All spoilers for Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is a 2025 epic Science Fiction Adventure film directed by James Cameron and co-written by Cameron, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. It is the third installment in the namesake franchise after 2009's Avatar and 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water (parts of it were filmed at the same time as the latter).

Shortly after settling in with the Metkayina clan, the family of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) grapples with grief because of Neteyam's death. They encounter a new, aggressive Na'vi tribe, the Mangkwan clan, also called the Ash People. Led by the vicious and fiery Varang (Oona Chaplin), the Mangkwans ally themselves with Jake's enemy, Quaritch (Stephen Lang), as the conflict on Pandora escalates to devastating consequences. Meanwhile, the strong bond of Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) with the goddess Eywa has unexpected results.

Returning cast also includes Jack Champion as Miles "Spider" Socorro, Cliff Curtis as Tonowari, Kate Winslet as Ronal, Jemaine Clement as Dr. Ian Garvin, Edie Falco as General Frances Ardmore, Brendan Cowell as Mick Scoresby, Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge and Matt Gerald as Lyle Wainfleet. David Thewlis joins the cast in the (small) role of nomadic Na'vi leader Peylak.

Like its predecessors, it was filmed in stereoscopic 3D. Like The Way of Water, its production and release suffered delays related to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was released on December 19, 2025.

Previews: Trailer, Trailer 2

Avatar: Fire and Ash includes examples of the following:

• Actor Allusion: Both from Kiri (Sigourney Weaver).
  • Just her uttering the word "alien" towards the beginning.
  • Her "Leave my mother alone, WITCH!" to Varang in the climax sounds a lot like "Get away from her, you BITCH!"
• Always a Bigger Fish:
  • If you thought the Sea Dragon from the last movie was large, the RDA has an even larger ship that has multiple Sea Dragons as escorts. One of the supplementary books released before the movie calls this vessel a "Factory Ship" and states it is indeed, the command ship of the Sea Dragons (as in, the Sea Dragons are to it as all the lesser watercraft were to the Sea Dragon in The Way of Water).
  • As a Pandoran counterpart to this, many massive Tulkun attacking the Factory Ship in the Final Battle after abandoning their Suicidal Pacifism.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Every member of the Mangkwan clan, without exception, is violent, bloodthirsty, and murderously hostile towards anyone outside their tribe, have little to no empathy even towards each other, and are so devoted to their belief in total destruction they're fully willing to die in suicidal attacks just to destroy their enemies. This means that, with the exception of their leader, Varang, they're all interchangeable mooks the good guys can guiltlessly mow down without hesitation.
• Arc Words: "The light always returns". Lo'ak says the phrase in his narration first to explain the Na'vi mourning tradition of singing during the eclipse, and then right after the final battle over the scene of the Metkayina infants' (and Spider's) first communion with Eywa. It emphasizes one of the film's aesops that no matter how dire things seem, there is always hope if you keep fighting for it. Fittingly, even though Fire and Ash is decidedly Darker and Edgier than The Way of Water, it ends on a surprisingly high note in spite of all the tragedy, especially when compared to its predecesor's borderline Downer Ending.
• Arrows on Fire: The Mangkwan use flaming arrows in combat.
• Artificial Limbs: Mick Scoresby lost an arm in the Final Battle of The Way of Water, and he's gotten a robotic one as replacement.
• Badass Minds Think Alike: During the standoff between the Metkayina and Quaritch's forces at Awa'atlu, Tonowari and his clan instantly jump to their feet and draw their weapons when Jake raises his hand, despite there being no possibility of them having agreed on that cue beforehand.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: While Quaritch remains a main threat as usual, he now shares the role with Varang, the Tsahik of the Mangkwan clan.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Ardmore is one of the primary threats in the film, alongside Quaritch and Varang. However, unlike the two, Ardmore doesn't exactly work with them, as she is a terrible boss to Quaritch and is bigoted towards Varang and her clan, despite their alliance proving to be a major turning point against Jake, his family, and their allies. This would ultimately not end up well for her, as she and her forces fall into Jake's trap so recklessly, and gets herself and the majority of her men killed as a result. To make matters worse for her, it was clear that she was being used as bait by Quaritch so he and Varang could spring up their own trap against Jake and his allies, and could not care less about her inevitable death.
• Bittersweet Ending: Many Na'vi, chief among them Ronal, and Tulkun perish in the Final Battle, leaving several families with orphans and lost ones. Selfridge and the RDA still remain on the planet determined to see it colonized, Varang manages to flee with the Mangkwan clan survivors to strike another day, and Quaritch still refuses to change his ways, preferring to fall into the inferno than accept Jake's offer for redemption^note Though given Quaritch only jumped because Neytiri had her bow pointed right at him, one could make the argument the former was simply settling for Better to Die than Be Killed (assuming he's even dead to begin with post-movie). However, Ardmore and Scoresby, the major antagonists of the previous film, meet their ends in that same battle, and the RDA suffers a humiliating loss that showcases their dependency on the Mangkwan clan. Ronal's baby is born healthy, and even though she will never meet her mother properly in the physical world, she still has a loving father and two older siblings, not to mention a very protective godmother figure in Neytiri. Jake, Neytiri and their family all survive and are stronger than ever and now bonded with all beings across Pandora like never before too. This all being thanks to the connection that Kiri made with the beyond world and with that, Spider thanks to his newfound developments being accepted and welcomed too.
• Blade Brake: During the Mangkwan Clan's attack on the Tlalim/Wind Merchants, Jake flees from the explosion of an airship's balloon by sliding on the thing's side wings. When it gets too vertical, he slows down his fall by planting his knife in the wing.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • This is the first film to have openly antagonistic Na'vi.
  • Lo'ak is the narrator this time around, rather than his father Jake.
