The Reel Rejects - AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH (2025) MOVIE REVIEW – THIS FIRE TRIBE IS FREAKIN' FERAL… – FIRST TIME WATCH
Episode Date: April 1, 2026BRING ON THE ASH PEOPLE!! Avatar: Fire and Ash Full Movie Reaction Watch Along: / thereelrejects AVATAR: The Way of Water (2022) Movie Reaction: • AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER... REACTION – THIS M... Gift Someone (Or Yourself) An RR Tee! https://shorturl.at/hekk2 With James Cameron's latest AVATAR installment winning a Best Visual FX Oscar at this year's Academy Awards + grossing OVER A BILLION DOLLARS, TAaron return to give their AVATAR: Fire and Ash reaction, recap, analysis, breakdown, & spoiler review! Aaron Alexander & Tara Erickson react to and review James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash, the next epic chapter in the groundbreaking sci-fi saga that continues to expand the world of Pandora with new tribes, new dangers, and deeper emotional stakes. Set in the aftermath of Avatar: The Way of Water, the film follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington — Clash of the Titans, Terminator Salvation) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña — Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Trek) as they encounter a more aggressive Na’vi faction known as the Ash People—bringing a darker, more morally complex conflict to the forefront. As tensions rise between clans and humanity’s presence continues to threaten Pandora, the Sully family must navigate grief, loyalty, and survival in a world growing more volatile by the day. Follow Aaron On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealaaronalexander/?hl=en Follow Tara Erickson: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TaraErickson Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taraerickson/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thetaraerickson Intense Suspense by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Follow Us On Socials: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/reelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Music Used In Ad: Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Happy Alley by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM: FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Alrighty then, you guys, we have just watched Avatar Fire and Ash.
Avatar 3
We became one with where
Awa
We became part of
The People
In this
Odyssey of a film
Three hours
In a little over
15 minutes here
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The review
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It's a great extravaganza of full conversational things.
Now, before we get into that, when it's very late here, Reject Nation Shop as we're shooting.
Tara, how do you feel?
How do you feel about this one coming out of it?
I, you know, I liked it.
Okay, let me gather my thoughts here.
Towards the end, I was really starting to feel tired,
but I really liked the action adventure.
I like the vengeance.
We all know I like that.
The us fighting back, I thought was good.
There's some melodramatic stuff in this.
And again, you know, my main complaint did it need to be three hours, 15 minutes?
Absolutely not.
It didn't.
To get the point across, I don't think.
I do think there was absolutely, I really like the AWA part with with Kerry.
I think that's great.
I like, I love her relationship with Spider.
I like that they had a
back and forth with Spider
has now had, you know, two dads,
like you were saying.
And that was a nice story,
like that plot.
But this like movie overall,
it did feel like TV episodes.
Like there was like so much going on.
But really I was like,
we should just focus on the stuff
that would really get us moving and grooving here.
Like, you know,
so that we like,
like really felt it.
But overall, I liked it, but it's not my, I don't, I'm not in a mode right now or I'd be
like, I would, I would rewatch it.
No, it's too long for me.
Now, yeah, what do you think?
It was a thick boy.
It was a thick boy.
I will say, though, because, you know, just watch Avatar 1, when I react is a terror
for Avatar 2.
And I'm now seeing Fire and Ash.
Because, yeah, last one was a rewatch for me, but, you know, a, a,
fuzzy one and this is fresh eyes. I do feel like I like this one more than the last one because
it was primarily plot and we didn't spend a lot of like downtime kind of, we got to see the
world, but we didn't have a lot of downtime just to soak into it, which, you know, is nice
atmospherically, but I feel like we got to have stuff moving. That said, for the amount of
stuff we had not moving in the last one, we had like two to three times more in this one, which
which felt like a season of television for the most part.
It was weird because it felt like an odyssey of a lot of things happening.
