Tag Archives: Quaritch

Jan 18 2026

Beyond Avatar: Fire And Ash

There have been many questions from those who saw Avatar: Fire and Ash about the state of affairs following that film and more importantly if we will see another Avatar sequel. James Cameron, the director and creator of the Avatar films said at the time of the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash that future films would depend on the third film’s box office performance. Since then, the film has proven to be an undeniable hit, having grossed $1.3 billion and climbing, but is that enough and where would the Avatar saga go? There will be spoilers ahead for Avatar: Fire and Ash.

After the Fire and Ash

When Avatar: Fire and Ash finished, the human colonizers were dealt a huge defeat by the native Na’vi of Pandora, but they were not driven off the world. Meanwhile, the human teen Spider was accepted by the Na’vi as one of their own, and his new ability to breath Pandoran air indicated that humanity would be able to adapt biologically to live on Pandora. This was what Jake Sully and his lover Neytiri feared would happen because humanity was desperate to flee a dying Earth and settle on a new world. It is all but certain that despite their defeat, more humans would show up in waves to settle on Pandora.

Then there were unresolved personal issues faced by the main characters. Although many arcs were resolved such as Neytiri’s hatred of humans and Jake Sully accepting his destiny as Toruk Makto, the warrior leader who would unite the Na’vi tribes against the humans, others were left incomplete. Namely, Sully’s children with their own stories, the fate of his enemies Quaritch and Varang, and what would ultimately come of the human/Na’vi relations. Yes, we saw Quaritch plunge to his fiery death at the end of the film, but come on we saw him killed by arrows to the heart in the first film, drowned in the second, so the powers-that-be will concoct some way to resurrect him.

Regarding Quaritch and the Na’vi

Quaritch has become one of the most interesting and nuanced characters in the Avatar films. Originally, he was a one-note villain in the first film that was killed off, but after his memories were implanted into a Na’vi avatar in the second film, his character became more intriguing. Quaritch hates the Na’vi and actively fights for the humans, but he is actually one of the Na’vi now. Yet, he refuses to open his eyes and acknowledge the wonder of Pandora as Sully chided him in the third film. The actual Quaritch died in Avatar and for all intents and purposes the Na’vi replacement has the opportunity to chart a new course but is stuck in his old ways. However, in the third film there were signs of Quaritch starting to soften his ways. This was best seen with his wanting to establish a relationship with his human son, Spider, who adopted Na’vi culture. He also began to “go native” when he began a sexual relationship with Verang since they shared a common bloodthirst for violence. Then there is also the fact that he ignored the orders from his human military leader, General Ardmore, who was more openly disdainful of Quaritch, Verang and her tribe. The natural progression for Quaritch in the final two films would be for him to have a change of heart and side with the Na’vi and probably sacrifice himself to either save Spider or Pandora or even the child that he would have conceived with Verang. Given how Quaritch has become such a great character it would be a shame if we never see him again.

As for the Na’vi, the humans are still on Pandora and more will come. How can they survive this? In our history, whenever a culture encountered one with a high-level of technology, they would end up being defeated in the long run. The Na’vi are a non-industrial society that consider the use of metal weapons to be taboo and won’t use them, except for the Ash People who were all too willing to use human armaments to fight their fellow Na’vi. But we’ve seen traditional Na’vi starting to use human technology. In Avatar: The Way of Water, Sully led a raiding party who quickly stole human weapons and used them against the humans. Neytiri herself even began to use Na’vi weapons modified with human technology to rescue Jake in the third film. This enforces a theme that in order to survive one must be willing to adapt. This theme of adapt or die was also shown when the powerful aquatic tulkuns abandoned their pacifistic ways to fight the humans who were slaughtering them. No matter what ultimately happens the Na’vis are forever changed by the arrival of humans.

One nagging situation with the Na’vi is their origin. On Pandora, the native fauna have six limbs, no nostrils, two neural queues, and two sets of eyes. Despite their blue skin and gigantic nature and tails, the Na’vi are more human-like with four limbs, nostrils and one set of eyes. We have not had an explanation as to why the Na’vi are so biologically different from other Pandoran lifeforms. This implies that the Na’vi may not be natives of Pandora. They could have come from another world perhaps under similar circumstances to the humans or they were stranded there. Perhaps they were more technologically oriented and abandoned this lifestyle to become more attuned to the land and eventually forgot their origins. This would be a fascinating plot to explore in the fourth or fifth film and point a way towards humanity’s destiny of learning to live harmoniously with the land.

