{"id":800283,"date":"2026-01-23T08:16:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T13:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=800283"},"modified":"2026-01-23T08:16:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T13:16:29","slug":"new-scientist-recommends-avatar-fire-and-ash-especially-the-whale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=800283","title":{"rendered":"New Scientist recommends Avatar: Fire and Ash \u2013 especially the whale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" id=\"\">\n<p xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\">\n<figure class=\"ArticleImage\">\n<div class=\"Image__Wrapper\"><\/div><figcaption class=\"ArticleImageCaption\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImageCaption__CaptionWrapper\">\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Title\">Oona Chaplin as Varang in Avatar: Fire and Ash<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Credit\">2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p><b>Bethan Ackerley<br \/><\/b>Subeditor, London<\/p>\n<p>Nobody makes blockbusters like James Cameron. <em>Avatar: Fire and Ash<\/em>, his third film set on the verdant moon Pandora, is bombastic and beautiful. And from interspecies war to family feuds, there\u2019s also an awful lot going on.<\/p>\n<p>Some 15 years after ex-Marine Jake Sully was adopted by the Indigenous Na\u2019vi, after helping to drive back the human military and fusing with a Na\u2019vi body, he has made a life on Pandora with his partner Neytiri and their children.<\/p>\n<p>But now they are grieving the loss of their eldest son, Neteyam. And their old enemy, Colonel Quaritch, has joined forces with a powerful volcano-dwelling clan of Na\u2019vi, led by Varang (pictured above).<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"js-content-prompt-opportunity\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Shakespeare this isn\u2019t (the dialogue is crass, to put it politely), but there is no denying the draw of this meticulously crafted world.<\/p>\n<p>Come for the visuals, stay for Payakan, a member of an intelligent whale-like species called the tulkun and the real heart of the film.<\/p>\n<section class=\"ArticleTopics\" data-component-name=\"article-topics\">\n<p class=\"ArticleTopics__Heading\">Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg26935790-500-new-scientist-recommends-avatar-fire-and-ash-especially-the-whale\/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&#038;utm_source=NSNS&#038;utm_medium=RSS&#038;utm_content=space&#038;rand=772163\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oona Chaplin as Varang in Avatar: Fire and Ash 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved. Bethan AckerleySubeditor, London Nobody makes blockbusters like James Cameron. Avatar: Fire and Ash, his&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":800284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-800283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-scientist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=800283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/800284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=800283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=800283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=800283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}