James Cameron breaks down 4 key Avatar: The Way of Water scenes
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James Cameron made movie history in 2009 with Avatar, the highest-grossing film of all time. Thirteen years later, audiences will get the sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water — the first of four on the way.
The director trades Pandora's rainforests for an ocean setting. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the former Marine who melded his mind into the body of a Na'vi, the moon's blue-skinned indigenous species, has now built a life with wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), complete with their own brood of children. But the RDA (Resources Development Administration), the militarized organization that engaged in a war with the Na'vi of Pandora in the first film, is still a threat all these years later. (Yes, Stephen Lang is back as Col. Quaritch, only he, too, is now in a more formidable Na'vi body.)
Cameron sees the upcoming sequels as "one big contiguous saga when you see it all, but each film has its own off-ramp and finale that rounds it all out," he tells EW. "The best metaphor is really good episodic TV. The key to The Way of Water is to get you on the side of the characters so you actually care about what happens next in their journey."
The filmmaker sat down with EW to break down four key sequences in the upcoming film, in theaters this Dec. 16.
The life aquatic
20th Century Studios Sigourney Weaver takes on a new role of Kiri, Jake and Neytiri's daughter, in 'Avatar: The Way of Water.'
"Here we see, essentially, fish-out-of-water characters," says Cameron, "or as we like to call it in the writing room, the 'unfish in water.' Kiri is one of the unfish-in-water characters."
Sigourney Weaver, in a brand-new role after appearing as Dr. Grace Augustine in Avatar, plays Kiri, Jake and Neytiri's adopted 15-year-old daughter, seen here taking her first swim in the Pandoran waters. The origins of Kiri are complicated: She's is a naturally conceived Na'vi raised in the rainforest. "It's just that she's born of Grace's avatar," Cameron explains. "It's a natural birth, but the avatar is brain-dead, but she's not. She's normal."
Kiri is "going through some emotional stuff" by the time she's seen swimming underwater, Cameron points out. It's a scene in which all the kids in the Sully family — including Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), Tuk (Trinity Bliss), and the adopted human child Spider (Jack Champion) — jump in the ocean for the first time and experience the wonder. For Kiri, "she goes from this anxious and depressed state to one that's joyful and reconnected over the course of a three-minute scene," Cameron says
Kiri's joy is enhanced from this moment, more so than her siblings. "She's a character who's a true sensitive," Cameron adds. "She's a person who's very connected to the world around them, far beyond a normal Na'vi — to the animals, to the plants, and to the rhythm and balance of life. When she jumps into the ocean, she has this transformative experience."
Flight of imagination
20th Century Studios Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his Na'vi children soar through the floating islands in 'Avatar: The Way of Water.'
What pushes Jake's family out of their rainforest toward the ocean? "A bunch of bad s---," Cameron says. It begins with the Na'vi parents flying over the floating islands on the backs of banshees, along with their eldest son, Neteyam. A concerned call from one of their other children sends them back — and, from there, "the story's on," says the director.
Now 15 years older, Jake and Neytiri have a different view on life. "Becoming a parent changes so much of your behavior and your value system," Cameron says. "What we saw in the first film were people who were fearless. Jake would throw himself off his ikran onto a leonopteryx" — remember those Avatar creatures? — "but is a father of four going do that? I'm thinking probably not, because they have a duty to survive. It doesn't mean he's a coward, but it means his priorities change."
Cameron adds that Jake is waging guerilla warfare against the RDA as he grapples with fatherhood and past as a warrior. "He's trying to keep his kids alive and trying to adjust his own life," the director says. "Is he still a warrior? Are these young boys who are 14, 15, 16, coming up, getting all excited about wanting to go to war and fight for their people and for their land? How's [Jake] going to be a hypocrite and hold them back when he has to go do it?"
Cameron may be speaking from personal experience, especially more recently with his younger children with wife Suzy Amis. "I've seen the teen years and I've lived through them and it can be no fun at all," he remarks. "A lot of anxiety, a lot of quest for identity, a lot of trying to be heard and seen."
A new tribe
20th Century Studios Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and Ronal (Kate Winslet) lead the ocean-dwelling tribe of Na'vi called the Metkayina.
With the ocean comes the Metkayina, a clan of Na'vi who dwell in shallow waters. Unlike the Omaticaya clan, whose Na'vi thrive on land, those in the Metkayina have biologically adapted to aquatic life. They are marked by tails and fin-like "strakes" that help them propel through the water.
Cameron didn't want to take the webbed-feet approach, like just about every other film since 1954's Creature From the Black Lagoon. What the crew created instead was something for the actors, performing in tanks of water with motion-capture equipment, to emulate these strake appendages.
"We essentially gave them jet packs, and they were able to trigger the jet packs themselves on the fly," Cameron reveals. "So they'd complete a stroke, and when they're in the glide phase of the stroke, they'd trigger the jet pack with a little tiny switch and it would push them forward a couple of meters. They'd move their hips like they had a tail. We called it the crocodile swim."
Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) lead these Na'vi in the Metkayina as chieftans. A pregnant Ronal is seen in the background of this scene as Tonowari explains something important about the culture of the Metkayina and tulkun. (More on the latter shortly). Their specific tattoos, inspired by Polynesian and Melanesian cultures, signify their authority.
"She's the 'Tsahìk' — the spiritual leader, the shaman, the keeper of wisdom," Cameron says. "The male leader, who's called the 'Olo'eyktan,' handles the day-to-day, which is hunting, weaving, any kind of fabrication work. He's like the secular leader and she's the spiritual leader. For major decisions, if it doesn't clearly fall into one camp or the other but it affects everybody, they need each other's agreement. So even though you see Tonowari as this big, strong, alpha male-type leader, he doesn't make a move without [Ronal's] wisdom."
The film suggests Jake has met Tonowari before when Na'vi clan leaders got together sometime in the past to discuss the RDA's ravaging of Pandora. "[Jake] knows him," Cameron confirms, "but he's never spent time at Tonowari's village before. So there's a tension between these two guys. They respect each other, but Jake is asking for something that's quite dangerous for Tonowari."
Slash of the titans
20th Century Studios A wounded tulkun speaks to the larger conflict in 'Avatar: The Way of Water.'
The first image sees Kiri swimming underwater among all the various forms of sea life. Cameron estimates "there are probably 10 or 20 times" of what we see here when it comes to total creatures designed for the film.
Among the new begins introduced in The Way of Water are the tulkun, which appear similar to the whales of earth. "We treat the tulkun as characters," says Cameron. "They are slightly transcendent animals that have some degree of consciousness and culture. They're intelligent, highly cultured, highly linguistic. They interact with the ocean Na'vi as equals." The tulkun also share the same religion as the Metkayina.
Typically, tulkun have large petrel wings like a humpback whale, as well as a cephalic fin (an end fin). This tulkun, however, has seen better days: Two-thirds of its cephalic fin has been blown off, which speaks to the film's wider warfare. "You're actually seeing a damaged, scarred tulkun," Cameron says. "You see the scar down across his eye and the scar tissue at the end of the fin where it was amputated. There's a lot going on in that image."
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