‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ in theatres : The debate on the lasting impact of James Cameron’s series

Despite these box-office triumphs, discussion around the Avatar franchise continues to centre on its perceived lack of cultural relevance. Does the series have a cultural footprint — and does it matter?

Assessing the cultural impact of a film

The United Kingdom Film Council (UKFC) presented a barometer to measure the cultural impact of British films on their audiences in two studies it commissioned in 2009. It examined three indices: the “direct” impact (box office earnings), the “extended” impact (DVDs and restorations), and the “wider impact” which comprised arbitrary measures like citations in other media, impact on social/cultural behaviour, IMDb ratings, and number of YouTube clips. It also looked at “notoriety”, such as bans or censorship, and whether a film captured the “zeitgeist”.

The advent of the streaming era has made some of these metrics difficult to quantify, given that films today are available on multiple platforms with varying degrees of access, such as cinema halls, OTTs, subscription platforms, or under pay-per-view models.

In terms of direct impact, the first two Avatar films have enjoyed massive box office success, with Avatar rated the highest-grossing film worldwide, and Way of Water third on this list. Consumers flocked to the theatres to immerse themselves in the world of Pandora, the lush, spiritually alive moon inhabited by 9-foot-tall cerulean humanoids called Na’avi. If the first Avatar attracted audiences for its novel concept and striking technical brilliance, the 13-year-long wait for the sequel did little to dampen their curiosity.

Disney acquired the rights to Avatar in 2019 following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox Studios. Over the years, the film has been available to watch on different OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime (on rent). The details of these OTT rights deals are not publicly available.

How Avatar has impacted audiences

Researcher Adam Bumas, who writes for the internet culture newsletter, Garbage Day, compared Avatar with the highest-grossing films released between 2005 and 2013, as well as with films that received sequels more than a decade later. Among his indicators was the prevalence of fan fiction, stories written by fans based on the characters and worlds introduced in popular books, films or characters.

A high fanfic rate is regarded as a positive indicator of audience engagement with the source material and has gone on to spawn film franchises of its own. Case in point, the 50 Shades of Grey series authored by E L James reportedly originated as fanfiction based on the Twilight series of novels and films, before becoming a bestselling trilogy of its own.

According to Bumas’s research, Avatar generated significantly fewer fanfics on platforms such as FanFiction.net and Archive of Our Own than films like Inception, Brave, Top Gun, or The Incredibles.

A similar pattern emerged with GIFs, the short, looping animated images widely used as reactionary memes and regarded as a common marker of cultural presence and everyday digital language. Avatar inspired fewer GIFs than films such as Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Bridesmaids, Brave, and Ratatouille.

One factor to consider may be the frequency of the films. The first Avatar was released in 2009, while its sequel was released over a decade later in 2022. The series is vying for cultural relevance against franchises that have multiple-part movies, TV series offshoots, books, graphic novels, and fandoms.

The interplay of characters across films, sequels, and prequels usually lends to fan theories and internet buzz. The complex worlds and complicated character relationships presented in franchises like Game of Thrones or Star Wars have lent endless fodder for discussion and debate in Reddit discussions, long X threads, and Instagram reels.

In contrast, Avatar lacks any comparable volume of text to explain its origins, leaving consumers with no “canon” to build off their imaginations. The series has so far offered little to ruminate on characters, subplots, and meta references. Despite the enormity of Cameron’s world-building, the films have a singular plotline – saving the natives from the human infestation.

A long-standing criticism of the films has been that the characters lack depth, which, when presented with the simplistic ‘greedy human vs innocent aliens’ showdown, means that few characters stand out. Fire and Ash introduces an “evil” clan of Na’avi, introducing some depth to the blue leggy aliens. However, the conversations about the central characters in the latest film have, thus far, not progressed from its predecessors.

The closest Avatar has come to courting controversy is over its font choice, which forced makers to switch from the Papyrus typeface, itself the subject of SNL comedy sketches starring Ryan Gosling, to a custom-made Toruk for the title.

Looking beyond: How Avatar has transformed filmmaking

What the current cultural discourse lacks is Avatar’s contribution to filmmaking itself.

A perfectionist, Cameron spent nearly 15 years developing Avatar, painstakingly building the technology required to realise his vision. In doing so, he redefined 3D cinema, pushing it beyond gimmickry. Using a specially designed 3D “virtual camera” that allowed him to view live performances within a computer-generated world, Cameron collapsed the boundary between fiction and reality.

For the sequel, he again pushed the medium forward by enhancing underwater performance capture, filming scenes beneath the surface and recording hundreds of hours of reference footage — splashes, waves, and ripples — to translate physical water dynamics into virtual effects.

Cameron is credited with spawning the 3D craze and forcing cinemas to switch from celluloid projectors to digital ones that would allow audiences to view these films. Few films have come close to the visual feast Pandora offers.

Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 are already in the pipeline, pencilled in for 2029 and 2031. Internet chatter aside, Cameron’s Avatar aims for something far more expansive than spectacle.