29/07/2025
Avatar: Fire and Ash - The saga turns entirely to animation
The new feature film by James Cameron is the third episode of the Avatar saga, where computer graphics are the only thing that dominates.
The new installment in the Canadian director's prolific and successful fantasy/adventure saga will hit theaters worldwide on Christmas 2025. The trailer just released by 20th Century Studios shows just how much work goes into the long wait between installments.
But what's also immediately noticeable is the use of computer graphics required by the story. If you look carefully, you can only find a few scenes with live actors. All the acting seems to be hidden behind the performance-capture approach that has evolved from the previous two films, while the term "avatar", the alien bodies into which the actors' consciousnesses are transferred, now refers to almost all the characters, whether good, bad, or new.
Technical data shows that 60% of the first Avatar (2009) was made with CGI animation, and that figure has risen to 90% with the sequel Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Weta FX has stated that only two scenes in the second film were without visual effects.
And with this background, the director's idea of creating an animated anthology series set on Pandora, the planet of the saga's protagonists, doesn't seem to be a new one, much like Animatrix was for the Matrix saga, an example cited by Cameron himself.
"I said, 'Look, I want to do an animated anthology series that’s essentially in the world, but stories that you wouldn't have expected from that world." He went on to explain that the project could even evolve into a feature-length installment, whether for streaming platforms or a theatrical release. "There might even be an animated feature in there - it might be a feature for streaming, or a theatrical feature," he added in an interview with Empire Magazine.
Here's the trailer for the third installment, expected in theaters at the end of the year:
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