Avatar 3 Will Explore Pandora More Freely And Introduce Two New Na'vi Cultures

Say it with me: Never bet against James Cameron. Even after more than a decade away, the filmmaker's return to Pandora with "Avatar: The Way of Water" has proven to be an undeniable success. The film is smashing box office records across the world — except in Japan where it seems unable to surpass a basketball anime movie — and continues to delight both viewers and critics, who have praised the film for fixing many of the big issues with the first "Avatar" movie.

Indeed, "The Way of Water" is both bigger in scale and more intimate than its predecessor. The action is grand, but the characters are also better now that the franchise is focused on the next generation. "The Way of Water" also has a stronger environmental message about saving our oceans and how evil commercial whaling really is. And just like with the first film, the true star of the "Avatar" sequel is once again Pandora, with the sights, the landscapes, and the new biome giving us incredible sights, to the degree that it's almost depressing for fans once the movie is over.

Now that "The Way of Water" has finally turned a profit, we can start looking ahead to future sequels, including the already-shot "Avatar 3" and "Avatar 4" (which has been at least partially filmed). Though we don't know a lot about what's to come next, Cameron has slowly started dropping more and more details, many of which can't help but bring to mind a certain cartoon franchise that shares its name with the filmmaker's creation.

Speaking to Deadline while attending the Critics Choice Awards, Jame Cameron teased what we can expect from the still-untitled "Avatar 3." As the filmmaker explained, "Fire has a symbolic purpose in the film and there's a [Na'vi] culture that is specifically around that concept."

Granted, we already knew this. Cameron has talked before about how the next film is going to introduce a Na'vi Fire Nation, much like the human Fire Nation in "Avatar: The Last Airbender." What's more, the "Ash People" are meant to be a villainous Na'vi tribe, which seems to kind of defeat the whole point of Cameron's appropriation of Indigenous cultures for his big sci-fi saga.

Though he tried to play things coy, saying that was "probably saying too much as we speak,"  the filmmaker still went ahead and spilled some more details about the film. Cameron revealed that the Fire Nation is not the only new Na'vi culture we'll meet, further suggesting the "Avatar" films are following in the footsteps of "ATLA." He explained: 

"You're going to meet two completely new cultures in the next film. We met the Omaticaya, we met the Metkayina, and you're going to meet two new cultures in the next film, and it kind of rove a little more freely around the world of Pandora to different places."

Sure, it may be a bit gimmicky — especially if the franchise continues to tie each new Na'vi tribe to an element — but the different Na'vi cultures and the different biomes of Pandora are part of what makes this franchise so exciting and worth coming back to. More than the plot of the Sullys running from Quaritch, it is seeing new places in this world that makes "Avatar" such a winning series.