Humanity’s Fate

Then there is the nagging question of will the humans be able to live on Pandora peacefully with the Na’vi? Instead of using MacGuffins like unobtanium to explain why the humans are so set on razing Pandora, the fourth and fifth film should focus more on humanity’s desperate mission to find a new world. This could lead to ethical questions on both sides. It’s one thing to fight back hard against invaders from the sky out to plunder your world but it’s another to attack families with children who are only looking for refuge. Sure, Verang and her Ash People would not hesitate to kill any human but would others like Neytiri be willing to go that far?

As for the humans, we have to see more people that are against the military/corporate factions who are too eager to kill Na’vi and pillage Pandora. It’s unrealistic to think that most of the humans in the Avatar films are evil scumbags. We saw more signs of humans fighting for the Na’vi in the earlier films with Sully himself, a few allies, and in the third film when the marine biologist Dr. Ian Garvin helped Jake escape from jail and warned him of a pending tulkun slaughter. But we need to see some kind of redemption for the whole of humanity. They have to take a stance and find a way to live harmoniously with the Na’vi.The next films could have a development were a faction of the colonizers rebel and fight on the side of the Na’vi. One really awesome sequence could have several of the arriving ships from Earth unexpectedly attacking other human ships. Then these rebel ships could land on Pandora and the humans emerging from them could declare their allegiance to the Na’vi.

On that note, if there is never another Avatar film, we do have an ultimate conclusion of sorts to the Avatar Saga. In Pandora, the World of Avatar, the Avatar-themed land in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, it takes place generations after the Avatar films and both species now exist peacefully with each other. If that won’t suffice, Cameron himself promised to hold a press conference and reveal the end of the saga and even write a novel about it.

Continue reading →
Dec 21 2025

The World Of Avatar Continues To Astound With Avatar: Fire And Ash

The latest entry in filmmaker James Cameron’s sci-fi saga, Avatar, is out now in theaters and the question is does Avatar: Fire and Ash deliver the astounding cinematic thrills? Yes, it does, though some may want something different at this point.

Avatar: Fire and Ash takes place right after the  previous film, Avatar: The Way of Water, and deals with the aftermath of that film’s events.  For anyone who hasn’t seen these films, they take place on the moon Pandora which is inhabited by tribes of tall, blue-skinned beings called the Na’vi who are deeply in tuned with nature because of their ability to use appendages to form neural links with Pandoran lifeforms. They worship an entity called Eywa who makes up the collective consciousness of Pandora and interconnects with nature. Their existence is threatened by human colonists from a dying Earth who do not hesitated to exploit the moon’s natural resources and treat the Na’vi as inferior creatures. The films focus on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a human paraplegic former soldier whose consciousness inhabits the body of an artificially grown Na’vi known as an avatar. Sully rebelled against his fellow humans and eventually starts a family with his partner Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), but they have to stay on guard from vengeful humans who want to bring Sully to justice. Sully is being hunted by another avatar, Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), his former commander who is obsessed with capturing Sully. What is unusual here is that the actual Quaritch was killed in the first film and the Quaritch avatar is inhabited by implanted memories from Quaritch.

At the start of Avatar: Fire and Ash, the Sully Family is deep in mourning over the death of the eldest son (Jamie Flatters) who was killed by human forces in the previous film. One of the members of the family is Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion), a human teenager who embraces the Na’vi way of life and rejects his father who happens to be Quaritch. Sully fears that Spider cannot remain with the family in their sanctuary and transports Spider to a human colony made up of human scientists who also rebelled against their fellow colonists. As the Sullys are transported by a tribe of Na’vi called Windtraders who use giant aerial jellyfish-like creatures for transportation, the tribe is attacked by a rogue Na’vi tribe called the Mangkwan. This particular tribe has rejected Eywa, embraces violence, and are very hostile to the other Na’vi. Their leader is Varang (Oona Chaplin), who is nihilistically vicious and forms an alliance with Qauritch and the human colonists to hunt Sully in exchange for human weapons.