  • Unlike the last two movies, this film does not end on a shot of Jake's eyes opening.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Toruk returns after not appearing in The Way of Water.
  • The Way of Water didn't give any indication that Selfridge came back to Pandora. His only appearance there was in a video that was recorded before Jake sent him back to Earth at the end of the first movie.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Neytiri’s hatred toward humanity causes her to lose sight of who her family truly is, especially in her treatment of Spider. This prejudice is challenged further when she encounters the Mangkwan clan, proving that anyone is capable of good and evil. Jake eventually confronts her on it, reminding her that both he and their children share the very human blood that she despises.
• Bookends: The film begins with Lo'ak in the Spirit World flying Ikran with the deceased Neteyam. The end has Spider, now enhanced by Pandoran mycelium, entering the Spirit World with Neteyam also greeting him and accepting him with the other deceased Na'vi.
• Call-Back: Like in the previous film, Lo'ak finds himself being suddenly pursued by particularly driven aquatic predators which corner him inside a coral structure and would've had him dead to rights if it weren't for the intervention of a Tulkun (albeit in this case, it's either Aonung or Rotxo's 'spirit sibling' instead of Payakan)
• The Call Put Me on Hold: Despite her unusual connection to Pandora's flora and fauna, Kiri remains incapable of connecting to Eywa herself, represented in her mental realm as her struggling to go through a forest before being thrown out. Norm hypothesizes that it's a sort of firewall or encryption, while Mo'at believes it's something more spiritual, but neither have any answers on how to get through it. In the end, she manages to get through to Eywa once Spider and Tuk join her in the spirit world and help her push through, after which she has no trouble.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The RDA needs Spider alive in order to properly replicate the symbosis within his body and as such, are forced to hold their fire when he acts as a human shield to project Jake.
• Can't Live Without You: The mycelium which saves Spider's life also bonds to him in a manner that would kill both were they to be separated. Jake is distressed by this not because it's a danger to Spider, but because it makes him a Living MacGuffin that their enemies know they have, and would allow humans to walk freely on the surface were RDA to capture him and reverse-engineer the process.
• Casting Gag: Two from the Japanese dub:
  • Mutsumi Tamura (Varang) voices yet another Badass Native, except this time she is dubbing a villainous one; also, she also voices another character who is hellbent for revenge.
  • Yūma Uchida (Spider), rather hilariously, voices another character who gets Touched by Vorlons, except replace "being bitten by a radioactive spider" with "being saved by Eywa and being able to breathe safely in Pandora's atmosphere thanks to Kiri".
• Central Theme: Faith and choosing whether to lose it or regain it.
• Chekhov's Gun: Woodsprites (atokirina) have appeared since the first movie as harbingers of people chosen by Eywa. In this movie, we finally see what a woodsprite can actually do: eating its seed is the first step for a human to be able to breathe Pandora's atmosphere without a mask.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Halfway through the movie, Lo'ak is attacked by a pack of squid-like predators known as Tsyong. These end up proving vital in turning the tide of battle against the RDA in the climax, when Kiri is able to call upon Eywa and summons a massive shoal of them to decimate their attack boats and submarine attack vessels.
• Classical Elements Ensemble: The film introduces the Mangkwan and the Tlalim (Windtrader) Clans. Combined with the previous two films, this rounds out the ensemble of Na'vi tribes based around the classical elements.
  • The Omatikaya represent Earth in the sense of it being the forest. They are most in-tune with the forest out of most of the tribes given primary focus.
  • The Metkayina represent Water as they are a seashore-dwelling tribe. Their bodies are even different from the forest Na'vi to accommodate their nature since they have wider paddle-like arms and tails that facilitate their ability to swim. They can even communicate with the Tulkun using a form of sign language in the water, and in turn, they can understand the various sounds the Tulkun make.
  • The Mangkwan represent Fire since they live around a volcano and the environment in which they live is covered in ash. They are fond of using fire arrows, they have even figured out a way to light their skin ablaze for a decent amount of time without getting burned, and they enthusiastically embrace firearms and flamethrowers when Quaritch brings them shipments of them to rally them to the cause of the RDA. They weren't always like this though, only coming to culturally associate themselves with fire after a volcano wrecked their Hometree and Eywa didn't respond to their pleas.
  • The Tlalim represent Air which informs their other name being the Windtraders — nomads who travel across the sky and live in giant airships. The film shows that they are capable of creating organic airships that allow them to travel Pandora across the sky, and do so without needing a whole armada of Ikran like the Omatikaya.
• Clone Angst: Kiri does not take well to learning she's a parthenogenetic birth, effectively an exact clone of Grace's Avatar, naming it just one more thing that makes her feel like a freak.
• Les Collaborateurs: The Mangkwan are Na'vi who are collaborating with the human occupation force on Pandora.
• Construction Catcalls: When Neytiri wanders through the human base disguised as a Mangkwan Clan member, a group of human men start catcalling her leading Neytiri to hiss back in anger.
• Construction Vehicle Rampage: The RDA's ecocide of the Tulkun convinces Dr. Ian Garvin to pull a Heel–Face Turn. He steals a gigantic bulldozer and deliberately wrecks parts of the RDA base and demolishes Jake's cell block with it, allowing the latter to escape.
• Cool Airship: The nomadic Tlalim, or Windtraders, fly in giant ships held up by giant jellyfish-like animals and pulled by windrays.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: At least in one respect. The primary antagonists of the Avatar franchise up until now have been human colonizers coming to take over Pandora and exploit it for resources. Varang is a Na'vi and her motivation is linked closer to religious extremism.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: All three phases of the final battle are this.
  • In the first phase, the RDA is getting absolutely wrecked by the Na'vi and the unexpected charge of the Tulkun, who have abandoned their pacifistic ways.
