Light spoilers for Avatar: Fire and Ash lie ahead.
James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash, has finally debuted amid the 2025 movie schedule. The third installment in the saga of Pandora and its Na'vi inhabitants not only picks up after the ending of 2022’s The Way of Water, but it also deepens the mythology in a number of ways. As a result, some of the characters evolve due to the experiences they have before this threequel and during it. There was, however, one aspect of protagonist Jake Sully’s past, I really wanted to come into play in this latest movie.
A Key Relationship For Jake Would’ve Been Perfect To Highlight In Fire And Ash
Something Cameron really wanted to tackle with this third Avatar film was the notion of how characters deal with grief, and that’s something the Sully family grapples with at the onset. During Way of Water’s third act, Jake and Neytiri’s oldest son, Neteyam, is killed. At the start of this latest movie, the entire family is still mourning, with Jake and Neytiri becoming emotionally distant from each other. Their other son, Lo’ak, who feels responsible for his brother’s death, is also ignored by Jake.
Considering that much of this story is about Jake and Lo’ak finding some common ground, I’m very surprised Jake’s brother, Tommy, doesn’t come up at all in the film. “Tommy,” for those who may not remember, was Jake’s identical twin brother, who was a scientist originally recruited by the Resources Development Administration (RDA) to take part in the Avatar program and was extensively trained to participate. However, Tommy was killed by a robber before reporting, leading to Jake being tapped to succeed him.
When I finished my first theater screening of The Way of Water a few years back, I was convinced that Neteyam’s passing would lay the groundwork for the Tommy tragedy to come back around. Sure, the specific circumstances regarding Tommy and Neteyam’s deaths are very different, but those developments still could’ve served as a way for Jake and Lo’ak to connect. After all, the father and son now have something in common: they both know what it’s like to lose brothers. And it seemed very logical to bring that parallel into Fire and Ash.
I’d Like To See This Part Of Jake’s Past Expanded Upon If Other Films Are Made
A few additional details about Tom Sully have been shared in other forms of media, mostly notably the 2017 comic book Avatar: Brothers. However, it’d be cool to see a Tommy-related plot thread come into play in another installment. Even if Jake never discusses his brother’s death with Lo’ak or any other members of the family on camera, it could always come back around in other ways. Who knows, maybe Tommy’s death wasn’t a random act of violence, and it ties into something bigger.
Of course, regardless of whether Jake’s brother is mentioned again, it’s still unclear as to whether this franchise will continue. James Cameron is ready to make his hoped-for fourth and fifth movies, though he’s also aware that blockbusters are expensive to produce and wants to make these movies in a profitable way. And, following Fire and Ash’s solid opening weekend, it remains to be seen if the film earns enough money worldwide to justify Disney making two more installments.
We’ll have to wait and see how everything shakes out for the Avatar threequel from a box-office perspective. Until the public receives confirmation that the film series is ending, though, I’ll keep theorizing on the chances of Jake’s relationship with his brother coming back into play. While I do that, see Fire and Ash in theaters now and stream the first two movies with a Disney+ subscription.
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