"We've known for years that the world of the planet Pandora presented in James Cameron's films is all motion-capture actors and immersive digital environments, and yet we still need to keep reminding ourselves of this fact, because it's all so tactile, so vivid, so... real. Early on in Avatar: Fire and Ash, we see the young Lo'ak (Britain Dalton) and his pals joyfully sprinting up the backs of their giant tulkun pals and taking flying leaps into the ocean,"
"The exacting, obsessive thoroughness with which Cameron has imagined this world is not an end in itself, however. The sheer you-are-thereness of Pandora means that it becomes a compelling canvas for its creator's own pathologies: The conflict in these films between the ethereal interconnectedness of Pandora's peace-loving, spear-wielding Na'vi natives and the superior-firepower materialism of the human invaders (a.k.a. the "Sky People") reflect the warring sides of Cameron's own soul."
Avatar: Fire and Ash presents Pandora with intensely tactile digital imagery that makes motion-capture and CGI feel immersive and immediate. Vivid sequences, such as Lo'ak and friends sprinting across giant tulkun and leaping into the ocean, convey abandon and exhilaration. The film’s meticulous worldbuilding serves as a vehicle for ideological conflict between the Na'vi's ethereal interconnectedness and spear-wielding pacifism and the humans' superior-firepower materialism. Where the previous installment emphasized ecological, flower-child values, Fire and Ash pivots toward a reasserted martial masculinity, embodied in the resurrected Colonel Quaritch as a visual and spiritual foil to Jake Sully.
Read at Vulture
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