Avatar: Fire and Ash‘s final battle gets some intriguing teases and the film’s new industrial watercraft is shown off in concept art. Directed by James Cameron, the third installment in the hit Avatar franchise will see Jake (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and the rest of the Sully family connecting with new Na’vi enemies and allies as the war against the RDA intensifies. The Avatar: Fire and Ash story picks up after The Way of Water‘s climactic battle, with the next film promising even higher stakes as the world of Pandora further expands.

Now, in an interview with Empire, production designer Ben Procter teases that the final battle in Avatar: Fire and Ash will make the ending fight in The Way of Water look like “nothing but a skirmish”. Procter says that, in the next film’s third act, “we’re going to see an airborne and water-borne battle for the ages, as the Pandoran forces and RDA clash in a really interesting environment.”

Along with an epic final battle, Avatar: Fire and Ash will introduce some new human technology, including a mᴀssive new watercraft. The smoke-spewing ship, which is shown off in the concept art below, is called a Factory Ship, and Procter describes it as “Essentially a moving oil platform that is designed to capture and process the tulkun on an industrial scale.” This new vehicle is more than double the size of a SeaDragon, the large ship featured in Avatar: The Way of Water.

The Factory Ship and SeaDragons spell trouble for the Sully family and the rest of the Na’vi, with Procter teasing a truly epic conflict:

“Coming out of these vehicles is an army, and all of that leads into a war. At the end of Avatar 3, what we’re going to see is something of a scale, in terms of conflict, that we have not seen before.”

What The Final Battle Tease Means For Avatar 3

Will Fire & Ash Be More Similar To The First Film?

Though Avatar: The Way of Water‘s ending was epic in its own way, it was smaller in scale than the ending to 2009’s Avatar, which features a lengthy aerial battle. Instead of featuring the fate of all Pandora at risk, the sequel’s ending battle is limited to a fairly insignificant stretch of Ocean, and it’s more about the fate of certain Sully family members hanging in the balance. This climactic fight accompanied a film that, in many ways, tells a smaller story about what it means to be a father trying (and failing) to keep his family safe.

With Jake and the rest of the Sully family having committed themselves to the Metkayina after Neteyam’s death, it’s clear that Avatar: Fire and Ash will once again kick things into high gear. The sheer scale of the conflict suggests that the stakes will be higher for Pandora this time around, and it’s possible that the Na’vi connection to Eywa will once again be threatened. The promise that the battle will take place in the skies and on the water also speaks to how the third film could be a mix of elements from the original film and the sequel.

Our Take On Avatar 3’s Ending & New Watercraft

Prepare For Some Tough Emotional Moments

The end of Avatar: Fire and Ash will be the last audiences see of the Avatar franchise until the release of the fourth film in 2029, so it makes sense that Cameron’s is making it an epic affair. If the final battle can mix elements of both the first film and the second, it could conclude with not just jaw-dropping spectacle, but also a great deal of emotional and thematic significance.

The Factory Ship is in keeping with the franchise’s environmental themes, but its inclusion could suggest that audiences are in for some challenging moments akin to the destruction of Home Tree in the first film and the tulkun hunt in the second. Many questions remain about Avatar: Fire and Ash, but it’s certainly shaping up to be an epic continuation of the franchise.

Source: Empire