Looking Back and Moving Forward
James Cameron’s Avatar was a gamechanger for cinema back in 2009, as its motion-capture visual effects were a sight to behold.
Back then, there weren’t really other films that attempted to do what James Cameron succeeded to do, create a unique world that people would remember for many years.
Looking back on it, I still think the original film was good, from a visual standpoint. From a story standpoint, it’s okay but has familiar storylines that doesn’t really break any new ground.
Oh boy, did we wait a long time for this anticipated sequel to the Worldwide Highest Grossing Film of All Time. I was a freshman in high school when I saw the first film back in 2009, and now I’m an adult in 2023.
What we got with “Avatar: The Way of Water”, in my opinion, was very much worth the wait and indeed succeeded with moving forward, the development of new visual effects in cinema.
All of it is thanks to James Cameron’s directing and his hard commitment to developing new technology and techniques for visual filmmaking.
Does all of this work for a decent sequel? Mostly, but we’ll get more into that.
Fair warning though, there will be brief spoilers, you may skip the summary section if you haven’t seen it yet.
Summary
Fifteen years after the events of the first film, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) have lived in peace alongside their Omaticaya clan. Having fully embraced his true heritage as a Navi and leaving his former life as a human, Jake and Neytiri live through parenthood.
The Sully family goes from two to five as they raise three biological children, Natyam, Loak, and Tuk, and two adopted children, Kiri and Spider.
Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) a Navi, was adopted by the Sully family due to being born from Dr. Grace Augustine’s avatar after the former’s human self was killed in the previous film.
Also adopted by the Sully family was Spider (Jack Champion), a human child who was left behind on Pandora due to being too young at the time to be sent back to earth through cryogenic sleep. He spends most of his life with his adopted brothers and sisters rather than with the humans still left on earth.
Things Change
Everything for the Sully family seems peaceful and quiet, until a new threat arises from beyond the stars, the return of the banished humankind.
With the intent of repurposing Pandora as the new Earth, the RDA sends new Avatars that are embedded with the DNA and memories of deceased RDA soldiers, one of them being Colonial Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang).
After being brought up to speed with his demise on earth, the colonial targets Jake Sully as an act of vengeance and threatens the entire family with his newfound abilities as an Avatar.
Rather than stay and fight the RDA, Jake decides to give up his duties as the chief of the Omaticaya and takes his family into hiding throughout the extensive regions of Pandora.
The Sully’s find a new home in the sea-based islands of the Metkayina clan, though with the price of having to start all over and learn the reef tribe’s ways in order to survive.
Extensive Thoughts
Being a fan of the first Avatar, I was excited to see what James Cameron would do with the sequels as he was taking his sweet time to make them. I will say that the film succeeded my expectation, but there were indeed some trade-offs that I think did impact the film negatively.
I’ll start out with what was positive for me.
The Positives
Next-Level Visual Effects and the Score
I absolutely adored the visual effects and the art direction that Cameron took with this film as it really helped move the overall plot in a different path and made it to where it’s a sequel, rather than being a rinse and repeat direction of the first film.
I especially love the fact that Cameron was adament of breaking conventions in filmmaking and directed next-level developments in visual filmmaking as it really shows through the film’s sequences.
Simon Franglen did a great job with the film’s musical score as he brings in his own style of music and at the same time, pays tribute to the late James Horner with musical queues and themes sprinkled throughout the film. I especially loved that they ended the film with a new song from The Weeknd as i’ve had slowly gotten into his music. In fact, I have “Nothing is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” on my daily playlist.
Return of Colonel Quaritch
Colonel Quaritch was a welcome return to the franchise, and I loved how he was brought back in one of the most science fiction ways possible, being a recombinant Avatar with his memories.
I also loved how Quaritch is not just thrown back instantly into the story; he actually takes time to learn about his former self’s actions and has unexpected developments with his new Avatar life.
The Sully Kids
Most of the Sully kids were a welcome addition to the main characters as they weren’t annoying to me, had some funny moments that made me chuckle, and also had good development throughout the film as they are the main focus of the middle act.
My standout Sully kids were Kiri and Lo’ak.
Kiri was interesting for me because she was being played by Sigourney Weaver in a unique dual role and all also because I loved how her character is aware of being different from everyone else and doesn’t care what others think. I very much relate to her in so many ways.
Lo’ak also has good character development as he starts out as being the problem child but ends up having to mature throughout the film and take responsibility for his actions that put the family in danger. He even has to learn how to make friends during hard times, and again, that’s something that I can relate to as well.
