A direct continuation of The Way of Water, Avatar: Fire and Ash is another cinematic spectacle from James Cameron, a treat for the senses. While it feels a little like a connection of “family member in peril, other family member comes to the rescue” sequences – and some of those sequences are really very similar to ones in the second film – the Avatar series isn’t really about plot, and the audiovisual experience is predictably astonishing. Given the two sequels were made back-to-back, inevitably there isn’t the kind of technical leap forward that we saw both with the first film and (after a lengthy gap) the second so there’s not quite that wow factor to the same extent, but I certainly hope Cameron does get to do the further sequels, even if it might be a pretty long wait before we get to see them.
It was hard to know what to expect from Simon Franglen when he scored The Way of Water – while a pivotal member of James Horner’s music team for many years, he had never before attempted anything even remotely on the scale of an Avatar movie as a solo composer before. As it turned out, he didn’t just deliver – he wowed, with perhaps the most spectacular action/adventure movie score since Horner’s original, Franglen finding an uncannily perfect balance between continuing the legacy of his famed friend and colleague and bringing an exciting and vibrant voice of his own.
Fire and Ash very much plays as a continuation of that score, as the film does. The expected themes return – indeed, the opening “Brothers” is, following a brief quote of James Horner’s “I See You” theme, predominantly a brilliant, soaring version of Franglen’s exceptional main theme from The Way of Water, which has turned into a family theme for Jake and Neytiri and their children, featuring the trademark Horner vocal stylings invented for the first film, as well as a new B-section which is if anything even more rousing. There’s a quote too of the trumpet fanfare from Horner’s “Jake’s First Flight”. It’s familiar territory, but a great way of returning there. Then immediately afterwards comes a reprise of the more spiritual, “Songcord” variation on the main theme in “Mourning”.
There are two primary new thematic ideas in the score. The first is “Windtraders”, an absolutely fantastic earworm of a theme representing a group of nomads – it’s such a beautifully flowing piece of music, the Horner vocals (and Avatar percussion) playing a part again in what is otherwise a true Franglen original. Sadly their appearance in the film is somewhat fleeting so we don’t get to hear much of it, but the bustling central track is probably the most satisfying new piece of film music of 2025.
The other new “theme” might perhaps better be described as a “sound” – it represents the new group of antagonists, and is introduced in “Mangkwan Attack” – vocals and percussion again but now electronic sounds, invented sounds alongside the orchestra to produce a primal feel for the villains. I’m impressed by how Franglen has introduced something which on the one hand is so different from the masses of music heard in the first two films, but on the other feels like such a natural evolution (or perhaps devolution) of it. In this cue in particular where it first appears, the second part becomes a mournful set of variations on themes by both composers from the first two films which carries great emotional weight thanks to its contrast to the very alien nature of the Mangkwan material.
One difference between Franglen’s two scores is that if The Way of Water felt at times like a (wildly successful) attempt to write something approximating what Horner himself may have written, Fire and Ash feels like it goes off a little more in pure Simon Franglen directions. The Mangkwan material is key to that, but also the construction of some of the action music. This is not to say that there aren’t Hornerisms all over the place – there are, including a couple of bursts of those trademark four notes – but a cue like “Forest Chase”, while clearly using the kind of Aliens-like material that formed the basis of some of the first score’s action material as a jumping off point, is a little smoother, less jagged and perhaps more organic than what we can only imagine a late-career Horner may have done.
A theme only briefly previewed towards The Way of Water plays a much more significant role in this score. Representing the Spirit Tree, it’s heard fleetingly in the opening “Brothers” cue in fact, but more prominently in “Mourning” and in particular the finale “The Light Always Returns”, where it is combined with a theme representing Kiri, the offspring of Sigourney Weaver’s character from the first film, and in particular her relationship with the spirit god Eywa.
This sort of spiritual material is nice though Franglen doesn’t really get the chance to indulge in the magically creative, more ethereal sound Horner developed for the first half of the first film; and I have to say, the first half of Fire and Ash’s album has a surprising amount of quiet reflection without straying into that sort of territory, and it feels like some of that material could have been cut to enhance the listening experience.
