How Avatar: The Way Of Water sets up James Cameron’s next sequel
A look at sacred seeds, parentage issues, a dying Earth, and who figures to have a bigger role when another Avatar installment arrives
Film Features Avatar
Avatar: The Way Of Water casually drops a pretty big bombshell during its first hour, and James Cameron never really comes back to it, despite the fact that it may be the defining fact behind the entire franchise narrative:
“Earth is dying.” That comes straight from General Frances Ardmore (Edie Falco), as she brings in new troops from Earth to Pandora and proceeds to burn down a massive chunk of the rainforest in order to build settlements. This makes the conflict between humans and Pandora’s native Na’vi existential—humans can’t breathe the atmosphere as is, for one thing. If this is their only hope for survival in the known universe, they’re going to have to terraform, and that will not sit well with either the Na’vi or the planetary consciousness goddess, Eywa.
Yet almost the entirety of The Way Of Water simply focuses on the grudge rematch between Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the latter now reborn into an avatar Na’vi/human hybrid to even the odds. Quaritch’s mission, in theory, is to kill Sully to stop his raids on human transportation and construction, but once he hits back hard enough to make Jake flee into hiding and abandon the fight, Quaritch continues anyway. Paradoxically, by doing so he ends up convincing Jake that the fight cannot be avoided. But by then the movie’s over, and Jake and Ardmore haven’t even met.
No cliffhanger, but plenty of questions
Unlike many other second installments of franchises with larger arcs—think The Matrix Reloaded or The Empire Strikes Back—The Way Of Water doesn’t end on any major cliffhanger. The battle between the Metkayina clan and their immediate human aggressors is done. Ardmore’s fight to make Pandora into the new Earth, however, is a much bigger arc that seems like it’s only just begun. It’s also one that will have to lead to harder moral choices than whether or not whaling is acceptable on a world where space whales, called Tulkuns, are definitively more intelligent than humans and can communicate with them.
Plus, let’s be real: you don’t cast Edie Falco in your movie and only give her a couple of scenes. With the third film and bits of the fourth already in the can, the odds seem pretty high that she’s got more to do. While we’re on that topic, ditto Jemaine Clement. The Flight Of The Conchords alumnus and Taika Waititi ensemble regular usually gets hired for his ability to be funny, menacing, or both. In The Way Of Water, however, he’s generic. Any competent actor could have stood around saying the lines he’s given, to which he adds neither humor nor hubris. Dr. Ian Garvin is just a marine biologist, who reluctantly assists with Tulkun-killing because it allows him to study aquatic aliens on a planet where most of the humans present are pure profit-seekers. Nobody in their right mind casts Clement to just act normal, which is why he has to have something more to do later on.
But there’s an even bigger plot strand yet to be resolved, and it involves another fact we’re given upfront. Kiri, the teen played by Sigourney Weaver, is somehow the child of Dr. Grace Augustine’s avatar body, presumably born after the real Augustine’s death … or somebody would have mentioned it in the last film. Characters within The Way Of Water offer up an idea that feels like classic slash fiction—the father, they guess, must be Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore), who appears in most of her old video journals, and who also had an avatar body, arguably suitable for mating with hers.
Kiri’s unique powers
In the original script for the first Avatar, Norm was romantically linked to Trudy Chacon (Michelle Rodriguez), which goes a long way toward explaining her disobeying orders on his behalf. That’s not considered canon anymore, so sure, he might have gotten with Grace instead. The thought of casual sex between avatar bodies had to occur at some point, and if it’s not their human bodies doing it, does it even “count”?
But that’s not the only possibility. Kiri exhibits unique powers, like the apparent ability to survive underwater without breathing, and control over wildlife and plants. She claims to hear the heartbeat of Eywa, the living planet, and calls it “mighty.” This all points to her being some sort of savior figure; the kind of character often spawned from a virgin birth. (Don’t forget: the entire concept of the avatar is originally a religious one.) When Kiri tries to actually ask Eywa who her father was, she gets shut down swiftly. So either there isn’t one, or the possible answer isn’t good for her to know.
Which brings us to option three. In one sequence, Kiri is surrounded by Woodsprites, the seed of the sacred tree. It’s significant because the same seeds marked Jake as a chosen one, staying Neytiri’s bow and persuading her to help him, long before he developed any of the skills necessary to save anyone on Pandora. So what if Jake is Kiri’s actual father? Maybe he was chosen not for himself, but who he would raise?
Jake would never cheat on Neytiri, of course, and Grace didn’t even like him that much. But she was relentless in the pursuit of science. What if she sampled some DNA from his avatar body to impregnate her own? She knew everything he did, so he must have told her about the Woodsprites. Like Dune’s Lady Jessica, she may have used that knowledge to take it upon herself to birth a savior. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Avatar borrowed from the classics—Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter Of Mars is an acknowledged inspiration.
