Contains spoilers for “Avatar: Fire and Ash”
It’s a complex, storied, and lore-layered movie — which is why some of what it had to say probably passed you by. If you’d like to have some of the most confusing moments in “Avatar: Fire and Ash” explained to you, then click our video above to watch and have its most difficult plot points clarified.
Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is a wicked jack of all trades, so on the surface it’s not surprising that he’s picked up on the Na’vi language during his brief time interacting with them on Pandora. But when you realize that Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) took months of special training to understand and speak it, Miles’ sudden and instantaneous understanding of Na’vi makes no sense. On top of that, in “Avatar: Fire and Ash” he’s quite fluent in the language, which is odd because he had little mastery of it when we last saw him in “Avatar: The Way of Water.” And that film takes place just days before the events of “Fire and Ash.”
Eywa is the universal constant for every Na’vi on Pandora, so it’s strange that this uniting goddess figure has little to no impact on the plot of “Fire and Ash.” Perhaps that’s because she’s sitting back and letting the Sullys work out their own problems this time — but it’s still a relief when, during the ending of “Fire and Ash,” Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) finally manages to make contact with her. She ends up becoming the film’s deus ex machina, solving things for the Na’vi when the sky people invade yet again, but where was she when they needed her?
The case of the disappearing villain
Varang (Oona Chaplin) is the central villain of “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” but she never receives a comeuppance worthy of her villainy. Why? Perhaps it’s because they’re hoping to bring her back for the already-greenlit fourth “Avatar” movie. But one of the biggest problems in “Fire and Ash” is that she simply disappears without confronting Jake and his family, robbing the audience of a satisfying death for the much-hated movie character.
And then there’s the moment where Kiri, Spider (Jack Champion), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) are all running from the RDA’s gunfire. Jake previously accused his second oldest, Lo’ak, of being irresponsible and untrustworthy earlier — an accusation that holds water when Lo’ak leaves the youngest Sully, Tuk, behind after the rest of the siblings have escaped from the firefight by going underwater. Debris rain down as she hides behind a rock. Perhaps Lo’ak thinks Tuk can handle herself, or that he’ll come back for her. Either way, Jake never finds out what he did — a good thing, as he’d probably never praise Lo’ak for his good sense and maturity if he had. Have any more burning questions about “Avatar: Fire and Ash”? Click our video above and get some answers.