What complicates matters for the characters is that Quaritch is also obsessed with finding his son and repairing his relationship with him, which is odd since the actual Quaritch died in the first Avatar film. Meanwhile, the Sullys have another adopted child called Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) who is the child of yet another avatar, Grace Augustine.  The identity of Kiri’s father is unknown and Grace cannot answer this because she died in the first film. Kiri has an uncanny ability to connect with Pandora’s life forces and her actions in saving Spider drive the film’s narrative. In Pandora, humans cannot breathe the air and at one point in the film, Spider’s breathing unit breaks down and he starts to suffocate. Kiri is able to save him by implanting a mycelium symbiote into Spider that lets him breathe Pandora’s air.

After the humans learn about this they task Quaritch to hunt down Spider so he could be studied to see how this ability to breath Pandora’s air could be replicated for the rest of humanity. Sully fears this because he knows this event would be disastrous for the Na’vi. Adding to his woes are dealing with the bitter hatred and bigotry Neytiri has towards humans even Spider himself, and with the plight of his remaining son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), who is wracked with guilt over his brother’s death and tries to measure up to Sully, while forging his own destiny.

As anyone can tell, unlike the earlier films, the plot for Avatar: Fire and Ash is more complex and filled with developed character nuances. A common complaint about the films is that they are essentially simplistic sci-fi versions of Dances With Wolves or Ferngully. Most people did not care, as seen by the huge box office numbers of the films. They came to theaters for the sheer spectacle of the immense and intricate details that James Cameron infused into the films. One of the main reasons that the films tend to take so long to produce is because of the revolutionary special effects, 3D technology and dense worldbuilding that are the Avatar films’ best assets. Just like the other films, Avatar: Fire and Ash has to be seen on large screens not on phones and other digital devices.

With that said as spectacular and jaw dropping the third Avatar film is, one can’t help wish that Cameron did not play it so safe with familiar beats. Sure, the action and the visuals are incomparable and the film gets a lot of credit for developing the characters especially Quaritch who once was a one-note military villain but is now slowly becoming an anti-hero and adopting the Na’vi way. But many of the story beats in the other films are repeated in Avatar: Fire and Ash, just done on a larger scale, such as bondings with the whale-like tulkuns and flying banshees, the final confrontation between the Na’vi, Pandora’s fauna and the human soldiers and whalers or having Sully’s children continually captured and rescued. However, these plot elements were well done, and there are intriguing new developments like the introduction of the villainous Na’vi and Kiri’s connection to Eywa, it’s just that with a runtime of over three hours, more should have been done to develop the overall story. It’s regrettable that with such a rich world to explore, Cameron did not introduce new biomes such as deserts or polar regions. Also, with all the talk about Earth dying, this begs a visit or a look at the planet. The closest we’ve seen of Earth was a deleted scene that originally opened the first Avatar. At least he did introduce antagonistic Na’vi with their own separate worldviews and by the way, Varang is one great villain and her obsession with human weapons added a new angle for the Na’vi. Hopefully, she’ll return in the sequels and that the other lingering storylines get resolved. These include the emotional journeys of Jake, Neytiri (who gets a lot of great material in this film), Kiri, Lo’ak, Spider, and Quaritch.

James Cameron has been coy lately over whether or not there will be more films in the Avatar franchise. About a quarter of the fourth film has already been shot, but he and Disney are waiting for the box office results to determine if Jake Sully and the Na’vis’ story should continue. This story must be allowed to come to its natural conclusion as Avatar: Fire and Ash left many questions and threads unresolved.

Putting aside the nitpicks about Avatar: Fire and Ash it has to be stressed that this is a great film and better than most of what is being released. The film is very engaging and well executed. It is so easy to get involved with the characters’ stories to the point that we care about what happens to them and get uneasy wondering if they will actually die.  As mentioned before, the film has to be seen on large screens in 3D and the story is done well enough to merit going out of one’s way to see this in theaters and marvel at Cameron’s rich vision.

José Soto

Dec 26 2022

Beyond Avatar: The Way Of Water

Despite what many naysayers predicted, Avatar: The Way of Water has proven to be a box office hit, which means that future films will be produced.

