Continuing the Avatar series for the 20th year, lions started Fire & Ash.   It definitely had a theme of stuff burning down.  The premise of the series, humans transmutating into alien bodies through technology, was long gone.  3D screenings were presumably long gone.  The avatar existed in title only.

 

 

 

 

Cameraman really nailed the aspects of bright lighting, bright colors, big spending to make 3D animation look good in bright lighting & tack sharp focus. 

 The display of technological supremacy, casually traveling 26 trillion miles, conference calling problems in the age of holograms, was still on the wrong side, with the focus still on traditional environmentalism.

 

 Some nice visuals of bioluminescence.  Such things could have been made into a costume, years ago, with EL wire.  Modern LED strips would be too expensive.

The 2nd act was a batshit boring soap opera with canned Cameraman dialog dating back to Titanic.  It was a bit of a demonstration of the hyper level detail now possible in computer generated faces.

 

 

 

 They really looked like actors in costumes, but practical costumes wouldn't be such high fidelity.

Things were heavier on magic than the previous episodes.  We got the revelation of sigourney weaver's daughter being from immaculate conception, the human's air breathing miracle.  Then there was some kind of ongoing rebellion with the hero's son.

 

 We got the good guy's secret hideout in the floating islands.  Sigourney & Kate Winslet's voices were no longer recognizable in old age.

 There was a new antagonist tribe.  All franchises need constant supply of new antagonists. IMDB said Cameraman's new vision was a 5 movie Avatar series, ugh.  

 We got the signs that the villain was eventually going to capitulate & fight with the natives but he never did. Step 1 was working along side the hero.  Step 2 showed he could fall in love with someone not human, thus turning to at least 1 native tribe.  Step 3 was him putting on a full native outfit.

 

 

 That actually looked more computer generated than the closeups.

 

James Cameraman apparently got into indigenous tribes of south america & veganism over time.  

 

The final battle was quite the visual achievement.  

 Nifty realization of the face of god, but it made lions ponder what kind of dipshit god required so much effort to get a signal.  Compared to other representations of god in movies, wandering through a forest seems to be a common theme but the only memory of a face of god was the Reagan speech.

 

 

Lions pondered what inspired the laborious process of communicating with god.  We never figured out why Sigourni was getting push back other than dramatic effect.

 

 

 

Nifty reuse of Titanic visuals as they encountered all the dead natives underwater.

Spam in a can marvel ending, otherwise.  Too bad Kate Winslet had to get knocked off.