Spider faces father issues
Kiri’s parentage is brought up so early that the average cineaste, mindful of the principles of planting and payoff, surely expects the movie will fully address it by the end. But while her power proves important during the climax, it remains unexplained. There’s a lot more for the sequels to reveal, and if she turns out to be the real chosen one rather than Jake, well, it wouldn’t be the first time Sigourney Weaver had to bail out a meathead Marine in a James Cameron sequel.
Parentage also remains an issue between the reincarnated Quaritch and his son Miles, a.k.a. Spider (Jack Champion). The new Quaritch claims he isn’t the real father, biologically, which is true. But in all meaningful ways, he is, having his exact personality and memories. It’s a bit like Darth Vader, in his cyborg body, claiming he’s not Anakin Skywalker, and indeed, when Spider drags Miles’ body out of the water to save him, it’s not a little reminiscent of Luke pulling Vader to a safer space after the Emperor’s death. Nu-Quaritch clearly cares somewhat for Spider, and it’s reciprocal enough that the kid won’t leave him to drown. They remain, however, on opposite sides, and a reckoning will have to happen.
Will Spider ultimately strike his own father down? Classical narrative structure suggests it would have to be Jake to do so. Unless Quaritch, unlike Vader, turns to the light side before death forces it. Or, more likely, dies saving Spider.
The bigger question remains: with a minimum of five movies planned, when will we get any of these answers? Only Eywa, and James Cameron, know for sure. But we’ll have plenty of time to speculate.
46 Comments
Recently decided to rewatch the first movie. Meh. It didn’t really get me excited for a sequel.
I think it’s pretty clear who Kiri’s “father” is. It’s pretty obvious it’s Eywa. My theory is when they hooked up Grace’s Avatar to the sacred tree to save her like Jake, Eywa instead since it couldn’t save grace instead “impregnated” her with what is now a Na’vi Avatar living analogue of Ewya.
This. It’s the Occam’s Razor answer here. Grace was too weak for Eywa to transfer her consciousness into an Avatar body, so Eywa did what she could: stored Grace’s consciousness in its database, and then fed that into Grace’s Avatar in the form of a pregnancy.It also explains Kiri’s unique connection to Eywa and its organisms.Any other explanation would be less satisfying, I think.
Prety much and they pretty heavy handedly push that narrative with her. My guess is the last movie, I REALLY REALLY doubt we get 4 and 5, is the climax is Kiri realizing she has a direct line to Ewya, and using the connection to unite all the Na’vi and creatures of Pandora to finally overthrow and defeat the humans. We 100% are getting a 3rd regardless of how this one does because the 3rd movie is already finished, 4 and 5, don’t see it happening unless this one does REALLY well, like $3+ billion since it requires $2 billion to break even it NEEDS to pull $3+ billion to be considered a “success”
I think a 4th film is at least somewhat likely, since parts of it were filmed already while filming the 3rd, and the follow up story was always billed as a “sequel trilogy” (at least before expanding to include a 4th and 5th film).I think as long as this film, and the third film, do respectable numbers (which is a LOT, given the nature of these films), we’ll likely get the main story finished.Have my doubts about 4th and 5th films though. Although according to Cameron, that’s where things are supposed to shift toward the Na’vi coming to Earth, which is at least interesting.
Yeah I mean it has places it can still go, but as you and I said to justify getting a 4th and 5th film this and the next one NEED to make absolutely crazy money. 3rd pretty much guaranted, it’s pretty much finished at this point, or more likely is in the process of rendering the movie. I mean considering it’s entirely, more or less CG, the renderigng takes WAY more time than actual filming.
I feel like whatever movies that come after this one should be cheaper to make in some regard….whatever tech they developed to make #2 is done, so a lot of that cost can come “for free” if you are instantly making 2 extra movies off the tech backbone of that first movie.Granted, it’s still expensive CGI and still hundreds of millions. But if #2 cost $350 mill, I can’t see why #3 couldn’t cost something closer to $250 mill. Unless Cameron is now doing something like actually filming in outerspace or a live volcano or something.
Maybe, but since they filmed 2 and 3 at the same time, you wouldn’t really see that cost reduction like you would if they were filmed a year or two apart. And having seen the movie, I don’t know what new tech Cameron really came up with, maybe some new water rendering tech, although the water looked kind of bad lol. That said it “underperformed” in it’s opening weekend, but like the first movie which didn’t have a record breaking opening, if it can hold those numbers week over week it could do quite well.
I’m not buying those numbers at all. All the reports are that this Avatar 2 cost $250-350 million; it only gets to a $1 billion when they’re talking about how much it’d cost to make three Avatar sequels put together.I think James Cameron is just trying to hype the box office, going for that once-in-a-lifetime, must-see, event money, and “this is the most expensive movie ever made in the history of anything,” is a better selling point for that than, “it ALMOST cost as much as the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, so you should totally see it.”
Maybe so I was just using what Cameron himself said. He could be considering the budget, and marketing budget of 2 and 3 as one “movie”, which i hope is the case, if not man is there a mountain to climb to profitibaility.
