There are several meta narratives surrounding James Cameron’s Avatar films, the third of which, Avatar: Fire and Ash, hits theaters on Dec. 19. As such, it wasn’t until watching this newest one that I realized something that’s been hiding in plain sight. For a series steeped in vaguely New Age hippie tropes, this is one of the most bellicose trilogies of movies ostensibly aimed at kids.

When thinking about Avatar, of course, the first topic many discuss is how much money the movies have earned. The gross amount from ticket sales for the first two films (so, no Blu-ray sales, on demand rentals, or distribution deals from streaming services) is $5.267 billion. It’s fun to see where these movies about mystical blue space aliens financially stack up to. (To save you some time, that ticket sale total slots in between the annual GDP of Fiji and Eswatini, or just about double that of Saint Lucia.) While nothing is a sure bet in Hollywood until its opening weekend, there is no reason to think the third chapter won’t do comparable business. It’s very likely that, very soon, when looking at the global list of all-time money-making movies, Cameron will have four out of the top 10, if not the top five.

There are several meta narratives surrounding James Cameron’s Avatar films, the third of which, Avatar: Fire and Ash, hits theaters on Dec. 19. As such, it wasn’t until watching this newest one that I realized something that’s been hiding in plain sight. For a series steeped in vaguely New Age hippie tropes, this is one of the most bellicose trilogies of movies ostensibly aimed at kids.

When thinking about Avatar, of course, the first topic many discuss is how much money the movies have earned. The gross amount from ticket sales for the first two films (so, no Blu-ray sales, on demand rentals, or distribution deals from streaming services) is $5.267 billion. It’s fun to see where these movies about mystical blue space aliens financially stack up to. (To save you some time, that ticket sale total slots in between the annual GDP of Fiji and Eswatini, or just about double that of Saint Lucia.) While nothing is a sure bet in Hollywood until its opening weekend, there is no reason to think the third chapter won’t do comparable business. It’s very likely that, very soon, when looking at the global list of all-time money-making movies, Cameron will have four out of the top 10, if not the top five.

That fourth film of his, of course, is Titanic, which leads us to a second, somewhat contradictory part of the Avatar conversation. Titanic (the fourth-biggest grosser in history, with Avatar at number one and Avatar: The Way of Water at number three) was a generational touchstone that made international superstars out of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, turned phrases like “I’m the king of the world!” and, “Draw me like one of your French girls” into early memes, and got Celine Dion’s high E-flat stuck in our heads forever.........

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