James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash is a three-hour-and-seventeen-minute spectacle that will make your eyeballs very happy while occasionally making your brain very tired. The third trip to Pandora cost somewhere north of $350 million, grossed $1.46 billion, and delivers exactly the experience you would expect from the director who essentially invented the modern blockbuster. It is visually staggering. It is narratively familiar. And it is ideologically committed to the same anti-colonial, environmentalist worldview that has powered this franchise since day one.

The story picks up weeks after the death of Neteyam, the eldest Sully son. The family is broken by grief. Lo'ak narrates the opening with genuine emotional weight, wrestling with guilt over his brother's death. Neytiri has hardened into something frightening. Zoe Saldana described her own character as having become a full-blown racist toward humans, and that is not an exaggeration. The woman who once saw the good in Jake Sully now wants Spider, the human boy her family adopted, gone. She is consumed by rage. It is the most interesting character work in the film, and to Cameron's credit, the movie does not frame her hatred as righteous. It frames it as destructive. That is a surprisingly nuanced choice for a filmmaker not known for nuance.

The big new addition is the Mangkwan clan, volcano-dwelling Na'vi who rejected Eywa after a volcanic eruption destroyed their homeland. Led by the charismatic and terrifying Varang, played with real physical presence by Oona Chaplin, the Mangkwan are hedonistic, violent, and willing to collaborate with the human RDA forces. There is a genuinely interesting moral question buried in there about what happens when the gods fail you. Unfortunately, Cameron does not dig into it. The Mangkwan are mostly just space orcs. They raid, they burn, they kill. The philosophical potential of a faithless Na'vi culture is left largely unexplored.

The colonialism allegory remains the franchise's central architecture, and it is as unsubtle as ever. The RDA is back strip-mining Pandora, hunting Tulkun whales for profit, and embodying every critique of Western corporate imperialism you have ever read. The film's most pointed new wrinkle is the discovery that Spider, infused with Pandoran mycelia, can now breathe Pandora's atmosphere. The RDA immediately recognizes this could be reverse-engineered, making the planet habitable for all humans. It is Cameron's clearest statement yet: colonization is not about resources anymore. It is about replacement.

But strip away the environmental messaging and the anti-colonial framework, and what is actually driving this movie? Family. Fatherhood. Sacrifice. Faith.

Jake Sully's arc is fundamentally about fatherhood. He is trying to reconnect with Lo'ak after Neteyam's death. He is trying to hold his family together while Neytiri spirals. When the Mangkwan capture his children, he does not hesitate to surrender himself. When Spider is endangered, he prepares to make an impossible choice. The emotional climax of the film is not the battle. It is the moment Jake decides not to kill Spider, and Neytiri finally accepts the human boy as family. That is a story about mercy, about the expansion of the family unit, about a father's protective love overcoming fear. These are deeply conservative emotional beats dressed in blue alien skin.

Kiri's storyline is overtly spiritual. She learns she was sired by Eywa, essentially the daughter of God in the Pandoran cosmology. She struggles to connect with her divine parent. She pleads for Eywa's intervention in the final battle, and Eywa answers. Whatever you think of Cameron's pantheistic nature-worship, the narrative structure is unmistakable: a young woman of faith calls upon a higher power in humanity's darkest hour, and that higher power delivers. That is a faith narrative. It is not Christian. But the architecture is traditional.

Spider's arc is the most emotionally complex in the film. A human boy caught between two worlds, rejected by Neytiri, used as a lab rat by the RDA, torn between his adoptive Na'vi family and his biological father Quaritch. The resolution, Spider being initiated into the Na'vi people at the spirit trees, being accepted fully, is essentially a conversion and adoption narrative. He chooses his family. He chooses his faith. He is welcomed in. That resonates on traditional terms whether Cameron intended it to or not.

The warrior ethos is celebrated without reservation. Jake re-bonds with the apex predator Toruk, rallies the Na'vi clans, and leads them into battle. Ronal, pregnant and mortally wounded, fights to her last breath. The film treats martial courage and the willingness to defend your people as unambiguous goods. There is no hand-wringing about violence here. When your home is under attack, you fight. Period.

Technically, the film is extraordinary. The volcanic Mangkwan homeland is unlike anything seen in the previous films. The underwater sequences continue to push boundaries. The final battle is massive, chaotic, and genuinely thrilling. Cameron remains the best spectacle filmmaker alive, full stop. Whatever your ideological complaints, the man earns his ticket price.

Conservative viewers should know what they are getting. This is an anti-colonial, environmentalist, spiritually pantheistic blockbuster. It has been from the start. But it is also a movie about a father protecting his family, a young woman's faith, a boy choosing where he belongs, warriors defending their homeland, and mercy triumphing over vengeance. The woke scaffolding is impossible to miss. The traditional foundation is what makes the building stand.