  • Then Quadritch and Varang arrive, with the Mangkwan Clan forces in tow, routing the defenders and inflicting heavy casualties, to the point of Neytiri claiming that they have no chance of victory.
  • Finally, Kiri manages to get into contact with Eywa, which enables her to command all the Wildlife of Pandora....which she promptly sics on both the RDA and the Mangkwan, utterly massacring them.
• Darker and Edgier: This installment is much more intense and serious than the previous ones, introducing far more hostile Na'vi, especially their ruthless and warmongering leader Varang, who have no qualms about attacking and killing anyone who opposes them. The characters not only face external threats that show them no mercy, but also internal conflicts threatening to tear their familial bonds at the seams. Therefore, this is also the most emotional installment of the saga so far.
• Death by Childbirth: Ronal dies from a fatal wound sustained in the Final Battle just after giving birth to her baby, Pril.
• Death Seeker: After Jake lets Payakan be exiled and impulsively blames him for Neteyam's death, Lo'ak nearly shoots himself and is narrowly stopped by Kiri and Tsireya. Later he goes on a very deadly mission to try and find Payakan himself, that nearly results in him dying before he's rescued by the other Metkayina.
• Disney Villain Death:
  • Scoresby is grabbed by the last female of Payakan's herd and dragged to his death deep in the ocean by her.
  • Ardmore is last seen holding onto the Factory Ship at a tilt as it's pulled downward into the Flux Devil.
  • After being decisively cornered and defeated once more, but refusing to repent or surrender, Quaritch jumps off a floating island into a massive raging inferno below, rather than allow himself to be captured.
• Dressing as the Enemy: In order to infiltrate Bridgehead City and free Jake, Neytiri kills three Mangkwans, paints her body like them and grabs one of their identification devices to safely enter the city by the air with her Ikran. She even paints said Ikran the same color palette as the Mangkwan Ikrans so they both blend in better.
• Emergency Transformation: When Spider's breathing mask runs out, he nearly suffocates before a desperate Kiri conducts a ritual that infuses him with an endosymbiont, giving him the ability to breathe Pandoran air and a neural queue like other Pandoran life.
• Enemy Mine: Jake and Quaritch are forced to form a temporary alliance after the kids are lost in the jungle and being pursued by the Mangkwan. Normally, Quaritch wouldn't care, but hearing that Spider is in danger forces him to help Jake look for them. They are then forced to work together to escape the Mangkwan, and afterwards are so exhausted they have a loose stalemate where they have a chance to actually talk things out for a minute. The alliance doesn't last, though.
• Evil Is Burning Hot: The Mangkwan Clan are associated with fire, in contrast to the Omatikaya being associated with the forest and the Metkayina being associated with the ocean. They get their resources by attacking other Na'vi, reject Eywa, and gleefully accept Quaritch's offer to help the leader spread her "fire" across the world - with firearms and flamethrowers.
• Evil Overlooker: The theatrical poster above features Varang looming menacingly over the main characters with fire behind her.
• Face Death with Dignity At first Spider is distressed when Jake is about to kill him to ensure that humanity doesn't find out how he's able to breathe in Pandora, but when Jake reassures him that he still loves him and that this is not being done this out of hatred, Spider composes himself as he waits for Jake to deliver the killing blow. Luckily, Jake finds himself unable to kill the boy that he took under his wing.
• Facial Markings: Tsireya has received a tattoo above her right eye, similar to the ones worn by her parents, which she shows off to Lo'ak.
• Faith–Heel Turn: The Mangkwans were once like the other Na'vi clans, living in forests and worshiping Eywa. Then a volcanic flow destroyed their Hometree and devastated their land, and their prayers to Eywa fell on deaf ears. Since then, they have remade their culture in the image of fire and desire to spread it across the world, attacking other Na'vi and joining with Quaritch.
• Finger-Twitching Revival: When Spider starts suffocating in the toxic air of Pandora as his last respiratory mask runs out of battery, Kiri performs a last-resort ritual that has mycelium from the ground grow in him. Despite this, he seemingly succumbs... until his fingers start twitching. The spell worked, and he now no longer needs a breathing apparatus.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon:
  • Quaritch and the RDA provide flamethrowers to the Mangkwan clan to the delight of Varang, who happily tests one with Quaritch explaining her how it works and later uses it against Neytiri in aerial combat in the Final Battle.
  • Also, when the RDA and the Mangkwan corner the Metkayina Clan looking for Jake Sully, Quaritch has a flamethrower-equipped C-21 Dragon airship torch a Metkayina house to make them more cooperative.
• Fire Purifies: Varang calls fire "the only pure thing in this world".
• First Kiss: Kiri and Spider share one in the forest, after discussing her saving his life.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: When they're flying with the Tlalim, Lo'ak tries to fly with Jake and Jake shoots him down by pointing out he forgot his comm. During the Mangkwan raider attack, Lo'ak forgets his comm again, and it's destroyed in the fire before he can go back to retrieve it, keeping him from contacting Jake when they crash into the forest.
• Flying Seafood Special: The airships of the Tlalim/Windtraders are held up by giant Medusas, which look like Portuguese men-of-war blown up to hot air balloon size, and pulled by windrays, animals that look like a cross between a stingray and an inflatable raft. The end result is a biological blimp.
• Foreseeing My Death: Right before the Final Battle, Ronal tells Kiri "I fear we will not survive this". While it is possible that she meant her clan and their Tulkun, the fact that this was said as a response to Kiri noticing Ronal having labor pains, it is equally likely that Ronal meant herself and her baby.
• Foreshadowing: Jake introduces explosive-tip arrows he salvaged from the Sea Dragon to Neytiri, warning her not to be too close if she fires them. Guess what Neytiri uses in her plan to rescue Jake, along with what they do after she fires them.
