my back hurt] but it was worth it to see the way the directors completed the movie all together.” Hanada says. “The CGI was on point and it’s refreshing to get away from AI slop. I haven’t really seen AI used in movies but I’ve heard that they will start to initiate that into the film industry, which is heart breaking. I’m [satisfied] that the directors of Avatar didn’t go with that route.”

The ending to Avatar: Fire and Ashwas enjoyable and beautifully satisfying. Some fans argue that the ending is completely different from where the film really first started out and believe that the creators should have stuck to a more simplistic plot line, but a simplistic plotline definitely would have lost the interest of more fans imaginable. Although the film is rooted in belonging and family values, the themes were executed well and tastefully done- even though the fans would have loved to see Sully a little bit more and have the story focused around him again.