photo credit: Tatum Ongaro
The newest addition to the “Avatar” movie franchise was released on Dec. 19. It has already produced over $1 billion in box office revenue as of early January. Just like the previous movies, it has become extremely popular within weeks of releasing.
It starts off with Jake Sully and the rest of his family grieving Neyetam, their firstborn’s, untimely death that occurred in the second movie.
Neytiri, Sully’s wife, has a hate for “pink skins” or humans that grows more and more every day, especially now that she lost her son along with the forest and her father. Unfortunately, Spider, the kids’ human friend who has always been with them, is human and Neytiri often takes her anger out on him.
This made me sad because I understood where she was coming from; the humans destroyed everything she loved, but Spider shouldn’t have been blamed for their actions.
Spider uses masks to breathe the air on Pandora, but after a close call, the Sully clan decides he should go live at the human scientist camp. They all board a traveling merchant ship to see him off, but it ends up getting hijacked by the Mangkwan tribe, a clan who rejected Eywa (their goddess) and isolated themselves.
In the past movies, they never encountered anything like this so it was really interesting to me how they incorporated that Na’vi people can also come off just as evil as the humans, who are the directed villains in the world of Pandora.
The main focus of this series is to coerce people to think about how they treat the Earth, which is supposed to be our Pandora. In the movies, the humans destroy their land and are the issue, but to see a rogue Na’vi tribe was so unexpected and I loved it.
The Mangkwan clan attacks the ship, which ultimately ends up separating the family. The kids run to escape, but realize Spider’s spare mask is onboard and head back, meanwhile Sully has a run in with Colonel Miles Quaritch and Lyle Wainfleet, the corporal.
When this scene came on and Wainfleet came into view, I was genuinely so angry. He was the one who killed Neteyam, and he still had to come back and torture the family more?
They were still heavily focused on capturing Sully, but when he brings up how Spider needs his mask, the three all try to find the kids. Meanwhile, Spider collapses, not being able to breathe so Kiri uses the nature around her to help him in some way while the other Sully kids stay lookout.
Spider can suddenly breathe now that his cells are infused with Pandoran nature but shortly after, they get captured by the Mangkwan. Their leader, Varang, is cutthroat. She ends up capturing Quaritch and Sully, but not before she forces Quaritch to teach her how to use a gun.
The special effects of Spider now being able to breathe Pandoran air were portrayed so well. It was so cool seeing nature’s aura physically go into his body, like it wasn’t anything tangible but more of a spiritual thing.
Later on, with Kiri now having some kind of special ability to connect with nature, orders a set of stinging plants to attack the guards watching them. They escape and head to the human scientist camp while Quaritch heads for the naval base.
I was extremely curious why Kiri could connect her kuru (the Na’vi hair appendage that helps connect with Eywa) to any part of Pandora and control nature. No one else’s kurus are able to perform that way and it was very strange because this was the first time it had happened to Kiri.
Kiri learns that she’s Eywa’s daughter, which gives her the power, but is unable to connect and pray to Eywa like the rest of the Na’vi. It is also confirmed that Spider has a living organism inside of him now, and it can in fact be genetically reverse engineered to allow all humans to breathe on Pandora.
This scene confused me because I had always wondered why Kiri was considered different from all the other Na’vi and even though this was the reason, it didn’t make sense to me why she of all people couldn’t connect to HER mother.
Quaritch devises a plan to team up with the Mangkwan tribe and develops a romantic relationship with Varang. Whilst Kiri and Spider are learning more about the nature, they kiss.
This genuinely disgusted me so much. They had no chemistry and the kiss was so awkward to watch.
Quaritch invades the Metkayina and demands Sully, who reluctantly goes with him. Neytiri infiltrates the military base, and a rogue scientist steals a bulldozer to free Jake. Spider also escapes with the couple. Jake prepares to kill Spider because of the danger he poses, but stops when a remorseful Neytiri finally accepts Spider.
Sully travels around Pandora, reuniting the different clans for one big showdown with the military invaders. After a long, gruesome fight, the Metkayina chief’s wife, Ronal, gives birth right before she dies. Quaritch ends up jumping off one of the cliffs before any of the Sully’s can kill him, which finally ends Sully’s biggest threat.
This was so shocking because Quaritch had almost been killed multiple times and the fact that he did it himself this time was so uncharacteristic and unexpected of him.
Finally, they all connect with Eywa, and Spider is finally “seen” or accepted by the Na’vi. In this connection, Neteyam is there along with many of the Na’vi who passed away in previous movies.
I loved this movie so much. The ending was perfect for my standards and seeing Neteyam was heartwarming. Spider finally being accepted into the Na’vi culture reminded me of Jake and was such a full circle moment. I would give this a 5/5 rating, especially because of the special effects. The actors had to act with nothing, because most of Pandora was animated. They only had their imaginations of what the scene would look like, and wore facial markers (dots on their faces) to help with the facial expressions in real time.
