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Cultural Apologetics Column
This article was published exclusively online in the Christian Research Journal, Volume 49, number 01 (2026).
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[Editor’s Note: This review contains spoilers for Avatar: Fire and Ash .]
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Directed by James Cameron
Screenplay by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver
Story by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno
Produced by James Cameron and Jon Landau
Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin, and Kate Winslet
(20th Century Studios, 2025)
Feature Film (PG–13)
Since its inception, James Cameron’s Avatar has never pretended to be small. Pandora is not a subtle world, nor is it meant to be. There is a sense in which the Avatar films are built on excess — excess of color, scale, technology, motion, sensation, and, of course, budget. From floating mountains to bioluminescent forests to oceans teeming with impossible life, they overwhelm the viewer by design. In Cameron’s cinema, spectacle is the primary mode through which meaning is communicated, challenging the notion that a visual effects extravaganza is just an eye-pleasing aesthetic garnish when compared to “real” and “serious” cinema. Or, as Cameron himself said, “you can play the awards game or you can play the game I like to play and that’s to make movies people actually go to.”1
Whether you agree with Cameron or not, the numbers make it hard to argue with him. One would be a fool to bet against the man at this point, whose first two Avatar films both broke a staggering two billion dollars at the box office, with the original Avatar (2009) becoming the highest-grossing film of all time (and the second highest when adjusted for inflation, with only the 1939 opus Gone with the Wind ahead of it).2 The third film in the series, Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) has nabbed over $700 million at the box office at the time of this writing, has been in theaters only two weeks, and has experienced a noticeable lack in drop-off compared to the previous outing.3 The film, in other words, “has legs.” It seems obvious at this point that the film is on track to break a billion easily, in a year that has struggled to find a pulse at the box office.4
A New Enemy. Beyond the numbers, however, Avatar: Fire and Ash is perhaps the most visually aggressive and morally destabilizing entry in the series to date. Even the marketing reinforced this. Where Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) immersed audiences in the beauty of the underwater world (thanks in no small part to Cameron’s own undersea endeavors), the first trailers for Fire and Ash promised heat and violence and fracture. This promise is certainly delivered upon, with the film introducing a Na’vi clan defined by heat and aggression, and not the usual lush abundance or symbiotic harmony that marked the other tribes. The Mangkwan stands in sharp contrast to the forest-dwelling Omaticaya clan of the original film and the oceanic Metkayina of its sequel. Where these Na’vi societies are shown to be graceful and relational, deeply attuned to balance in nature and harmony with their pantheistic deity Ewya, this new tribe has rejected Eywa entirely, hardening into a suspicious and militant bunch of marauding raiders who cause problems for the other Na’vi. For the Mangkwan, survival is the guiding principle.
Cameron’s visual language makes the point unmistakably clear. Ash-choked skies and ritualized violence replace the bioluminescent glow and fluid seascape that defined the earlier chapters. The visuals here are louder and more confrontational. This is not Pandora as Eden, but Pandora as a place of brutality. What’s interesting here is that the film does not frame this corruption as the result of human intrusion alone, which immediately puts it in something of a different category from the first two films. Instead, Fire and Ash complicates the moral geometry of the series by depicting a Na’vi people who are fully capable of cruelty and ideological rigidity apart from humanity’s influence.
This shift marks a fairly significant escalation in Cameron’s project and, for my money, makes the series a bit more compelling. The heavy-handedness of the previous films, with their “alien natives versus human colonizers” conceit, was beginning to play out after nearly six hours of story. The moral architecture has always been cleanly divided and the antagonist broadly drawn, with the narratives themselves being something like ecological parables earnest enough to border on (and often stumble over into) didacticism. It was easy to admire them, even easier to be overwhelmed by them, but surprisingly difficult to remember them in detail once the sensory rush wore off. The world Cameron built was unforgettable; the conflicts that played out on that world, less so.5
This is not a failure of filmmaking so much as a consequence of Cameron’s chosen mode. When the visual spectacle is that enormous, that consuming, the narrative can sometimes feel like the scaffolding required to justify the next extraordinary vista. The Way of Water, while gorgeous, had the tendency to slip into this fairly predictable pattern, similar to the first movie: long stretches of awe punctuated by very familiar beats of villainy and resistance. One did not leave the theater confused, but neither did one leave especially challenged. The binary held firm: the Na’vi were good; humanity was bad; Pandora was the threatened paradise whose beauty alone was meant to prove the point.
Fire and Ash is the first film in the series to crack that binary open. By introducing the Mangkwan, Cameron injects a new kind of moral volatility into the franchise. The Na’vi are no longer a monolithic symbol of ecological virtue. They are a people capable of fracture and corruption, of violence from within. Watching Fire and Ash, the universe Cameron created felt less like an environmental fable (though those themes are certainly still there and very prominent) and more like a world with internal tensions, wherein moral clarity cannot always be mapped onto specific lines. In that complication, the narrative gains sharper teeth. The movie is still operatic and excessive, but for the first time since 2009, the stakes feel unpredictable because the worldview of its inhabitants is no longer uniform.
