Name that Avatar character

There is nothing I dread more than a press release for a movie too big to ignore that I just do not give a sh-t about landing in my inbox. Anyway, the trailer for Avatar: Fire & Ash, the third in James Cameron’s technology test franchise, dropped yesterday.

A new Avatar means, of course, that it’s time to play everyone’s favorite cinema trivia game—name that Avatar character! Literally, without googling, what is literally ONE (1) Avatar character’s name? 

Spider! I got that one because it’s the only name they say in the trailer! It’s a common refrain with the Avatar movies, that no one remembers anything about the characters or story. One of the worst internet discourses of the last 15 years is “Avatar has no cultural footprint” and its rebuttal “Avatar is game-changing cinema”. 

1. I do not think you can ignore that people memory hole these movies as soon as they come out. It actually isn’t great that no one gives a f-ck about these characters even though they’re the center of two of the biggest movies of all time. It’s like Star Wars except no one can name one Jedi. 

2. Yes, the real legacy of the Avatar movies is in the technology it takes to make them, and that is NOT nothing in the world of cinema. Filmmaking has and will continue to evolve with the new techniques and technologies James Cameron develops to make his extremely boring movies. 

James Cameron simply is not interested in characters or storytelling, that is why I refer to Avatar as his “technology test franchise”. What this is really about is Cameron pushing the limits of cinematic technology and seeing what he can do with emerging tech. I do think, though, that the leap represented by the first film is greater than the leap represented by the second film. It’s sort of like cell phones—the first generation was a revolution, everything since is just making them smaller/faster. The only curiosity I have about Avatar is whether or not James Cameron can make another novel leap like he did with the first one, or if he’s just refining tech and process like the smart phone evolution. 

Avatar 3 introduces the Fire Nation Ash People. They’re not like other Nav’i, they have RED markings! Can’t wait to see what Indigenous group Cameron is ripping off this time. The heroes (names TBD) are still fighting other groups of Nav’i, which could be a haunting synthesis of how colonial encroachment forced Native nations into greater and greater conflict with each other, but Cameron’s assessment of American manifest destiny is “the Lakota should have fought harder”. He saves depth for the Titanic, I guess.

Avatar: Fire & Ash opens on December 19. It’s the big holiday movie of the year. There are some family-friendly films coming out in the holiday season, chiefly Zootopia 2 and a new SpongeBob movie, and Wicked: For Good should have strong enough legs to play through Christmas, but Avatar’s biggest competition is the new Anaconda movie starring Jack Black and Paul Rudd, which opens on Christmas Day. I want to see this battle, I really do. Precedent says don’t count out Avatar, but people f-cking LOVE Jack Black. 

The reality is, Avatar 3 will probably make another $2 billion, because like the Jurassic franchise, people will turn up for these movies even when they’re not especially engaged by them. The spectacle is the selling point. But there is a part of me that thinks that eventually, the fact that people don’t care about these characters will start to matter, the question is just when. But it probably won’t be now, especially with so little competition at the box office.