There’s no shortage of action in the second half, though. In “The Ash Camp”, some angry vocal chants for the Mangkwan are added to the sonic mix and tension slowly builds through this cue and the following “I Am the Fire”, with a gnarly motif representing the OG bad guy Quaritch interplaying with the Mangkwan material. The tension continues through the lengthy “The Beach” – in which we really hear very clearly just how leitmotivic Franglen’s approach is, all sorts of themes making appearances – before the explosive “Mission Accomplished”, a great action track which further explores the various villain themes and motifs.
An heroic theme for Lo’ak – another which was just hinted at in the previous score – gets an epic treatment from orchestra and choir in “Lo’ak” before a spectacular action cue “The Deep Ones”, featuring Horner-style crashing pianos in glorious fashion.
Dominating the latter 45 minutes or so of the score is a theme Franglen uses essentially to represent the human/Na’vi conflict. It gets its own vocal arrangement in the concluding “The Future and the Past”, sung by Zoe Saldaña, serving as an obvious spiritual cousin to the previous score’s “The Songcord”. But it blasts away commonly from the brass through many action cues, part of a mix of themes in the wonderful “Protest Noted” and then heard in particular in the spectacular “Preparing for Attack”.
Indeed, this final third of the album is made up of a succession of spectacular action pieces. “Marshalling Forces” is truly epic (though in the film, a new take on the first score’s “Gathering All the Na’vi Clans for Battle”, not on this album, is the most spine-tingling of moments for any James Horner fan). The growing heroism in “I Call Upon the Warrior Mother” is really something to behold. Perhaps best of all is “Settling the Score” (hey, that would be a good name for a podcast) which is breathlessly exciting, approaching Horner’s music for the climactic battle in part one.
One thing that particularly impresses me about Franglen’s work on these films is that it doesn’t really sound like it is bound by the same constraints that blight much modern film music. While we can all debate today’s composers vs yesterday’s composers till the cows come home, the truth is that until about 30 years ago the film composer would generally be presented with a film to score which was, to a reasonable extent, locked – if they had two minutes and ten seconds to do an action sequence which had to hit certain marks at a particular six moments within that time, then that’s what they could write. Then digital editing changed all that, and the composers had to adapt – which is why we ended up with so much interchangeable-sounding music, quite deliberately designed so bars could be removed here or there, copied from one place to another, and still function as the film kept evolving. But Franglen’s music just doesn’t sound like that – everything is very carefully constructed and grows organically. How he managed it I don’t know, but it’s very impressive, and why this music sounds like the sort of ambitious, thematically-rich score that used to accompany big studio tentpole releases but so rarely does 25 years into the 21st century.
Having said all that – and while reaffirming the highest praise for Simon Franglen – I do have to acknowledge that Fire and Ash feels like a slight step down from The Way of Water. While I very much appreciated the longer of the two albums released for the previous score, this one – at two hours and eleven minutes – feels far too long and it’s disappointing that this time round, there’s no option of a shorter album. The highlights are high, but I’m not sure any of them quite reaches the magnificence of The Way of Water’s “Leaving Home” or “The Tulken Return” or “Na’vi Attack”. The fact that the story is very much a continuation rather than something new means we don’t get the same array of new themes to enjoy.
It’s the perfect score for the film it accompanies and I’m sure that, given time, I’ll be able to curate a playlist that provides a tighter, more satisfying listening experience. And to be very clear, I’m only talking small margins here – I don’t want to detract from my awe at what Franglen has achieved over this pair of scores. If you can remember this far back, you might remembering me saying how much I hope Cameron does make more films in this universe – and the thought of Franglen returning to continue this job is a juicy one – but perhaps a bit of a gap might give us the opportunity to hear the composer work on some other films in the mean time, and I can’t wait to hear what else he might have to offer. Of course, not many films offer the kind of musical opportunity as these Avatar ones – but they are out there (and perhaps he wouldn’t mind doing a gentle romantic comedy or two anyway).
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