At this point, the third Avatar film is already done and will be released in two years. There are reports that the fourth film has been partially filmed, but that could just be effects shots that would be unfinished if the film never comes to be.

Given that director James Cameron envisioned five films to tell his Avatar story, where would the story go? There will be spoilers below for both Avatar films released to date.

One of the best features of Avatar: The Way of Water is that unlike the previous film, it actually opened up the worldbuilding in the franchise and dropped tantalizing hints of where the story will go.

The Kiri Connection

The film introduced many new characters and gave new and interesting developments for established characters. The most interesting new character was Kiri, the adopted daughter of Jake Sully and Neytiri. It was revealed that she is the daughter of Grace Augustine, who was killed in the first Avatar, but there are questions as to who is her father. More importantly, Kiri was shown to have a deep, spiritual connection to Eywa, a life force that is connected to all living creatures on Pandora, the alien moon in Avatar where the characters live. Her connection to Eywa was quite evident as she used it to defend herself against humans hunting her and her siblings, and when she was able to get bioluminescent fish creatures to help find her adopted mother and sister, who were in danger of drowning.

It has been theorized that Kiri does not have a father and is a product of an immaculate conception, which has many echoes of not only the Star Wars prequels but Christian religion. Another theory has it that Kiri is actually the personification of Eywa, who has taken physical form to better understand Pandora and the Na’vi. In either case, Kiri is being set up to be a conduit or a savior of the moon against the human invaders, and this will be the needed advantage the Na’vi people will need against the humans.

In our history, whenever a technologically advanced culture first encountered a native culture that was not as technologically advanced, the results were grim for the native culture, as it was overwhelmed. The Na’vi face a similar fate in the overall story of Avatar, and the Eywa connection will probably be the only way they could fight back against the humans. We’ve seen this already in Avatar, when out of nowhere armies of native animals viciously attacked human forces trying to destroy a Na’vi stronghold, and we saw it again to a lesser extent in the sequel when Kiri used her connection to Eywa to protect her.

Not only is Kiri the key to saving Pandora, but possibly Earth itself. It was mentioned in Avatar: The Way of Water that Earth was dying, which was why humans showed up in greater numbers to begin colonizing the moon. The title of the third film is for now, Avatar: The Seed Bearer, this could be referring to Kiri. If she turns out to be a manifestation of Eywa, she could provide the means to somehow saving Earth from ecological devastation.

James Cameron has said that at some point in either the fourth or fifth planned film, part of the story will take place on Earth. This is where Kiri and Earth’s salvation could come into play.

Other Points of Views

The director elaborated that Neytiri will visit Earth and be exposed to other aspects of humanity. She will learn that not all humans are evil. This is a bit odd given her romantic relationship with Jake Sully, who was once human, and that he has close ties with sympathetic humans on Pandora, who have aided the Na’vi. Then again the fact that her son was killed by humans could have hardened her against humans. A clue for this development was when she grabbed Quaritch’s human son Spider and threatened to kill him. For a moment in that scene, it really looked like she meant to do it, given her earlier rampage against human soldiers who killed her son.

On Earth, Neytiri will probably find human allies who are ready to join the struggle against human invaders on Pandora. It is possible the franchise could conclude with epic battles taking place on Pandora and even on Earth as Na’vi and human allies fight the invading humans who are bent on world conquest. One of those possible allies could be Quaritch himself.

When Quaritch was first introduced in Avatar, he was a one-note villain who only saw the Na’vi as savages or pests to be eliminated. He was killed at the end of the film. In the sequel he was resurrected in a way when an avatar body (a clone grown out human and Na’vi DNA) was created in his image and implanted with his memories. Throughout Avatar: The Way of Water Quaritch is out hunting Jake Sully, but in a Na’vi body. This allowed him to better blend in and survive the deadly environment of Pandora. In the film, Quaritch makes great efforts to adopt the Na’vi way of life to better understand his prey. This could eventually make him sympathetic to the Na’vi even though Cameron said he would be the villain in the next two films. We saw him soften from his tough-as-nails militaristic demeanor in Avatar: The Way of Water. He forms a fragile bond with the son of the original Quaritch to the point that he gives in to Neytiri when she threatens his son.

Continue reading →