“Avatar: Fire and Ash,” the third installment of James Cameron’s “Avatar” franchise, has raked in well over a billion dollars within its first month in theaters, matching its predecessors and setting it up to top the stateside MLK Day weekend box office. This latest feat made Cameron the first director to have four billion-dollar grossers, let alone consecutively, and cemented star Zoe Saldaña as the highest-grossing actor of all time. The three-peat, though, has caused the reemergence of a stubborn chestnut from the Spirit Tree’s woodwork: “Avatar’s” alleged lack of cultural impact.
Cultural impact is a tenuous concept, but generally implies an all-encompassing ubiquity, even if temporary, like 2023’s “Barbenheimer.” Consider Marvel’s dominance of the zeitgeist throughout the 2010s; for nearly every facet of cultural discussion, there is a Marvel movie to match. “Black Panther” was considered a watershed moment for representation. Speculation from fans and nonfans alike about “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame” ran rampant across all social media platforms to an unmatched degree at the time of their releases. On the other hand, the “Spider-Man: No Way Home” plot leaks effectively drummed up the hype by removing the uncertainty of speculation.
“Avatar’s” lack of cultural impact refers to the ostensible inability of the general audience to remember Na’vi names, recall plot and character dynamics, or even care much about the movies when they are not actively playing. In comparison to the franchise’s weight class at the box office, “Avatar” is indisputably outgunned. Cameron’s movies aside, the rest of the all-time top 10 is populated largely by franchise fare, namely three Marvel Cinematic Universe films from the highly commercialized Marvel machine — in stark contrast to the Cameron-forged original intellectual property. Cameron acknowledged his franchise’s lack of ubiquity — albeit considering it a strength — given “Avatar’s” status as a self-built, less merchandised world, saying, “It’s not pervasive, coming at you in all media from all directions. … We’re not building Priuses; we’re building Ferraris here, OK?”
As Marvel’s brand no longer carries the luster it once did, “Avatar’s” balanced longevity seems to have been its saving grace; “Fire and Ash” continues the franchise’s win streak. If its near-billion tickets sold have no impact on the cultural conversation, what exactly has kept people coming back over the last 15 years? Cameron’s Ferrari claim doesn’t seem too far off the mark when looking at both the technical and thematic substance of the films. Moviegoers and industry figures alike have made much of the invention of new technologies for the franchise — a leading reason why the second film’s release took 11 years. The groundwork laid by “Avatar’s” strides in visual effects is even an integral component of Marvel’s subsequent successes: There is no Thanos without Neytiri. The singular spectacle would not be what it is without what Cameron and company have achieved from a visual effects perspective.
To my mind, the defining success of “Avatar” is its telling of a universally appealing narrative through a singular lens. When an “Avatar” movie comes out, one is guaranteed gravity, scale, stories of perpetual underdogs and their oppressors, spiritual belief, love — both romantic and familial — and environmental conservation, all packaged with earnest breeziness but without derision at its own premise, or the viewer, for that matter. The demographics who dislike all parts of that combination are, assuredly and scientifically, combined critics of puppy dogs, cures for cancer, and life itself, as evidenced by the box office receipts.
But most importantly, nobody else in the film industry is telling stories on “Avatar’s” truly epic scale. Though Marvel came close with the box office smashes of “Infinity War” and “Endgame,” beholden to the whims of marketing and merchandising, it could never replicate Cameron’s choices in character and storytelling. The “four-quadrant movie” — one that appeals to four major gender and age demographics — is the ideal for blockbusters in Hollywood, but “Avatar” may be the only recent epic to actually deliver on that promise. Unfettered by corporate restriction, Cameron’s creation of a fully formed world has obviously resonated with viewers. What other film has provoked a kind of “depression” in enough of its viewers, despondent that they can’t actually exist within that world, to warrant legitimate news coverage?
Does cultural impact, a metric only really definable by merchandise sales and social media impressions, actually outweigh personal impact? This is especially salient, given that “Avatar” has experienced continued success while its fleetingly dominant competitors have faded away. People like “Avatar.” People go to see “Avatar” — in fact, many of them. I’ve never posted about “Avatar” on X, “The Everything App,” or any other platform, nor have I bought much “Avatar” anything, except for one secondhand Lego set. But “The Way of Water,” in particular, had a tremendous emotional effect on me, one that was compounded with “Fire and Ash.” I connected more strongly with Lo’ak — the remaining Sully son — in this installment than I have with any other film character in the last few years.
Perhaps as a result, I feel almost offended by the notion that “Avatar” somehow needs to exist for more than its own sake. Is it not enough to be sold something every time you bat an eye or remind your phone that you’re alive? “Avatar” marks a respite not just from that, but from the world at large; it makes “transportative” feel too small a word. No matter who you are, Cameron has a story to tell you, in a way you’ve probably never seen a story told before. It’s okay if the term Toruk Makto slips your mind — the movie will catch you up. From “Avatar’s” protagonist Jake Sully, as if to the unconvinced: “You have new eyes. All you gotta do is open them.”