• Friendly Fireproof: IFF identification tags prevent guns from locking on to targets carrying them, which Quaritch uses to fly the Mangkwan clan in without the bases' defenses automatically shooting them down. Neytiri later uses a stolen tag to get into Bridgehead and save Jake.
• Gambit Pileup: The rescue of Jake and Spider is a confluence of several distinct plans all running into each other by coincidence.
  • Spider affects his own escape and starts plotting how to free Jake, then capitalizes on Garvin's half-baked plan to keep things moving.
  • Garvin, as a metaphorical middle finger to his amoral employers, steals a bulldozer and crushes open Jake's cell to free him, but didn't think that far beyond his rash action and is ultimately told to run to safety, as he's not the target.
  • Finally, Neytiri infiltrates the city, is detected, and starts blowing up everything that looks flammable until she shoots down the RDA aircraft about to launch a missile at Jake and Spider, providing all three of them a means of escape.
• Glassy Prison: When Jake is captured, the RDA's prison of choice is a glass block to display him for the rest of the company and to make an example.
• Godzilla Threshold: Kiri was warned in the last movie that if she tried to connect with the sunken spirit tree, she could die. When the battle is turning against them, Kiri realizes the Tulkun will be genocided if she doesn't at least try and goes down to try and beg Eywa to help. She nearly drowns and is only able to succeed by Spider and Tuk helping her, then by a Gill Mantle saving her life.
• Going Down with the Ship: After the Factory Ship is rendered dead in the water by the toruk throwing a C-21 Dragon into it, General Ardmore chooses to go down with the vessel instead of abandoning ship with everyone else (or, more pedantically, go up with the vessel in this case). She's killed when the ship's torn apart and blown up by the Flux Devil.
• Going Native: Quaritch gets along very well with the Mangkwan Clan, mating with Varang and wearing their traditional Na'vi loincloth and red and black paint and hanging around with them in the tribal camp they set up inside the RDA base. This more than irks his superior, General Ardmore, who outright calls him a disgrace to his uniform for going to bed with those "savages".
• Gravity Screw: An aurora-esque flare in the Metkayina tribe bay is reported as a super-strong magnetic surge by the RDA, producing an anti-gravity field similar to the Unobtanium in the Hallelujah Mountains. The climax shows multiple ships getting caught in the field, ripped apart and thrown in the air. Jake and Quaritch end up having a fist fight on some floating rocks because their regular firearms were ripped out of their hands.
• Heel Realization: Following Neteyam’s death, Neytiri's hatred towards the Sky People becomes so overwhelming that she projects her grief onto Spider, showing indifference when he nearly suffocates in the middle of the night and openly declaring that she will never consider him part of the family. When Spider becomes able to breathe Pandora’s air and Jake points out that if he were captured by the RDA, it would enable other humans to do the same, risking an even larger-scale invasion, Neytiri suggests to kill the former without hesitation. However, after Spider helps her save Jake in Bridgehead City — and Jake momentarily agrees with her that Spider should be killed — Neytiri realizes how far she has gone. Even before Jake changes his mind and refuses to go through with it, she runs to stop the murder, understanding that killing Spider would mean crossing a line neither she nor Jake could ever return from. When they agree to find another way, Neytiri holds the young human's face, finally accepting him.
• Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: When Jake is captured by the RDA, he and Quaritch have a conversation that's mostly in Na'vi because Jake doesn't want it being overheard by the people outside. Unlike most examples, there's no secret information being exchanged: Jake just wants to have an honest conversation and the language barrier makes that easier.
• Hollywood Tactics: Even after three movies, the RDA still have no battle strategy beyond charging forward all at once in one big clump out in the open and only attacking straight ahead. Unsurprisingly, they are easily routed by the Na'vi and Tulkun, despite vastly superior firepower, and would've been quickly annihilated in the final battle if Quaritch hadn't disobeyed orders and brought the Mangkwan as backup.
• Hotter and Sexier:
  • The scenes between Quaritch and Varang are the most sexually charged out of all Avatar films so far (even moreso than the mating scene of Jake and Neytiri in the first), and Varang can qualify as a Hot Witch.
  • This film finally addresses the elephant in the room of "Do humans find Na'vi attractive" by having some soldiers catcall Neytiri while she's in disguise as an Ash clanner.
• Hourglass Plot: Neytiri starts the film hating Spider for not only being a human, but also the son of the man who's responsible for her firstborn son's death, and spitefully tells Jake that Spider will never be one of them, while Jake tries to convince her to let go of her hatred by reminding her that she fell in love with a human (that being him) a long time ago and that their children are half-human. However, after Spider is able to breathe Pandoran air thanks to Eywa's blessing and thus becomes a Living MacGuffin for the RDA, which threatens all of Pandora's survival, Jake has second thoughts and reluctantly convinces himself that Spider must die so that Pandora can survive (though he thankfully changes his mind at the last second). Meanwhile, after witnessing Spider risking his own life to save Jake from RDA forces at Bridgehead as well as realizing just how much her hatred has been leading her down a dark path, Neytiri finally comes around to see that Spider is just as much of a Sully as any of her children and accepts him as one of her own.
• Hufflepuff House: The sky-faring Tlalim clan only appear near the beginning of the film and have by far the least development out of the four major clan types seen so far. After being attacked by the Mangkwan raiders, they completely disappear from the film. This is somewhat justified by them being nominally neutral, refusing to take part in the fight against the humans with the other Na'vi.
• Human Shield: Spider, knowing that the RDA needs him alive if they want to unlock the key to breathing on Pandora without breathing apparatuses, intentionally puts himself between Jake and the Seawasp gunship about to launch a missile at the latter. This leads to both Selfridge and Quaritch ordering the pilot to hold fire, giving Jake and Spider an opening to escape.
