Avatar: Fire and Ash Cannot Be The End of the Series (And There’s One Reason Why)

As most film lovers (and general audience members) know, the plan is to make five total Avatar films. And now that Avatar: Fire and Ash is out, we’re 60% of the way there. But, as anyone who has seen Fire and Ash can attest, the finale really does make it seem as though we’re running out of steam here. There aren’t many narrative threads to tie into a bow and drop. How it’s going to sustain two more likely epic in length films is a bit of a mystery. It seems as though it could be done in one, and what we want to see out of that one is something that has already been alluded to.

Specifically, before he passed away in 2024, franchise producer Jon Landau said that the fourth film would move the narrative to Earth. It’s not clear if it would be entirely on Earth, half on Earth, or with just a few scenes on Earth before moving entirely to Earth in the fifth film, but the general concept is at some point Avatar‘s leaving Pandora. And, frankly, that seems necessary.

It Feels Like We’ve Seen All There Is to See on Pandora

Joining Jake Sully as he first entered Pandora was a revelation in 2009. It was a whole new, elaborately designed world that enveloped us. Then, The Way of Water did a fine enough job of recapturing that wonder, but it still wasn’t to even half the degree of the original film. Like with the T-800 in The Terminator, it felt like a hugely impressive creation the first time but then come round two the T-1000 had to be introduced to make the audience once more feel as though they were seeing something entirely new.

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With Fire and Ash, it doesn’t feel as though we’re seeing anything new. The novelty has mostly worn off, even if the landscapes and hovering mountains of Pandora still look wonderful.

More importantly, the military trying to slaughter the Na’vi for their natural resources and whale’s oils is played out. If they repeat that Na’vi vs. human dynamic in Avatar 4 it is going to absolutely feel entirely redundant.

However, Fire and Ash goes in a direction that seems to hint at what’s to come next, and it’s an interesting one. In the third act, Jake Sully is captured by Quaritch and the military. We see an army of onlookers cheering for his incarceration as if he’s an apprehended terrorist. It would be interesting to see how Pandora and the Na’vi have been described to people on Earth. It seems it’s pretty far from in a kind light.

It’s about time for this whole narrative to wrap up, and it should wrap up by having the people of Earth realize they’ve been lied to about these people with whom they have absolutely no real familiarity. Many members of the military die in Fire and Ash, but if the humans don’t learn their lesson (we never do) and send more soldiers up to kidnap Na’vi and bring them down to Earth, it will make for a nice change of pace. Granted, seeing Earth in IMAX isn’t as compelling as seeing a space world, but a change is needed.

What do you want from the fourth (and potentially fifth) Avatar movie? Let us know in the comments.