“I think it’s important for a sequel to honor what the audience loved about the experience the first time, but also to get them off-balance, do things that they don’t expect,” explained legendary filmmaker James Cameron at a press conference for Avatar: The Way of Water. It’s been 13 years since Avatar broke box office records with audiences returning time and again to visit the bioluminescent forests of Pandora in 3D. And while there are familiar sights, the director explained his track record for making great sequels. “There are a lot of surprises in terms of where the story goes in this film that we’re not putting into the trailers and the TV spots and all that. You kind of have to experience it. But it also goes a lot deeper, in terms of the heart and the emotions. It was a much simpler story, and the characters were simpler the first time. And I was inspired by the fact that both Zoe [Saldaña] and Sam [Worthington] are parents, and I’m a parent of five, so we wanted to get into the family dynamics and the responsibilities of having kids.”
(Mark Fellman/20th Century Studios)
The inciting incident that kicks off this new story is the return of the “sky people” from Earth. “It was very exciting to come back,” gushed Stephen Lang, who reprises his role as Colonel Miles Quaritch. The character bit the dust in the original film, so his return is in the form of a Na’vi avatar programmed with Quaritch’s personality and memories. “There’s the absolutely magnificent irony that Jim has written of coming back as the very thing he has been trying to destroy. And having to make the adjustment to that, to adapt to that. It was a total pleasure for me to continue to massage this character, and find the depth, and maybe some of the humanity that’s in him.”
Sam Worthington returns as Jake Sully, who drew on his own experience as a father to reconnect with the character, along with the assistance of James Cameron’s imagination. “Jim gave me a script that was Avatar 1.5, that unto itself is amazing and detailed, and full of what they’ve gone through over that gap,” Sam revealed about the jump forward in time from the previous film. “Jim realized that story was about them being warriors, and taking on the battles of the clans and things like that. You wanted to explore what this family dynamic is, the natural extension of this love story. But it gave us a good jumping-off point to understand how to fill in that gap that’s missing.”
Zoe Saldaña describes Naytiri’s character arc in the first film as learning to love, whereas in Avatar: The Way of Water, a different emotion dominates her life. “In a way, we’ve lived parallel lives,” the actress revealed. “There’s a level of fearlessness and rebellion that I have as a person that Neytiri had as herself… In my personal life, when I became a parent, fear entered my realm. The fear of losing something that you love so much. You spend a great deal of your time creating these hypothetical scenarios that are just unimaginable. When I read the second script, that was her, that was Neytiri.” With how closely linked Zoe and Neytiri are, Zoe’s own experience as a mother may offer a clue as to where Neytiri goes beyond this second installment in the franchise. “I’ve been a mother now for eight years, and I’m learning to manage that sensation enough so that I can let go. Because there’s nothing greater and more heart-breaking than when your child looks at you and goes, ‘momma, let me go, I can do this.’”
(Mark Fellman/20th Century Studios)
The teacher is now the pupil with Sigourney Weaver’s character in this film, a Na’vi girl named Kiri mysteriously born of the dormant avatar of Dr. Grace Augustine. “when we first talked about it, it was 2010,” Sigourney revealed about her first conversation with James Cameron about returning as a new character, one that required the actress to reconnect with her past self. “I loved that I had the opportunity to play someone I consider a real adolescent in most ways, and then she has these other bright spots that she’s learning about. But I was very honored, too, and thrilled, excited, terrified. But luckily there was a long time to prepare. I went to high school classes and a few other things, so I could hear the pitch of their voices, and there’s a big range of who an adolescent is between twelve and fifteen. And once I saw that, I was like, okay, I can let Kiri come out. Whoever that is, combined with who I was at fourteen. It was sort of a muddle… By the time I got there, I just so enjoyed leaving this shell behind and becoming this sometimes brat,” she laughed.
Sigourney Weaver’s working relationship with James Cameron goes back to the early days of her career. Another of the director’s former cast members enters Pandora for the first time, with Kate Winslet (Titanic) playing Ronal, the Tsahik of the Metkayina clan who provide sanctuary for the Sully’s from Quaritch and his troop. “The thing that pulled me in most of all, above everything else, is the characters that he’s created,” Kate Winslet shared about her decision to join the project. “Jim has always written for women, characters who are not just strong, but they are leaders, they lead with their heart, with integrity, they stand in their truth, they own their power. They have physical power that is admirable, and to be part of that, and included, it was just so flattering that Jim asked me, because Jim does not suffer fools… I was just thrilled to be asked. And when I got there, welcomed into this world that was created by these guys and Zoe and Sam, what they did the first time around was to create that heartbeat. You know, it’s one thing for Jim to write it, it’s quite another to find it, and to give it a life and a pulse and real blood in those veins. But it’s really, really extraordinary to be around that. It’s not a performance. It’s not things they came up with on the day. It is a universe. It is a love, it is something that is palpable, and you feel it, you step into that space, it’s an empty space, but it is absolutely loaded with truths and dynamics and pulses that these guys built. They built that, and they shared it, and it’s honestly very, very special to have been part of it.”
“Themes are what you leave the theatre with, and this movie has heart, has emotion, and it also has a message again about our world, not just the environment, about people, about accepting people for their differences,” executive producer Jon Landau concluded. Themes of family and protecting those you love will resonate with audiences this holiday season as they venture to their local cineplex to take in another groundbreaking story from Pandora, best viewed in premium large formats and in 3D. “In the movie Jim wrote in the line, ‘Oel ngati kameie,’ ‘I see you.’ And we want people to know that they’re seen, and to see others that same way.”
(Mark Fellman/20th Century Studios)
“What struck me was the work, the performances, the people,” James Cameron shared abut his first time seeing the final cut of Avatar: The Way of Water fully rendered in 3D. “I look past all the spectacle, all the design, all the creatures and all that, and as Jon was saying, I look at this, and I’m not only proud of the work, you’ve got to start with that, right? But I’m also proud of the entire downstream team, over a thousand people who preserved it so eloquently and so subtly that I see times when… there’s a whole dialogue in the eyes. The subtlety of that being preserved gives us permission, when we’re in the capture space, to be as detailed and specific as we want to be. Because if you’re just being generic, that’s not the kind of challenge that we want. I mean, at this stage in our lives and in our careers, we want a challenge, we want to find just the right timbre for every moment. But if you can’t trust the downstream process, that it’s going to come through in the CG characters, then what’s the point? So I’m very, very proud not only of what we created together, but how that was preserved into these final fantasy characters that are not human.”
Avatar: The Way of Water is now playing exclusively in theaters around the world.