• I Am Spartacus: To convince the Tulkun Council to allow Payakan and Ta'nok to speak at their gathering, Lo'ak, Tsireya, Aonung, Rotxo, and their respective Tulkun declare that if Payakan is outcast, they will all be outcasts with him.
• Immediate Sequel: The movie begins at most a few weeks after the end of the previous film. Jake has been spending most of his time salvaging the wreckage of the ship in the bay and still has lingering scars from the fight, which heal over the course of the film.
• Immune to Fire: The Ash People have substances that allow them to handle fire safely, with Varang dipping her hands in a red paint before setting her fingers on fire with no ill effect. That being said, they're not naturally immune to fire and several do get set on fire by their own weapons throughout the film.
• Irony:
  • In the first Avatar, Jake saw a giant bulldozer destroying the Omatikayas' sacred grove, jumped onto it and smashed its external cameras, which was the first indication the RDA had that Jake turned against them. In this movie, Dr. Garvin turns against the RDA by stealing the same type of bulldozer to break Jake out of his cell, and the RDA soldiers specifically try to shoot the cameras, but that doesn't matter to Garvin because he's going in reverse.
  • The RDA tends to view the Na'vi as little more than savages who can't be reasoned with. In this film, the tribe that they align themselves with is the only one that actually seems to fit this description.
• It's All My Fault: The film starts with Lo'ak saying that he's to blame for the death of Neteyam, and he goes to extreme lengths to save Payakan in an attempt to atone for it. Even Neteyam's spirit forgiving him isn't enough.
• I Want Them Alive!: Both Quaritch and Selfridge insist on having Spider kept alive, the former because he cares for his human self's son as his own and the latter so that the RDA can replicate the process that allows him to breathe Pandoran air. This becomes a source of friction between Selfridge and Ardmore, and allows Spider to turn himself into a Human Shield for Jake as they're escaping.
• I Was Never Here: A variant of this happens when Jake decides to have Spider be returned to High Camp so that the latter could live with the Omatikaya's human allies, and framing it as a family trip to appease the Sully children when they objected. When Peylak, the Olo'eyktan of the Tlalim Clan, points out that he would be painting a giant target on his floating airship with Toruk Makto on board, Jake tells him that Toruk Makto isn't on board (which is technically true in a way) but if he was, then Jake and Neytiri would be more than happy to help defend his airship from any attack. Upon hearing this, Peylak agreed to take the entire Sully family with him.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Ardmore and Scoresby are both harsh, but completely correct to chew out Quaritch and refuse to lend him more equipment and troops early in the movie, as it was his obsession with hunting down Jake and his family that already cost them a ship and gotten dozens of RDA personnel killed.
• Karmic Death:
  • Scoresby has it coming when Ta'nok (the last female of Payakan's herd) grabs him in her maw and dives deep to kill him (either via drowning or the increasing water pressure outright crushing him), after he and his whaler teams massacred so many Tulkun, killed Payakan's mother, and mutilated Ta'nok with their harpoons.
  • General Ardmore is a bigoted colonist who is actively leading wholesale genocide against the Na'vi and Tulkun. She is killed in the climactic battle when the Factory Ship is sucked into the Flux Devil and ripped to pieces with her still onboard. Not only that, her death is partly the result of Quaritch having had enough of her Bad Boss attitude and general ungratefulness toward him even though Quaritch had succeeded in capturing both Jake and Spider for her only to callously dismiss him for his methods and later attempting to kill Spider on sight despite Quaritch pleading her to take him back alive. For this, Quaritch simply stands by and uses Ardmore as bait to draw out Jake's ambush before he and Varang spring their own on them, not really caring if Ardmore and her forces get massacred in the process.
• Living Gasbag: The Tlalim people travel using airships that float with the help of a huge balloon-like creature with fins to act as sails. As the creature is filled with hydrogen, it can combust massively when pierced with a flaming weapon, like a Mangkwan soldier and his Ikran mount who crash into the creature after being set on fire. And the airships are pulled by Wingrays, giant ray-like creature that seem filled with gas as well.
• Living MacGuffin: After Spider gains the ability to breathe Pandora's air, both Jake and Selfridge immediately realize the potential for the RDA to reverse engineer his symbiont and create massive human colonization on Pandora. He's captured by the RDA but escapes before they can figure it out, and Jake almost kills him just to protect the Na'vi but ultimately decides against it. Good thing too, because Spider proves crucial in the final battle.
• Missing Steps Plan: Garvin steals a giant construction vehicle to break Jake out of his holding cell. Once Jake is out they run to a more secluded area to hide. Jake asks what the plan to escape the compound is, which forces Garvin to admit that this is as far as he got in his plan.
  Jake: Well then there's no plan, just Neytiri.
• Man on Fire: During the Mangkwan attack on the Tlalim fleet, a soldier and his mount get set on fire. He then crashes his mount and himself on one of the airships by piercing the Living Gasbag powering it, in turn causing the poor animal to combust like a hot air balloon or blimp on fire.
• Mistaken for Afterlife: When he wakes up after nearly suffocating from Pandora's atmosphere, Spider's first assumption is that he's dead and in the Spirit World since he can breathe the air. Kiri has to reassure him that he's still alive and just underwent an Emergency Transformation.
• More Dakka: Used liberally by all characters and vehicles. Subverted by Lo'ak, who becomes more precise with his shots after some character development.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: At the beginning of the film the family is still reeling from Neteyam's death in The Way of Water, and none of them are taking it particularly well: Jake is immersed in his work and pushing his family away, Neytiri's hatred of humans is growing fanatical, and Lo'ak is consumed by guilt to the point where he's nearly Driven to Suicide. The rest of the movie is about them growing past this.
