Avatar Fire And Ash Revives One Of Hollywood’s Most Famous Sci-Fi Tropes

The path of water has no beginning and no end, just like spoilers. This article covers major plot details of “Avatar: Fire & Ash.”

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is spectacular. This looks like a billion dollars, as James Cameron continues his epic saga. This film is constantly in conversation with “The Way of Water”, Expanding on its themes and plots, Cameron and his team of screenwriters made “Fire and Ash” the most plot- and thematic-heavy of the three films – exploring themes of religion, culture, the failure of pacifism and much more.

After all, we finally meet Eywa, the Great Mother and anime-like deity of the Na’vi. And there’s the groundbreaking revelation that Spider is now the first human who can not only breathe Pandora’s air, but even perform tsaheylu and commune with Eywa with his shiny new kuru.

Of course, it’s not just about the dense plot and themes, because this is still a James Cameron show. With this label, you expect to see cool stuff, which Cameron more than delivers. There’s the first part with the Windtraders and their incredible flying pirate ships, a concept far too interesting and visually inventive to abandon after only about 30 minutes.

But none of that matters, because the real star of the film, the strangest and most astonishing concept introduced in “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” arrives early on, but doesn’t come to fruition until the third act. It’s a concept that revives a very familiar sci-fi blockbuster trope from the 2010s: the celestial beam. That’s right! James Cameron makes a Sky Beam, and it puts all other Sky Beams to shame.

Sky rays were everywhere in the 2010s, from “Avengers” to “Man of Steel,” from “The Amazing Spider-Man” to “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” It quickly became a tired trope, a substitute for inventive premises and a lazy way to add stakes. James Cameron remembers the celestial beam and he puts his own spin on it.

According to the official “Avatar” encyclopediathe beam is technically called “Devil Flux”, a rare and natural electromagnetic phenomenon in Pandora, particularly at the Metkayina Clan Ancestor’s Cove. The vortex is caused by the overlap between Pandora’s magnetic field and that of Polyphemus (the planet orbiting Pandora), resulting in extreme electromagnetism that is relatively safe for Pandora’s creatures but devastating for metal structures. Phenomena like this are what caused the floating Hallelujah Mountains seen in the first film to rise.

What makes it more than just a celestial ray is the way Cameron takes the giant colorful ray for granted, ignoring it for most of the film. Even during the climax, the only thing we learn is that it’s a vortex that damages electronics – also known as “it’s a final boss fight stage.” The vagueness around the Flux Devil gets to the heart of what makes “Avatar” special as a franchise, the fact that the real star of the film is Pandora herself. It is the fictional place that made people depressed because it wasn’t realafter all. Pandora is a moon full of cool little features that aren’t really explained in the movies, like the floating mountains of Hallelujah, which we just accept and move on from. Random sky rays are why we love “Avatar.” May there be more strange things in the next one.