The Return of Jake Sully
Sam Worthington’s performance of Jake Sully was just as good in this film as his development was taken even further as a character. Not only does he have to be a seasoned warrior, but he also has to be a father as it’s shown throughout the film that his kids look up to him.
I love that he continues to make hard decisions as this time, it’s all for his family’s survival since they are the prime targets of the RDA. I can relate to him because i’ve had to make choices that take me out of my comfort zone in order to keep developing my life as an adult.
The Final Act: Epic as Always
The final act is easily one of the best parts of the film as James Cameron continues to do what he does best with fantastic action sequences.
In my honest opinion, James Cameron’s still got it when it comes to action sequences. He’s proven that time and time again with Aliens, Terminator 2 and the first Avatar.
There’s a sequence that involves the Sullys and a giant hovercraft that I honestly think is a callback to Cameron’s’ direction for Titanic as it eventually does sinks into the water, and we see scenes with the Sullys that reminded me so much of Titanic, though with differences since this is Avatar we’re talking about.
Jake and Neytiri work really well together as a dynamic duo during the final act with Jake’s military-style combat skills and Neytiri’s native-style combat skills. It really shows well throughout the last act.
The Negatives
For all the positives I have with Avatar: The Way of Water, there are negatives that I have as well. I will say that it’s not extensive this time as I was satisfied with what I saw, but still, there are negatives nonetheless.
The Story: Epic but Thin
The story was nothing special, it all seems like the producers were focusing more the technical aspects rather than focusing on making the story unique. Honestly, it seems to be very thin on the story and it all seems to slow down during the middle act of the film, even though the sequences are very well done.
The act of simple plots doesn’t always work when it comes to blockbuster projects like this film. It honestly seems like that the stories on James Cameron’s films are getting more and more basic with each film that he comes out with.
With the first Avatar, it gets a lot of criticism for story, and very rightfully so since it does indeed recycle stories from other films, but then again don’t all movies do that nowadays.
The Middle Act: Simply Slow
The middle of the film was easily one of the weakest aspects of the film. Honestly, I think that is part of the reason the film has been criticized as being too long.
There’s too much focus on the kids and showing off the world that it gets a little tiresome by the end of the middle act. Thankfully it does pick back up hard during the beginning of the final act.
Again, I love the Sully kids in this film, but I feel like there’s a little too much of them in the middle that it takes away character development from returning characters, even Jake.
I wish it had been cut down a little bit, then the criticisms of being too long probably would have been cut down, but that’s just me.
Neytiri: Sidelined
Zoe Saldana’s performance as Neytiri was good, but I feel like she did not have very much to do in the film until the final act. During the middle act, she’s completely sidelined and does not reappear until the final act.
To be fair, I do feel that Neytiri wasn’t well-developed in the first one either, even though she’s essential to developing Jake Sully as a character.
On the flip side, the scenes that she does have in the film are very well acted by Zoe Saldana.
Honestly, maybe there will be more opportunities to grow Neytiri more in the other sequels. Still, I could’ve used a little bit more character development from her.
Spider: Null but Interesting
The only Sully kid that I had a lot of trouble connecting to was Spider, played by Jack Champion.
Spider is kidnapped by the RDA during the first act of the film and during that time, his character development was read by me as null all throughout until the final act.
He is an interesting character as his backstory was understandable. But all throughout the middle act, I cannot get a read on him, character-wise as he doesn’t show signs of who he’s really loyal to since he is a human that chose to be more Navi-like.
Again, it’s all throughout the middle act that I had the most problems with Spider as there are events that happen in the film that I would’ve expected a better reaction from him on. He honestly has more development at the end of the film, like Neytiri.
During the end of the film, there things that happen in the film that finally does provide a sense of development, but a little too late.
I really hope, like Neytiri, that he gets more development during the sequels.
Wrapping Up
Wrapping up my thoughts on Avatar: The Way of Water, I say that I thoroughly enjoyed the film even with all the gripes I have with the film in general.
I know that i’ve left a majority of the characters out like some of the new characters such as Kate Winslet’s character, Edie Falco’s character, and others, but I wanted to try and summarize my thoughts without spoiling it for everyone.
I think it was a worthy sequel to the first Avatar, and that it does take things to the next level, in a technical sense, but for storytelling purposes, it simply needs more meat.
I know that James Cameron can balance storytelling with technical filmmaking with Aliens and Terminator 2, but ever since Titanic, it just seems like that he’s more about developing great technical films, rather than great storytelling/technical films.
I think that Avatar: The Way of Water is worth seeing in 3D on the big screen, but only on the big screen in general. It’s a good movie, but for different reasons. Here’s hoping the further sequels ramp the story up more.