Pantheism? For years, the Avatar series has been broadly categorized (and perhaps sometimes lazily so) as pantheistic.6 Eywa, the all-encompassing lifeforce that permeates Pandora, has been described as little more than a science fiction gloss on the idea that “all is god and god is all.” Much of this impression comes from the first two films’ portrayal of the natural world as this shimmering, interconnected whole with some kind of biological memory. Eywa was frequently invoked by the Na’vi, but never really depicted, which only reinforced the notion of a diffuse and impersonal divine principle. Theologically, it was pretty bland. Eywa was less like a mind or will and existed in service to the broader ecological metaphor.
Yet, again, Fire and Ash complicates this reading in striking ways. Through Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), whose connection to Pandora has always been portrayed as unusually intense, the film presents a vision of Eywa not as a tree, or a voice, or a suggestive presence, but as an actual (presumably Na’vi) figure. Towards the climax of the film, when connecting to Eywa, Kiri actually sees someone. A person. A being with recognizable form and posture. Not an impressionistic entity, not a swirl of lights, but a figure that looks back at her. Now, whether this is Eywa as Eywa truly is or a visionary accommodation shaped to Kiri’s perception is left deliberately ambiguous. But the effect is seismic. Pandora’s deity is no longer conceptual only. She is depictable.
Within the internal logic of the series, this is as theologically jarring as the biblical visions of Daniel beholding the Ancient of Days. It’s a moment when the ineffable takes on recognizable form and, in doing so, reconfigures the spiritual landscape. Pantheism, by definition, cannot tolerate a person at the center or a deity who appears as a distinct, encounterable agent. It cannot sustain a god who shows up. At that point, the whole spiritual and religious apparatus ceases to be pantheistic and becomes something else.
It’s an admittedly subtle shift, but in the context of the narrative it feels momentous. Eywa is no longer reducible to a planetary nervous system, and she may, in some sense, be a subject rather than an abstraction. And in a story now grappling with competing moral visions, the emergence of a deity who can be seen introduces a new axis of meaning. If Eywa has a face, then rejecting her, as the Mangkwan do, is a choice with weight. Misunderstanding her has tangible consequences. And encountering her becomes something a lot more profound than just tapping into the “lifeforce” of a beautiful alien moon.
A Cultural Apologetic. What, then, does all this mean for the cultural apologist, for the Christian thinker looking for ways to engage the modern imagination with the truths of Scripture? Well, Cameron is not attempting to write a theological treatise, of course, nor is Avatar meant to be a catechism of metaphysics. But the imagination of a culture often reveals itself most clearly not in its formal doctrines, but in its fictions. That is, its myths, its stories of gods and monsters and moral riddles. In this regard, the Avatar films have always been surprisingly fertile ground for conversations of this sort.
One obvious in-road is the film’s willingness to complicate moral categories. Contemporary Western culture often flattens morality into either tribal identities (“my group good, your group bad”) or therapeutic frameworks (“follow your heart”).7 Cameron disrupts both. The Mangkwan, though fully Na’vi, are not noble simply by belonging to the “right” species. They are capable of cruelty and even spiritual rejection. Likewise, the Sullys — though positioned as the protagonists — are fractured, burdened, and sometimes blind. Fire and Ash recontextualizes things in the Avatar world to show that evil is not merely human or the result of some invading force (i.e., colonialism), but something that takes root within people. Even series protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) flirts with this notion in some incredibly disturbing ways before the credits roll on this film.
In this respect, Fire and Ash moves the series closer to a biblical anthropology, in which sin is not located “out there” in the “other,” but within the human heart. Or, as Jesus must consistently reiterate to the Jews of the first century, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness” (Mark 7:21–22 LSB). Even if the film does not articulate this truth explicitly, it provides a conceptual framework that makes the Christian explanation of sin more intelligible to viewers accustomed only to externalized villains.
A second opening lies in the film’s unexpected theological shift regarding Eywa’s personhood. It should come as no surprise to anyone at all that the modern West has grown comfortable with spirituality that is vague and atmospheric, sentimental and non-demanding.8 The Protestant church, by the way, should stand up and take no small amount of responsibility for creating and then propagating this. A pantheistic god, in this context, is easy to admire because such a god never contradicts or confronts, never commands or demands something of its followers. But a deity with form is a different matter. A figure who looks back destabilizes the safe distance many prefer between themselves and the sacred. A God who can be encountered is a God who can also call, judge, forgive, and enter into covenant. Kiri’s vision of Eywa is not a Christian revelation, of course, but it gestures toward the human intuition that the divine is not merely an impersonal force but a personal reality. This opens the door to discuss why the Bible reveals a God who speaks and acts, who reveals Himself — who called Abraham, appeared to Moses, and took on flesh in Christ.