Trope	Category	Location	Authenticity
Institutional Evil	WOKE	Throughout — RDA as full-spectrum colonial enterprise: mining, whale hunting, biological colonization; no redeemable humans within the institution	Organic to franchise worldbuilding. The RDA has been the institutional villain since 2009. Fire and Ash escalates by framing colonization as species replacement.
Anti-Western Revisionism	WOKE	Throughout — Avatar franchise structured as allegory of Western colonialism, Na'vi as Indigenous peoples, RDA as European colonial powers	Organic to the franchise. Cameron has been explicit about the allegorical intent since 2009.
Environmental Pantheism	WOKE	Kiri's communion with Eywa; final battle — Pandoran ecosystem responds as divine intelligence, punishing exploitation and rewarding harmony with nature	Organic to franchise worldbuilding. Eywa has been established since the original film. Nature as God is the franchise's core theology.
The Colonialist Villain	WOKE	RDA operations throughout, especially the Tulkun whale hunt — Captain Scoresby leads hunt with enthusiastic cruelty despite marine biologist Dr. Garvin's objections	Organic to franchise. The whale hunt is Cameron's most direct environmental parable yet, modeled explicitly on commercial whaling.
The Girl Boss	WOKE	Throughout — Varang leads Mangkwan; Kiri's spiritual connection is decisive in the final battle; Neytiri infiltrates Bridgehead City alone; Ronal fights while in labor; General Ardmore commands the RDA	Mixed. Cameron has done this since Aliens (1986). Every faction is led or decisively influenced by a woman. More pronounced here than in any previous Avatar film.
The Marginalized Savant	WOKE	Kiri's arc throughout — coded as neurodivergent (seizures when connecting with Eywa), treated as strange, turns out to be daughter of the deity and turns the tide of battle	Mixed. The trope is present but serves the story's spiritual framework rather than feeling bolted on. Cameron executes it with sincerity.
Redeemed Criminal (Systemic)	WOKE	Mangkwan backstory — nihilism and violence framed as products of trauma and divine abandonment rather than inherent evil	Weakly present. Despite the sympathetic backstory, the Mangkwan function as straightforward antagonists. The systemic explanation is offered but not deeply explored.
Infallible Youth	WOKE	Lo'ak's narration and leadership; Kiri's spiritual authority exceeding adults; Spider making the pivotal choice in the climax	Mildly woke. The kids are impressive but they suffer, grieve, and struggle. The trope is tempered by genuine consequences.
The Bigoted Traditionalist	WOKE	Neytiri's hatred of humans (especially Spider) treated as destructive; Tulkun elders' pacifism nearly gets them slaughtered	Weakly woke. Neytiri's arc is treated with real empathy. The critique of rigid traditionalism is present but nuanced.
Defense of the Innocent	TRADITIONAL	Throughout — Jake surrenders himself to protect his children; the entire final battle framed as defense of home and family against invaders	Authentic. The most primal traditional narrative: parents protecting their young, warriors defending their homeland. The emotional engine of the film.
The Self-Sacrificing Hero	TRADITIONAL	Jake's surrender; Ronal dies giving birth while defending her people; Quaritch chooses death over surrender	Authentic. Ronal's death, combining combat heroism with the act of childbirth, is the most striking. She dies giving life while defending it.
Industry and Perseverance	TRADITIONAL	Jake re-bonds with Toruk through extraordinary personal will; Lo'ak returns repeatedly to the Tulkun council despite rejection	Authentic. Success comes through persistent effort and personal courage. Nobody is handed anything.
Faith in Adversity	TRADITIONAL	Kiri's arc throughout; spirit tree ceremony — Kiri maintains faith, pleads for divine intervention, receives it; Spider's initiation functions as baptism and conversion	Authentic in structure. The theology is pantheistic but the narrative function is identical to traditional faith stories: believe, endure, call upon the divine, be answered.
Traditional Femininity	TRADITIONAL	Neytiri's grief arc; Ronal's death in childbirth; Neytiri adopting baby Pril — despite the girl-boss surface, every female arc is driven by maternal love	Authentic. Motherhood frames every female character's emotional journey. Neytiri grieves as a mother. Ronal fights as a mother. Neytiri heals by becoming a mother again.
Restored Home	TRADITIONAL	Final act resolution — battle won, RDA repelled, Spider initiated as Na'vi, Neytiri accepts Spider as family, Sully clan restored and expanded	Authentic. The family fractured by loss and hatred comes back together. Home defended. Invaders repelled. Community endures. Bittersweet (Ronal dead, Neteyam still gone) but the living choose to go forward together.
Wise Elder	TRADITIONAL	Mo'at's counsel; Tulkun elder council — elder authority respected even when challenged; Lo'ak persuades rather than overthrows	Authentic. Elders matter. Their wisdom is sought. Their authority, while not absolute, is honored.
Warrior Ethos	TRADITIONAL	Final battle; Jake's Toruk bond; clan rally — martial leadership treated as heroic and necessary; warrior tradition honored as the reason the Na'vi survive	Authentic. Zero pacifist hand-wringing about violence in defense of home. When your home is under attack, you fight. The strongest warrior-ethos narrative in the franchise.