A lot of things that were interesting,
but some of those things I felt didn't get the emotional time or the tension to really feel impactful on an emotional level here.
like the cords kind of coming in and you know them meeting the ash people for the first time and them kind of uniting and then they're on opposite sides again they're fighting and then they're back on the same side because the spider like I wish that stuff would have kind of been more resonant I wish the stuff with a baby would have been more part of the plot it was just a thick enchilada I'm sorry thick thick what's the pasta lasagna of a movie it was a lot of stuff going on all stuff engaging I was
were bored while the movie was happening.
You know, it's funny because I didn't know anything about the movie other than people
say that Avatar 2 and 3 are like the same movie.
And I would disagree with that.
I don't think they're the same movie.
I feel like there's a lot of stuff that this movie has that the other one doesn't.
I feel like this definitely feels, it's interesting because I feel like Avatar 1 is a complete
experience, but Avatar 2 and 3 kind of need each other narratively to really make the
whole thing work.
So I felt like Avatar 1 is a movie.
Avatar
2 and 3
feel like TV shows
it feels like
season 1, season 2
or maybe just like 1,300
seasons of
something of
yeah of stuff
but yeah I thought
courage kind of getting more
into the avatar
or the Navi people
was interesting but
it's weird because on one hand
I liked that they did that
on the other hand I felt like it
in certain parts it
felt a little rushed like him going full on face pain everything i was like i feel like we
kind of rushed past that i i feel like for him to dawn that i would have liked to under
to understand what their face paint necessarily what it meant to them um but
bro he just juiced it he was like he juiced it he was in yeah he was that's how guys are
they they juice it and then they're like yeah whatever you want me to do yeah he changes that
whole identity for her he's down bad he was clearly down bad for this woman
I agree with you.
I did like it more than two, too.
And I think the more plot stuff did make the pacing go by a little bit quicker than two.
Because two, like I said, we were kind of just swimming around for an hour and a half.
And like this one, the pacing picked up a bit.
But I do agree.
I'm like, there's so many things that happened that if you just focused on three huge main plot points,
we could have really felt something when the two dads go to save spider.
Yeah.
We could have really felt something when the baby is.
is born and she the mom dies because there was such a connect between her and actual oh g mama right
like we could have had some tears some heart pull at the heartstrings but overall i still like
yeah i get it it's still a good time just not anything that i'm like gonna go run and scream
on the streets about yeah it was weird because okay because i feel like i liked all the things
are happening but ironically with how long the movie is i feel like there wasn't enough time to give
everything room to breathe in the way that you would unless this was a TV show but it's too
high budget to be a TV show so it has to be a three-hour movie which can be a bit of a
daunting sort of exhausting experience but not an exhausting like a like a like I'm tired
never want to see this I don't want to watch this movie kind of way but more of like this was an
odyssey of information that I'm sort of taking in all at once and I liked the ride
I don't know.
It's going to be wild before going on it again.
But I was definitely engaged in the world of what was happening.
The movie sort of ends on a weird note because I was like, because the last one felt like, okay, we resolved the conflict, but there's still more to come.
And this kind of felt like that.
But I'm still a little ambiguous as to where the next steps are per se.
Yeah.
That's on feeling.
Again, we are, our fresh thought straight out of a over three hour movie.
And it's late.
It's been a long day here at the studio.
So a little brain fried a little bit.
A little bit of brain fog from this being so long.
But yeah.
But overall, I will give it a thumb up, a thumb and a half up.
I'm going to give this movie.
But without further ado, let's get into our questions.
Yeah, let's do it.
All right.
J. Nguyen.
Is that saying it right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
My question about the fire priestess, for any interesting or weirdly charismatic as she started out,
I was very disappointed that she just became gorgeous side character, rather than an equal, like he said.
So I was curious if you felt this character was sacrificed for a bit of building up of courage as the villain again.
Huh, that was a great, great point.