I wonder if there’s like an evil counterpart to Eywa, like everyone thinks she’s a Jesus figure but what if she’s the anti-Christ. Might be why it shut down her seeing her father
Possibly, but I think since she is the living Na’vi manfestation of Ewya that jacking in and more or less main lining their god overloaded her. Of course at this point we don’t know if she is or not, but she showed abilities that we have never seen any other Na’vi do, so it certainly hints that she IS a Na’vi incarnaiton of Ewya or linked somehow. I have a feeling there is going to be some kind of awakening of her in the next movie realizing either she IS Ewya or directly connected. Makes a little sense when you consider they talk about possbily going to Earth in the 4th or 5th movie, and we know the Earth is dying. Maybe they go there and she does some Ewya magic and heals the entire planet. lol that is if they get a 4th movie, which is entirely dependent on how well this one does, less so the 3rd since it will be only a little over year betwen 2 and 3 and not 13 since the first Avatar and this one. I fully believe she has no father and she is essentially blue cat people Jesus lol. If she dies and comes back 3 days later in the next movie I am fucking DONE LMAO.
Probably it’s named Awye. And talks like Bizzaro. “Awye loves everyone! Awye does not want to destroy all life!”
Good theory. I like this.
The film tells a full story, but what bothered me was how much lower the stakes were when compared to the original film. That movie was all about kicking the humans off planet completely. It was full-scale war between humans and Na’vi.This one is basically about one tribe of Na’vi vs. a ship full of humans. And then both humans and Na’vi (beyond the main cast) just kind of disappear and it’s just about saving people from a sinking ship.I understand they need to pad it out for sequels, but it’s a bit annoying to watch a 3+ hour movie that basically serves as Act 1.
Ha! At least it didn’t end in a cliffhanger, the Netflix way.
Amazing film. Better than anything Marvel has ever made. Cameron is a genius.
Why bring Marvel into this? You know they’re both Disney properties lmao
I have never been more bored with a movie than with this one. Sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Is this a bit?
I see no lies
A big thing that was repeated often in the movie is how humans can’t breath Pandoran air for more than ten seconds, but the Navi (and perhaps all Pandoran animals) can breath human air for “hours.”
That leaves open the possibility that there exists a middle ground of terraforming that both Earthlings and Pandorans can breath within.
How it sets up the next sequel? I dunno, it puts three seconds of a blue-skinned Samuel L. Jackson glaring into the camera 9/10’s through the credits we all have to now sit through?
“We’ve been able to put dead people in these new Avatar bodies but can’t figure out how to help humans survive on their planet without terraforming” sounds about right given one of the main characters is Jake’s adopted human son who’s been living on their planet without issue for the past decade.
Avatar.Avatars?Avatar$!
Avas tar?
Avis car.
‘Ave a cigar!
Ava Gardner!
Ave Maria
Are you ‘avin’ a laff?
‘Oye am!
Omar Khayyam!
God bless you.
A vat of tar?
Avast! Arrr!
Grr! Arg!
Is Spider annoying in this? Because I get Battlefield Earth vibes looking at him.
if it’s not their human bodies doing it, does it even “count”?
Ask this of your significant other and come back to this story.
On the Miles Quaritch plot thread you didn’t elaborate on one of the key points. Mrs. Sully threatens to kill Miles and that allows Quaritch to show he cares about him like a son; while the woman he looked at as a mother doesn’t really see him as a son. I think its setting it up for Miles to betray the Navi.
I interpreted the movie’s “questions” differently. I thought it was clear that the only reason the human’s came back was to harvest the whale juice. In Cameron’s world, the humans are plunderers, they aren’t terraformers. I think the line about Earth dying was just a throwaway line that Cameron included because every sci-fi movie includes the line.Jemaine Clement’s character seemed to be on the planet for something more important than just studying the fauna. I’m guessing he was there to study the Eywa biological system.Kiri is obviously the reincarnation/clone of Sigourney Weaver’s character. That’s why Cameron would have Weaver voice the character. The question is whether her connection to the Eywa hive mind will just be explained as genetic engineering a fluke or as a chosen one trope. Probably the latter.I’m sure Cameron, himself, is just more interested in questions about how whales communicate and the social interactions of sea life. I wouldn’t be surprised if the fourth and fifth films get rid of the bipedal creatures entirely and just has whales swimming around in the ocean communicating in subtitles.
We’ll just have to wait to see if the Disney World Avatar attraction becomes canon, with human tourists welcome and a human-friendly atmosphere provided by a giant spore pod.
I don’t get why theme parks need to have some kind of story. Just have them look around. There doesn’t need to be an in-depth explanation.
You want to feel like you’re REALLY THERE, don’t you?
Find someone who wants you to succeed the way AVClub wants the Avatar franchise to succeed.
Finally saw the movie over the weekend, so I’m coming back to read these articles. The thing about Earth being dying is starkly put, but it isn’t new – in the first one Jake specifically noted to the Na’vi that the sky people “killed their mother.”