• The Needs of the Many: Jake contemplates killing Spider because, since he's the first human who's ever breathed on Pandora without a respiratory mask, the possibility that the RDA will be able to reverse-engineer the symbiosis he benefits from has become increasingly likely, and with it a massive future colonization of Pandora by humans and thus genocides of the Na'vi and ecocides. He doesn't go through though.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Jake impulsively saying that Lo'ak should have followed orders in the last movie just drives Lo'ak deeper into his Guilt Complex and nearly results in him killing himself.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Quaritch brokers an alliance with the Mangkwan by gifting them human weapons, allowing him to successfully capture Jake and Spider, bringing them back to RDA's impenetrable fortress. What he also does is give the entire tribe IFF transmitters that allow them to fly past the perimeter defenses, and forces Ardmore to tolerate their presence. This allows Neytiri to kill one of the scouts outside the perimeter, steal their transmitter, and infiltrate the base, providing a much-needed escape route for Jake and Spider in the middle of their own escape attempt. Furthermore, he also leaves the dog tags of his original self with Spider when the boy asks for them during a visit to Spider's cell, allowing the boy to use them to unscrew a vent cover and escape his confinement.
• Neutral No Longer: The Tulkun are finally convinced to give up their creed of absolute pacifism once they see just how evil the humans are and that doing nothing will result in their extinction. This is a big problem for the whalers since they were only able to kill so many of the nearly indestructible Tulkun so easily before because they never fought back, and it turns out dozens of hundred-metre-long armoured whales attacking all at once can do a lot of damage.
• No Biochemical Barriers: That the film series plays extremely loose with biochemistry is already a given with the concept of the human-Na'vi hybrid "Avatars", but this movie takes it to another level when Spider gains the ability to breathe the Pandoran atmosphere by having alien mycelium grow into his body and alter his genetic code. That an alien symbiont entered him and completely changed his DNA within a few hours has no adverse side-effects at all, and even causes him to grow a kuru out of his head that allows him to psychically bond with other Na'vi, the animals of Pandora, and Eywa. That said, it's at the very least lampshaded: both the Avatar program's scientists and the RDA are shocked at how well it works and after a few days of studying it, the RDA is at a loss for how to replicate it (not that they had much time).
• No Escape but Down: After the final battle, Quaritch is cornered by Jake's allies, but Jake stops them from executing him on the spot because Quaritch has demonstrated he does care for Spider. Quaritch uses the distraction to let himself fall from the floating rock and into the magnetic flare, betting he can dodge the flaming wreckage and survive the long dive rather than be taken prisoner at best.
• Not Helping Your Case: When Jake decides to have Spider sent back to base after a close call with his mask running low, the Sully kids assume that he's trying to send Spider away just because he's human and protest that he's one of them. Neytiri then hisses that he will never be a part of their family.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Various characters get arrows go clean through their bodies, including Neytiri during the first encounter with the Mangkwan and then Jake and Quaritch in the final battle, yet suffer no particularly serious or lasting damage. Neytiri simply isn't able to use her bow at proper effectiveness for the first half of the storyline, Quaritch can't haul Spider up in the climax while they're both hanging from a ledge but can still hold onto him, and Jake doesn't seem to be affected in any major way at all.
• Parents as People: This film continues along the same lines as The Way of Water in portraying the older generation of characters as well-meaning (bar Quaritch) and competent but nevertheless flawed people:
  • Jake's heavy-handed and authoritative attitude to parenting almost drives Lo'ak to suicide.
  • Neytiri's (understandable, given her experiences, but still) hatred of humans in general and Spider in particular sours her relationship with Kiri quite a bit.
  • Tonowari's strict adherence to tradition and refusal to challenge the Tulkun elders would have almost certainly meant the death of his clan and their Tulkun siblings if it weren't for Lo'ak, Payakan and Tonowari's own children crashing the council and bringing in Ta'nok to testify to the Sky People's cruelty.
• Plot-Driven Breakdown: The battery pack on Spider's rebreather runs out whenever the plot needs it to, necessitating a quick search for a replacement and his transformation into a Pandoran hybrid when that option isn't available.
• Precision F-Strike: Garvin gets one after breaking Jake out of containment.
  Garvin: Is my protest "noted" now, fuckers?
• Production Throwback:
  • Quaritch and Varang bonding over him showing her how a flamethrower works is a mirror to Hicks showing Ripley how the pulse rifle works in Aliens, another James Cameron directed sci-fi action flick starring Sigourney Weaver.
  • As explained in Actor Allusion, Kiri's "Leave my mother alone, you WITCH!" to Varang in the climax sounds a lot like "Get away from her, you BITCH!" from the same Cameron-directed film.
• Properly Paranoid: After Spider gains the ability to breathe Pandoran air thanks to Kiri's ritual, Jake is worried that the RDA will try and replicate this so that all humans will be able to live on Pandora without oxygen masks. His fears are completely founded, because when Spider is captured, the first thing RDA scientists do is perform tests on Spider to analyze what allows him to breathe Pandoran air and see how to replicate his symbiosis.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over:
  • Played straight with Varang and the Mangkwan, who wear red, black and white war paint and happen to be a sadistic death cult.
  • Subverted with Ikeyni and her clan, who show up for the final battle. They wear similar red warpaint, but are firmly on the side of the protagonists.
  • Also Subverted with the Toruk. He is not evil, at worst he is bloodthirsty, which is normal and natural for an apex predator. In the finale, he is shown obeying Eywa and rejoining the battle even while riderless.
