Avatar: The Way of Water

Personally, I enjoy James Cameron’s Avatar films more than I like to admit. I geek out over the technical achievements, the stunning visuals, the unique combination of motion capture acting and CGI. Most of all, the Avatar movies are incredibly immersive. They’re truly an escape that I don’t mind being three hours long. It’s amazing to witness this film’s reach with my oldest child, whose first introduction to the Avatar franchise was walking into a real life Pandora on Earth at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in early 2022. He was blown away and wanted to ride the Na’vi River Journey all day. Since then, I showed him the original film and took him to see the sequel. He enjoyed seeing both, hung the poster in his room, and I love being able to talk about these big, exciting movies with him. 

In Avatar: The Way of Water, James Cameron moves the story of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) along about fifteen years. They have children and raise them happily within the Na’vi forest. But danger looms as the Sky People return, once again looking to destroy the beautiful world for profit. This time, Jake’s enemy Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is back, his memories uploaded and reincarnated into a new Na’vi body. He and a band of military buddies, also reincarnated into Na’vi people, make it their mission to hunt down Jake. To protect the Na’vi tribe, Jake and his family flee and seek shelter with a new tribe, the Metkayina, who live off a reef. 

But living with the Metkayina brings new challenges for the whole family and could put everyone in danger. The Na’vi are naturally built to climb in the forest, not swim. Their new Metkayina friends have thicker, fin-like tails and other features that help them in their watery home. While Jake and Neytiri learn and work with the leaders of the tribe, their children learn to breathing techniques, swimming and to ride sea creatures with the leader’s children.

It’s refreshing to see so much of this film focusing on the children within this uniquely blended family. The oldest boy, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) feels the weight of responsibility over his siblings and is always there to help his parents. The younger boy, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), feels stuck in his brother’s shadow, and lashes out to prove himself. His chapters with a tulkun, a whale type creature, are especially cool. Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) was actually born from Dr. Grace’s avatar body and was adopted by Jake and Neytiri. She’s about fourteen, full of curiosity, questions and seems uniquely attuned to Eywa, the all-mother deity. Spider (Jack Champion) is human, somehow Quaritch’s son and left by the Sky People as a baby. And while Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) is only a young child, you can see all the fierceness of her mother boiling inside her. 

Avatar: The Way of Water is currently nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film is also nominated for best sound, production design and visual effects.I would be surprised if Avatar does not take home the trophy for best visual effects. 

James Cameron made the world wait thirteen years for this sequel, and honestly I did not expect it to be this good. The cynical pessimist in me expected a let down, but I was so happy to be wrong. I genuinely enjoyed the story, the new generation of characters, the gripping action and the aquatic expansion of this beautiful, breathtaking world. For three glorious hours my son and I were transported and immersed back onto Pandora, plunged into the water like never before. Bring on more Avatar sequels, Mr. Cameron. Make your money. Just don’t make us wait so long.

“The way of water has no beginning and no end. Our hearts beat in the womb of the world. The sea is your home, before your birth and after your death. The sea gives and the sea takes. Water connects all things: life to death, darkness to light.”

Avatar

Back in December 2009, my husband and I went out to dinner and then strapped into three hours of 3D mayhem with James Cameron’s overrated Avatar.  In no way do I encourage the 3D movie industry that has plagued theaters recently, but I am lucky to be one of those who is not hindered by the 3D experience.  Clearly, I see that in 3D films, everything is dimmed and colors are not nearly as bright, but it does not give me headaches or makes me queasy in the slightest.  The effects, 3D and otherwise, of Avatar were appreciated.  However, the recycled plot really brought me down.

In a way, I have to applaud Cameron’s technique on making a 3D movie not look so dingy.  The use of bright colors and contrast went a long way in the theater.  It was still saturated, but the contrast makes it more difficult to detect.  And with so much action constantly going on, my eyes were glued so well that they vetoed my begging bladder for the last half of the film.  Damn that 32 ounce soda.

Oh yeah, there was a plot to Avatar right?  Somewhere between all the visuals they snuck in some Dances with Wolves meets FernGully: The Last Rainforest story set on the futuristic planet of Pandora.  Don’t open that box, you don’t know the power of unobtanium!

Sorry, let me start at the beginning; seems that military forces from Earth have come to Pandora to learn about its inhabitants, the Navi, and drill its natural resource, unobtanium.  On the Earth base, there is a clash between the military personnel, lead by a scar-headed, G.I. Joe action figure model, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), and the “egghead” scientists lead by Grace (Sigourney Weaver).  It’s your typical brains vs brawn approach to how to handle this new planet.

Plot structure dictates that the protagonist must be able to have his foot in both courts, so bring in Jake (Sam Worthington), a disabled marine whose recently deceased  identical twin brother was a scientist on the Avatar program.  How convenient.  Rather than toss out the Na’vi body government money has made for his brother, Jake simply replaces him, with no training or scientific knowledge of Pandora or the Na’vi to aid him.  Grace isn’t happy about bringing a jar-head in to do her research, and Quaritch is excited to have a man he can trust on the inside.  Jake quickly gets a sort of double-agent agenda, do the Avatar program, but report to Quaritch about how to overrule the Na’vi.  When Jake gets lost in the jungle and eventually becomes accepted by an entire Na’vi tribe, falling in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), the king’s daughter, and learning that unobtanium is the life force of the planet, his agenda changes.  He has to help the Na’vi defend their planet.

There is no doubt that all the astounding visuals are huge technological achievements for the film industry.  Huge kudos to Mr. Cameron there.  But honestly, after that first viewing it becomes a novelty.  Once I’m over the pretty colors and flying mountains, I yearned to feel like I have for some real movie moments that were naturally beautiful.  There is sense of adventure I always feel watching the helicopter first land in Jurassic Park, with the jungle and waterfall behind it.  The buffalo stampede in Dances with Wolves is a heartpounding experience that leaps off the screen without 3D.  The sprawling deserts in Lawrence of Arabia have this majestic feeling of vastness and being that I just don’t find in Avatar.  Even Peter O’Toole’s camel ranks higher than that neon pterodactyl.

It is not enough for a film to be a wonderful visual overload and leave me hanging for that emotional connection or sense of adventure.  I knew the plot structure too well, therefore the only surprises were for my eyes and not my mind or heart.  In the climatic battle, I had a moment in the theater where I stepped back from the action and asked when the chick with the helicopter would make a surprise attack for the good guys…and there she was.  You’re not supposed to let me be able to step out of the moment and predict that Mr. Cameron.  Big no-no.

“I see you.”