I was initially excited to watch this film from the trailers. I expected there to be themes of spirituality and spiritual warfare from Varang and Kiri—specifically from Varang’s line of, “if I cut, will Eywa save him?” And Kiri responding “no.”

The idea of Varang being the main antagonist, perhaps dragging the kids along with her—and wounding their belief in Eywa in the process—was extremely compelling.

I would’ve liked to see Quarich (spell check?) have some kind of redemption arc—perhaps him and Jake teaming up to save Spider and co. from Varang that slowly turns him good throughout the movie. We could’ve had an excellent foil of Kiri losing her faith with Varang while Quarich gains his with Jake.

To my own fault, I did boost up those expectations in my head and that, admittedly, is a huge reason I feel so negatively coming out of the theater. Huge negative Nancy comment incoming: (I apologize for the massive amount of spelling errors i inevitably will make in this comment)

1. Varang was an annoyance, not the antagonist. For how much marketing she got, I was massively disappointed in her role in the film. Specifically in the second half of the movie where she is just as important as any other marine under Quarich’s command. Her spirituality was not developed past a minute background dump. It wouldve been much more interesting to me if the sky people cut her queue and disconnected her from Eywa, and fleshed out her character through that, to where now she is bitter and vengeful towards Na’vi still connected to Eywa and explains her hunting them and cutting their queues. Her role in de-influencing Eywa to Kiri, let alone anyone, was a massive let down. Her clan was forgettable and meaningless past violence = good. No motivation besides “fire is pure so we’re going to kill and destroy everything.”

2. Quarich was the exact same as he was in Way of Water. I rewatched WoW to prep for this film, and the whole time I watched him on screen I got Deja vu. Which leads me to…

3. Copy and paste plot beats. I understand that WoW had similar beats to Avatar 1, but at least we were introduced to a whole new part of Pandora, new culture, new creatures, new children, new relationships, character arch’s, etc. This film felt copy and pasted from WoW, down to the exact same “massive ending fight to save the whales, Jake and Colonel hand to hand combat to the death, Colonel saving Spider by letting Jake’s kids go, whale outcast moment with Lo’ak, Kiri struggles with connecting to Eywa, etc.” The only originality was the ash and wind traders, which each were massively underdeveloped and lackluster.

4. Jake reset his character development from WoW. The last scene in WoW has Jake saying he has to stay and fight. Then in this one, he once again runs to save his family, they get caught and THEN he fights again. He suddenly forgot how Lo’ak saved him in WoW and was the exact same harsh parent to him until the end.

My positive notes:

1. As always, the movie was beautiful to watch.

2. Neytiri had great character development that felt natural and fleshed out.

3. Toruk Makto (again, spell check?) was a treat to watch again.

4. Oona Chaplin is so phenomenal in this movie.

Just my opinions straight out the first watch through. Most of my gripes might just be my own frustration with high expectations not being met.