• Removed Achilles' Heel: A major plot point in the first two movies is that Pandora's air is highly toxic to human biology, and thus humans will die if they're exposed to it unfiltered. A major issue in the film is Spider's masks running out of battery at the most inopportune moments. In one such, he's so close to dying with no spare mask/battery in sight that Kiri resorts to invoking Eywa and performing a ritual that has symbiotic mycelium from Pandora's soil grow into him and alter his DNA, allowing him to breathe Pandora's air without an issue (and growing a kuru). Predictably, the RDA wants to capture and study him to reproduce this.
• Rock Beats Laser: Despite two movies where the native lifeforms of Pandora were able to beat back human war machines, Jake has no presumption that it could work long term and spends much of his time salvaging military gear from the wreckage of the ship from the last film. This also establishes that the Na'vi have decreed human weapons to be tainted, thus they actively refuse to understand them. Jake knows Neytiri will only use her bow, but provides the arrow shafts custom RPG-tipped warheads as an attempt at a compromise. When the final battle happens, the Na'vi army initially routs the human armada thanks to an ambush, but finds the tables turned on them when Mangkwan fliers wielding human weapons join the fray, as the combination of native mobility and human weapon superiority is an overwhelming tactical advantage for Quaritch. It also helps that Quaritch deliberately allowed Ardmore to bait the initial ambush so his own forces could ambush the Na'vi in turn.
• Rule of Symbolism: Neytiri paints herself up as a Mangkwan to infiltrate Bridgehead, reflecting how her hatred for humans is making her more and more like both the humans and the Mangkwan. It's when she's washing the paint off that she realizes she can't let Spider die, and ultimately lets go of her hatred of humans. The red paint on her hands also symbolizes the blood she will have on them if she lets Jake kill Spider.
• Sequel Escalation: The first movie's climax had a single C-21 Dragon aircraft, and the second movie's climax had a single S-76 SeaDragon ship. This film ups the ante by having a climactic battle with multiple of both vessel types as well as a massive Factory Ship that acts as the mothership for the attack that completely dwarfs everything else seen so far, as well as far more smaller attack boats and aircrafts.
• Sex Slave: Varang wonders if she should keep Quaritch as one. Quaritch admits it sounds like a fun weekend, but he has a better idea in mind.
• Shot at Dawn: When Jake is being held prisoner, Quaritch tells him he'll be put in front of a firing squad at 0600 the next morning, but he's rescued before that happens.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: The closer Quaritch grows to Varang, the more his choice in attire shifts from military gear to Mangkwan garb. By the climax, he's sporting the look of a fully fledged Mangkwan warrior, complete with their signature blood-red markings.
• The Sky Is an Ocean: The various organic aircraft used by the Tlalim. The organic parts of the craft look like aquatic creatures. The actual "blimp" looks like a medusoid animal made enormous and the animal pulling the craft looks like a stingray. The physical craft itself is shaped like a boat and manuevered much like one, with the pilots using (the Na'vi equivalent) of nautical terminology.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: When Spider is able to breathe Pandoran air, all Jake can think of is how the RDA might be able to reverse-engineer the ability and use it to further colonize and ravage Pandora with one less obstacle in the way, never mind the fact that Spider is alive and happier than he’s ever been, or that if humanity at large can breathe Pandora’s air, it might help them appreciate its natural beauty a little more. Granted, Jake turns out to have been Properly Paranoid, but he realizes he went too far in thinking that killing Spider was the best way to prevent it.
• Spider Tank: The whalers of the RDA still use the crab-like mech suits introduced in the previous movie. In the Final Battle, Ronal attacks one by breaking its glass and flooding the cockpit.
• Spike Shooter: When the Sully family is taken prisoner by the Mangkwan clan, Kiri uses her kuru to connect with the soil of Pandora and have a nearby poisonous spiked plant shoot its spikes at the Mangkwans guard them, killing them.
• Stacked Characters Poster: The movie poster has the key cast stacked vertically against a fiery, smoky backdrop. Varang, crowned in flames at the top, dominates as the central figure. Below him, Jake, Neytiri, Lo'ak, Kiri, Spider, and Quaritch are arranged in a circle, their glowing eyes hinting at shared stakes. The bottom anchors the ensemble with Varang on her Nightwraith soaring over Pandora's skies.
• Straw Nihilist: The Mangkwan, in particular Varang, pretty much have this as one of their core beliefs. After their homeland was destroyed in a fiery volcanic eruption, they prayed to Eywa for help and received no response. Afterwards, Varang came to despise Eywa and all who worship her, seeing value only in the cleansing purity of fire and destruction, not even valuing the lives of her fellow clansmen anymore and embracing firearms with glee. Their ultimate goal is to spread the purity of fire to every corner of the world by destroying everything in their path, just to prove how foolish belief in Eywa is to the other clans.
• Suicide Attack: One of the Mangkwan lights himself on fire and crashes into one of the Tlalim's blimps, setting off the flammable gas keeping it afloat.
• Supermodel Strut: Varang often walks with confidence, swivelling her hips.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: Spider can escape from his cell - there's no security watching it, no alarms go off when he takes off the grating.
  • Quaritch and his Na'vi buddies - despite being grounded - all freely leave the facility for their Big Damn Heroes moment for the RDA side.
• Take Care of the Kids: Ronal asks Neytiri to keep her baby daughter safe with her last breath.
• Technology Uplift: Na'vi tribes usually shun modern weapons brought to Pandora by the RDA, though that's not the case with the Mangkwan Clan. Their leader Varang becomes instantly fascinated by these things that "produce thunder" after Jake and Lo'ak gun down some of her tribesmen via assault rifles, and is very eager to get her hands on them. Quaritch notices this and brings enough weapons to arm the entire tribe if she agrees to work with the RDA, turning them into a formidable allied force, even though General Ardmore hates the idea out of Fantastic Racism.