And this brings us to one of the film’s most striking narrative beats: Jake’s near-sacrifice of Spider (Jack Champion). The parallels to the Abraham and Isaac story are not perfect, but the archetypal imagery is unmistakable. Jake is faced with the son of his enemy, an adopted outsider, and must decide whether preserving his own family’s safety (and perhaps the future of Pandora) requires the boy’s death. Abraham is commanded to offer up the son of promise (Genesis 22) and trust God’s character even when he cannot see the outcome. Jake’s situation is reversed: no divine command or covenant promise, only fear and rage and the possibility that sacrificing Spider might secure safety for the Na’vi. But Jake does not go through with it. He chooses mercy over fear, compassion over tribal loyalty. It provides an in-road to speak of a God who ultimately offers not the son of His enemy, but His own Son, for the sake of His enemies.
Regardless of how much mileage one gets out of these films, Avatar: Fire and Ash once again demonstrates that even in a secular age, the modern imagination cannot escape theological questions. The task of cultural apologetics is not to try and baptize every cultural artifact, but to recognize where stories like Cameron’s illuminate the cracks in the secular façade. These are places where viewers intuitively sense that the world is morally charged and spiritually haunted. Longing, really, for redemption. Through those cracks, Christians can offer not some nebulous, pantheistic lifeforce or sentimental deity, but the living God who reveals Himself, enters broken worlds, confronts sin, spares the undeserving, and provides the true sacrifice that makes forgiveness possible. —Cole Burgett
Cole Burgett is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and the Moody Bible Institute. He currently serves as the Assistant Director of Online and Nontraditional Learning at Corban University, as well as an Assistant Professor of Theology. He writes extensively about theology and popular culture.
NOTES
- James Cameron, quoted in Zack Sharf, “James Cameron Criticizes the Oscars for Denis Villeneuve ‘Dune’ Snubs: ‘You Can Play the Awards Game’ or ‘Make Movies People Actually Go To,’” Variety, December 19, 2025, https://variety.com/2025/film/news/james-cameron-slams-oscars-denis-villeneuve-dune-snubs-1236612577/.
- For those who would cite Avengers: Endgame (2019) in objection, move beyond the numbers for a moment to consider that Endgame was the culmination of more than a decade of coordinated planning and releases, relying on an established and carefully maintained intellectual property (IP) with a half-century of history propelling it. Cameron’s Avatar (2009) hit almost three billion a decade earlier with a brand new IP out of the gate (and that’s before we adjust the numbers for inflation). He also has helmed three of the four highest grossing films. Endgame is the exception that proves the rule — James Cameron is the undisputed king of the modern box office. See Matt Craig, “James Cameron Is Now a Billionaire,” Forbes, updated December 16, 2025, https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2025/12/14/james-cameron-is-now-a-billionaire/.
- See Paul Tassi’s box office analysis in “After ‘Fire and Ash’ Box Office, No ‘Avatar 4’ Is Almost Unthinkable,” Forbes, December 29, 2025, https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/12/29/after-fire-and-ash-box-office-no-avatar-4-is-almost-unthinkable/.
- Samantha Masunaga, “Even ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ Can’t Lift 2025 Box Office Out of Pandemic-Crisis Doldrums,” Los Angeles Times, December 29, 2025, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-12-29/even-avatar-fire-ash-cant-lift-2025-box-office-out-of-pandemic-crisis-doldrums.
- See Erik Kain’s comments in “‘Avatar 2: The Way of Water’ Review: A Major Disappointment, Bro,” Forbes, updated December 17, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2022/12/16/avatar-2-the-way-of-water-review-a-major-disappointment-bro/.
- See, for example, Ross Douthat’s op-ed for The New York Times when the original Avatar released, in which he called the film “Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism.” “Heaven and Nature,” The New York Times, December 20, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html?_r=2&ref=opinion.
- If we are to take the assumption that “stories reflect culture” at face value, there’s probably some work to be done in this area by theologians. Moving beyond the “moralistic therapeutic deism” (MTD) fad propagated by sociologists, someone should probably try to connect the stories we tell to the notion of the rise of neo-tribalism, which seems in some way to articulate the landscape of Western culture (particularly American culture) today. The critical sociological text for this is Michel Maffesoli, The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society (Sage, 1996).
- For an interesting cultural analysis of this in the context of “meme activism,” see John Koessler, “The Trouble with Meme Activism: Sometimes to Speak Is Not to Speak,” A Stranger in the House of God, March 28, 2022, https://johnkoessler.com/2022/03/28/the-trouble-with-meme-activism-sometimes-to-speak-is-not-to-speak/.