Yeah, she did seem like her own sort of threat and then kind of became the number two.
he was literally the one standing in front as she was standing like slightly behind him and his side yeah
how'd you feel i think i i i get what you're saying i the the melodramatic sort of parts of it
is like the one part where he goes like they they locked up and he's like thanks babe and i was
like this happened so fast that like uh i think it did help him build up him becoming a villain again
but I also
Yeah, I don't know
I still, I didn't see her fully as a sidekick character
She still was there and like
Mom was gonna have to fight her
I don't know
I don't the whole fire priestess thing
It's cool that they came in here
She was definitely a brat
I'm glad that we got to fight her
I don't feel too many which ways about them
I just was like they're annoying me
Can we just get rid of them
at a certain point
I was like the payoff wasn't as great
as I like wanted they made me mad
I want to have to die but like
it's like this bro he's just like
lock and braids and just like in it to win it now
you know it's funny because I it's
I feel like this movie has a similar problem
to the movie the Marvel movie
Eternals whereas I like all the things
are doing conceptually but the movie doesn't
have enough room to breathe to really
allow you to invest in the characters
in the world in the way you want
want to because I feel like in the series version of this, we really get to spend time with
the fire priestess and courage and developing their relationship that way we don't agree
with them, but we definitely understand where they're coming from in a way where we're invested
in their culture and he falls in love with their culture because the fact that he went from,
yeah, he went from visiting them and walking through the valley of death to then, you know,
kind of get them on his side to then fully being all makeuped in.
like we could have spent a little bit more time with that and I feel like there's some interesting
stuff and I don't know if I feel like she felt like a threat more than a character in this and
this movie the way it resolved because what the last we see of her um so going to reevers character
the the the avatar she just kind of like braids and like back off and then we just don't see her
again if I remember correctly do we see her after that point no yeah no we don't see her after
that. So she just kind of like cowers away and runs
away, which is why I feel like
she was gorgeous one who saved her.
But yeah, I would have liked a
fight between, a proper fight
between the Fire Priestess and
Terry. I think that would have been very cool.
Maybe that don't happen in the next movie.
I don't know. If they get a next movie, I know
that, I believe James Cameron
said that he needs to figure out a way to reduce the budget
for him to get a fourth movie.
Because they get a little expensive.
Studios being like, I don't know if they don't pay
for this again. Yeah, maybe cut the
time down, buddy.
So that's like he has so much wants to
explore. So much lower,
Tara. Then make it a TV.
Or a comic or something. I don't know. But it feels
like I had a weird
feeling when this movie ended because it felt
like it ended
more so than it resolved. Which is
a weird feeling. Because like, oh, I guess we're done
now. Because all
things got sucked up. Yeah.
He jumped into the fire. The military girl
look like she was getting sucked up into the magnet again.
Yeah, we obviously got more of a story to tell.
Yeah, which is a weird thing because I feel like for a trilogy,
you should have like definitive chapters of things ending from, you know, where we started,
where we ended.
And I think the only real definitive thing that happened,
one of the few definitive things that happened is Spider got accepted.
He got his braid back or he got a braid now because he can breathe the air.
We're closer to her being the, the EWatar and fully embracing.
Mother Earth, even though she kind of did a similar thing that she did in the last movie with
controlling the nature around them.
One was to,
in the last movie was to save the family and this one, it was to attack the people.
Yeah,
but I felt like the priestess lady could have done more and, yeah, hopefully she has more to do in the next one.
Thanks for the question.
Appreciate you.
All right.
All righty, awesome Joe, movie reviews.
The visuals were fantastic, but do you think the movie was not,
much of its next chapter in the series, but more like a sequel to Way of Water with
Cheap Writing and Nothing to Do With Fire and Ash, hmm, I was expecting the Fire
Ash people to be in the movie more and we'd learn more about their culture,
It's been talking with their culture, but they're more of like a subplot or part of the
antagonist rather than being a major part.
Like I expected them to be a big of, as big of a part of the movie in this as the water
people were in the last one, but that wasn't exactly what we got. So, yeah, we think.
Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, the only, like, cool part about the fire and ash that they did give us was that, oh, Awa abandoned them. And then she found a way to make firework on her side. All right. With the volcano that the mountain came on fire. And I was like, all right, you know, cool side of that story. I get why they are villains towards AWA because AWA turned their back on them.
