Avatar (franchise)

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Avatar is a Science Fiction film franchise created by James Cameron. As of 2023, it is projected to comprise of five films, with the possibility of more if they continue to be successful.

The series takes place in a future where Earth is a polluted Crapsack World, and the human Resources Development Administration has travelled to the planet Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri system, in hopes of mining it's large moon Pandora for resources, to the detriment of it's native populace, the Na'vi.

The first film, simply titled Avatar introduces us to former U.S. Marine Jake Sully, a paraplegic who is given a remotely-controlled Na'vi body called an "avatar" in order to communicate with the Na'vi and gain their trust, but the resident General Ripper has other ideas and wants to remove the Na'vi by force. Jake ends up torn between his human superiors with the promise of getting his real legs back and the Na'vi who wish to preserve their forests and their way of life, made harder by his growing romance with Neytiri, The Chief's Daughter.

The second film, Avatar: The Way of Water takes place years later, when backup forces descend on Pandora intent on wiping out Jake and the Na'vi. The main unit hunting Jake are the Recombinants, Na'vi avatars implanted with the memories of soldiers killed in the first film, including series antagonist Colonel Quaritch. In an effort to protect his adoptive tribe from retribution, Jake and his family leave the jungle and attempt to start a new life with members of the Metkayina tribe.

The third film, speculatively titled Avatar: The Seed Bearer is due for release December 2024. Principal photography for the fourth film has begun, and the fifth is believed to be in pre-production.

In addition to the films, Avatar: The Game released in 2009, serves as a prequel to the original film.

The following tropes are common to many or all entries in the Avatar (franchise) franchise.
For tropes specific to individual installments, visit their respective work pages.

Alien Invasion: By humans, naturally.
Always a Bigger Fish: The Na'vi are by no means at the top of the food chain, with both the jungle and sea providing homes to large and fearsome beasts.
Armies Are Evil: The human invaders are all ex-special forces of one kind or another.
Body Paint: Jake is covered in this during his initiation ceremony, and almost all Na'vi use warpaint in the first film. In the second film, human character Spider uses paint to imitate his adoptive Na'vi family.
Casual Interstellar Travel: Averted. Space travel is Slower Than Light, and so witheringly expensive that absolutely nothing that can be made or synthesized on Pandora is brought from Earth—and per Word of God, personnel who develop medical problems that cannot be treated on Pandora are put to sleep.
Crapsack World: Earth in-universe. Wars, terrorism, and accidents kill many people every day, the entire planet's landmass and its moon are covered in immense, massively polluted cities where twenty billion people live in unbelievably crowded and depressing conditions, the oceans have half the animal life they used to have and are used for farming spirulina for food. It is said that the people on Earth in the original script are greyish and sickly due to their diet of cheap carbohydrates and synthetic proteins, and that the atmosphere is so polluted the exopacks used on Pandora are also necessary for human life on Earth. In the movie, there's the human-created Hell's Gate, which is a fittingly named blotch of strip mines and military bases on the otherwise natural and beautiful world of Pandora.
Cyberpunk / City Noir: The many images of Earth in the Avatar universe show smoggy and futuristic landscapes with countless lights, city streets flowing with people, entire "skies" of advertisements serving as ceilings for lower levels in the cities, elevated trains and immense sky-scrapers, and even a Hive-city structure covered in advertisement screens that has an uncanny resemblance to the Hometree. The air pollution has gotten to the point that everybody has to wear a dust mask outside on the streets, and the few unlucky without them (Jake Sully included) look quite grim. Not unlike other cyberpunk settings, large corporate bodies like the RDA are incredibly powerful and their presence seen everywhere. Computer technology is also shown to have progressed greatly in the movie, with interactive holograms and an incredible interface which allows for easy blueprint making and construction as long as the required materials are present, and of course, there are advertisement screens and lights everywhere.
Epic Movie: First movie was more than 10 years in the making. Astronomical budget. The technology used in the making of the film didn't EXIST until after production had started! A lot of CG. All this added up to create the highest grossing film of all time at $2.9 Billion.
- Second film was also more than a decade in the making, and again required cutting edge tech developed specifically to film. Also a massive hit, grossing over $2 Billion.
Expanded Universe: James Cameron wants to flesh out the universe of Avatar in several novels, comic books and videogames.
Fantastic Aesop: Live in harmony with nature. On a planet where there is apparently next to no disease and a global sentient mind.
Gaia's Lament: Earth has little to no plant or animal life left, warfare and terrorism grip the populace and resources are running out, the entire human race lives in massive polluted cities, the moon's dark side has even been fully developed, most food has been reduced to artificially processed algae, and the exopacks are necessary for human life.
Gas Mask Mooks:
- Humans need to wear exopacks when outside their structures. A subversion in that they are designed to leave the face clearly visible.
- Subverted in the official game, where some RDA soldiers wear masks which hide their lower faces.
Going Native: Thanks to Chekhov's moss-mediated brain transfer technology.
Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: The Na'vi have enormous eyes, the Avatars' eyes are smaller but still much larger than a human's.
Green Aesop: The whole point—to the point where every other story with a Green Aesop is compared to it.
Humans Are the Real Monsters/Humans Are (incredibly) Flawed: Played with. The RDA itself and its security force are this trope incarnate, driven by greed, blissful disregard for nature and a healthy dose of Fantastic Racism. The scientists, however, are openly ashamed of and disgusted by their actions, respect Na'vi culture and try to establish some sort of compromise. Note that the scientists care more partly because they understand better. To a lot of the humans, the Na'vi connection to the trees seems mostly sentimental, and a lot of them dismiss the idea of using those trees to communicate as "tree-hugging nonsense", even when a scientist explains explicitly how it works.
In Space Everyone Can See Your Face: The exopacks show a lot more face than your typical oxygen mask, although technically they aren't oxygen masks, they are more like air filters/gas masks—the oxygen comes directly from Pandora's atmosphere. Also it makes sense to make the faces in the mask more visible so that one can check another's face for signs problems, or communicate without sound.
Loin Cloth: All the Na'vi.
Longing for Fictionland: The series has a very strong and vocal fanbase desperate to join the world of Pandora.
Mega Corp: The RDA, which is stated to be better funded than most world governments.
Planet Looters: A peaceful moon is brutally invaded by short, militaristic aliens who want a valuable mineral to make their dying world a little more convenient and make a shitload of money in the process. To the aliens' credit they tried to negotiate mining rights first. Kind of subverted in that the natives don't seem to know or care how important the mineral is themselves, and the moon is too remote and too dangerous for colonization.
Private Military Contractors: All the human soldiers are explicitly this, even though most served as army or marines in the past. Most likely a result of how much flak Cameron took for portraying actual marines this way in Aliens.
Space Marine: The corporation's private military contractors fill this role in this movie, although one wonders why Cameron didn't just bite the bullet and call them the Colonial Marines. With their AMP suits supporting foot-mobile infantry, they're ironically far closer to the Mobile Infantry of Starship Troopers than the so-called film adaptation of that book.
Unobtainium: They actually call it that. Word of God is that it is used in starship drives. Before the discovery of Pandora, interstellar travel was too costly and long.