• Tempting Fate: When they go into the floating mountains, Spider's mask gets a notification, but he decides to hold off on replacing the battery until it's necessary. Then the Mangkwan attack, they crash into the jungle, and Spider is separated from his replacement pack with the battery slowly running down.
• Tentacled Terror: A new Pandoran animal introduced is the Tsyong, which is basically a giant, pack-hunting squid. They're considered some of the most dangerous and feared predators of the seas. During the climax, Kiri is able to summon a huge shoal of them, which effortlessly decimate the RDA's seagoing attack vessels.
• That Man Is Dead: Surprisingly, after insisting he's a new person in Avatar: The Way of Water, Quaritch walks back on his initial opinions and embraces the notion that he's a continuation of the human his body's cloned from, even insisting to Spider that he is his father. Jake and Spider, now knowing Quaritch's true nature as Recombinant, believe otherwise. They frequently tell Quaritch that he is not a continuation of the human colonel who died years ago, but rather a new person with the uploaded memories of a dead man. Jake hopes to use this fact to sway Quaritch into performing a Heel–Face Turn but so far, Quaritch refuses to change his perspective.
• Thematic Sequel Logo Change: The Avatar logo this time has a grey/red gradient befitting the subtitle Fire and Ash.
• Those Were Only Their Scouts: The RDA actually has an entire squadron of Sea Dragons plus a more gigantic version serving as factory ship; it took the climax of the last film to destroy just one of the Sea Dragons. Unfortunately for them, they're no match for the Tulkun.
• Took a Level in Badass: Toruk goes from picking on the smaller Scorpion gunships in the first film, to being able to take down an entire C-21 Dragon and the Factory Ship. All while unridden by Jake!
• Tomato in the Mirror: Kiri learns that she was essentially immaculately conceived by Eywa, cloned and grown from Grace's Avatar. She does not take this well.
• Touched by Vorlons: Or rather, touched by Eywa. When Spider loses his mask and Kiri has to move quickly to save him, she grows mycelium from the sacred trees into his body. Afterward, he no longer needs a mask to breathe Pandora's air, has developed his own neural queue, and the scientists find the fibers are now affecting his whole body down to the cellular level.
• Training Montage: Quaritch teaches the Mangkwan how to use submachine guns and flamethrowers in a sequence that hilariously doubles as a Falling-in-Love Montage for him and Varang.
• Uncertain Doom: Quaritch decides to fall off the floating rock he, Jake and Spider were on, rather than giving Neytiri the honor of killing him when she has him in her sights, while he's last seen screaming as he falls, whether he perished in the fall or not is left unclear. Given the character survived his original biological death (arguably via the Recombinant creation process) and drowning for an extended period underwater, it's still a coin-flip whether or not Quaritch is gone for good so long as his body's not found,
• Unholy Matrimony: After a rough start, Quaritch and Varang start up a sexual relationship and actually seem to get along, bonding over their love of destruction and desire to fight Eywa.
  Varang: I see you.
  Quaritch: Damn right you do.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: While every other major antagonist (Scoresby, Ardmore, and Quaritch) seemingly dies in the final battle, Varang simply flees after Kiri terrifies her into submission through a psychic link.
• Villainous Badland, Heroic Arcadia: The benevolent Na'vi tribes are all shown living in lush and flourishing natural habitats, like jungles, grasslands, or coastal reefs, while the hostile Mangkwan Clan live in a volcanic wasteland of dead trees and jagged rock spires where nothing grows. In fact, it's because their home is a wasteland that they became so violent and hostile to begin with, and resort to raiding other Na'vi for resources.
• Wandering Culture: The Tlalim, or Windtraders, a nomadic clan that travels in airships.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We aren't shown whether or not Dr. Garvin was able to escape from Bridgehead after Neytiri rescues Jake and Spider.
• What You Are in the Dark:
  • Jake sorrowfully decides that Spider must be killed in order to prevent the RDA from unlocking the key to breathing on Pandora. He takes Spider out into the forest to make it quick and painless, before assuring Spider that he loves him like a son. In the end, with tears in his eyes, Jake realizes he cannot go through with it.
  • Similarly, Neytiri has spent most of the film virulently angry at all humans after how much they took from her, even saying that they should kill Spider just to make sure the Sky People don't find out his secrets. Yet after seeing Spider risk his life to protect Jake, Neytiri begins to have second thoughts. While washing the dye off her hands, she views it as the blood she'll have on her hands if she condemns an innocent boy to death. Neytiri rushes to stop Jake from killing Spider (though he also can't bring himself to do so himself), and tells Spider "I See You", symbolizing her finally accepting him as a part of their family.
• Worf Had the Flu: Downplayed; Neytiri takes an arrow through the shoulder early in the film, and while it severely hampers her ability to use her bow during the first half of the story, ultimately it never proves a major handicap and she recovers to the point where she's just as deadly as ever by the time she flies into the human base to help rescue Jake.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Jake tries to convince Quaritch to abandon his mission and embrace the wonders of Pandora by pointing out that Quaritch is a new being imbued with the memories of a dead man. Unfortunately, by this point, Recombinant Quaritch has embraced his human self as his true identity and isn't willing to do a Heel–Face Turn even though he knows that his human superiors are having second thoughts about his "alien" presence.
  Jake: You got new eyes, colonel. All you gotta do is open 'em.
• Your Magic's No Good Here: A captured Kiri is told by Varang that her "goddess has no dominion here". Kiri goes on to prove her wrong by having the local Spike Shooter plants kill the guards watching her and her family, allowing them to escape.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Said by Quaritch to Spider in the Final Battle, since he knows full well that Spider couldn't bring himself to let him drown the last time. Spider shoots him in the arm instead. When the two end up sliding off one of the floating rocks, Spider held by the same arm he shot, Quaritch snarks that it would have been nice if Spider hadn't shot him.