Yeah.
Other than that, yeah, I agree.
It's basically kind of like a continuation of the second movie.
There's a lot of repeats.
I'm like, we're looking at the exact same what seems to be shooting of the whales with the same characters and the same boats.
They get in the water the same way.
Not that they would get in there any different, but I'm just, it seemed, yeah.
The finale seemed similar.
Yeah.
I feel like the stuff leading out to it seemed kind of different.
Yes.
Yeah.
Not all of it.
Yeah, yeah.
We, you know, we start with Spider back with him.
Then we have to travel.
Okay, we had to go back, bring him back to Norm of them to save him.
Okay, we got that figured out.
Okay, we're going back to Jake Sol is going to get captured.
So we're going to go back to where the military people are.
I'm going to go back to where the people are with the way of water.
So it was like, it was a lot of ping pong and of stuff happening.
but yeah
I like I said I still liked it more than
the way of water because
there's the amount of
of plot in developments that were going on
yeah pacing was better
yeah pacing was a bit better
even though it was long but
yeah ultimately I guess it was just
kind of another fight
because I'm like I'm now
like I'm reflecting a little bit more
with my tired brain here I'm like
what did it all amount to at the end of the day
I guess spider
becoming one of the people
and then home girl dying.
And the fire and Ash brought, brought them,
brought his dad closer.
Because Fire and Ash a little bit made him
understand more so of a culture
that's outside being a human being.
Yeah.
And he was hanging out with them rather than being with his own people.
Right. And, but yeah, I wish some, maybe some of that stuff
was a little bit more conflicting
with the narrative.
Like, why you're not hanging with us,
man, you're hanging out with these people?
Like, are you really about the humans?
Are you really about the people?
Or, I don't know,
I feel like it could have been
a little bit more, um, diversity there.
But overall, I like the direction they're heading.
I would have just liked a little bit more,
more nuanced at times spent there.
But, um, yeah, I don't know.
I liked it.
I liked it awesome, Joe.
I had a good time with it.
I liked it more than the last one,
but definitely more of continuation than a proper sequel.
Thanks,
All right, Rudy Rogers, I hope you guys enjoyed this film, although I was mildly disappointed in it being more of a part two to weigh of water.
The world building is still expanded upon fantastically.
And now that we've seen For Tribe so far, if y'all could be part of one of them, what would you choose or potentially create your own?
I believe the OG forest people and the reef people for me, sending lots of love.
Tara, what do you feel?
I've gone with the reef people
I'm swimming around on the little dragon dolphin things
we're hanging out with the
pot I already forgot his name
we're hanging out with
back whales okay and I know they're not that
but you get what I'm saying
I'm reef people all the way
let's go
I'm also I get why you're
mildly disappointed in it being
sort of a continuation of the way of water
there are some repetitive stuff, but some of the new stuff and the fighting that we did see was a plus.
Yeah.
I'm going to go with the forest people because I feel like as a forest person, we get the sky birds and then we can go to the reef people if we want because I feel like the sky people, or I'm sorry, we can.
The reef people can't go to the forest people.
Exactly.
But the forest people can go to the reef people because they need the reef environment to survive, but the forest people can.
do both.
Yeah.
I really like the,
the world we got.
I think it was interesting seeing the fire and ash people.
And seeing,
you know,
the fact they live in the desert.
And we got these desert birds.
And I would have liked to invest it more in their culture overall to understand
a little bit more.
We just kind of got glimpses of them outside of the,
the trippy,
you know,
sexual scene between the two of them.
But,
yeah,
who knows?
Maybe if he gets a four and a five,
we'll see some more get some more
more lore get some more expansions
finally wrap this thing up with a
satisfying conclusion
but um
yeah I think uh force people for me
well it's been a long day you guys
it is almost 8 p.m.
of shooting this and Tara and I both had shoots before this
so we're gonna go to sleep now
we're gonna we're gonna connect with Mother Earth
connect with Awa connect with Pandora
and we'll see you guys in the next one
adios
deuceus
Thank you.
