There are some new images and details for Avatar 2, thanks to a new published article
by Total Film Magazine here in the UK.
We also get interviews from James Cameron, Sam Worthington,
Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang and more, talking about story deatils and the potential success
of the franchise going forward.
In this video, I'm going to be discussing the images and details
shared, breaking down the newest looks at the film.
Before I get into it though, if you want to see much more videos on James cameron's Avatar:
The Way Of Water leading up to it's release date, then don't forget to support this upload
by giving it a like rating, subscribing to the channel and turning on your notifications.
But without further a do, lets discuss the new
images and details for Avatar 2 from Total Film.
So the Avatar: The Way of Water article in the new issue of Total Film magazine gives
us two brand new exclusive covers, with the subscriber cover using a stunning shot from
the original trailer.
But it also gives us multiple exclusive images from the film, including a high res look at
Quaritch, another of his band of Recombinant marines, and a further high res photo of
Sigourney Weaver’s new Na’vi character, Kiri.
The shot of Kiri and Quaritch are just high quality versions of footage we've already
seen from the trailer, but the shot of Quaritch's marines is quite the interesting addition.
Alongside getting a good new look at them, the description of them being recombinant
marines seems to confirm that these group of soldiers and
Quaritch himself, are humans that had already died in the original Avatar film, now back
in navi form through denoting their cells into these new bodies.
So essentially they have been brought back to life via transferring their
dna into an avatar body.
I will be going into what this could mean later in the video, because Stephen Lang,
the actor of Quaritch, does speak a bit about what that could mean for the individual
after they have been brought back, and this is definitely where the more interesting details
lie.
But alongside those 3 images from Total Film, there were a few others not present
in this article that have been released recently, including one of Jake looking quite battle
weary, and this is likely after the first battle due to a recent trailer shot showing
him with the same scars, shaking the hand of cliff curtis's Tonowari.
Maybe a known character or one of his and Neytiri's children dies in the
middle of the film because he does look like quite sadenned in the shot, and Cameron has
said that characters may or may not make it out of this film in one piece.
We'll have to see but that's just something that came to mind when
looking at this new photo of Sam Worthington's Jake Sully.
But we also got another of Weaver's Kiri looking at an Avatar body behind glass,
and this might be of Sigourney Weaver's Grace from the first film, as the blurred subject
looks to be wearing a similar hair brace.
It's un-confirmed, but again, something I thought I'd
point out and it does extend a bit from that Empire magazine image of Kiri watching the
recordings of Grace Augustine.
The final image of Quaritch that was released over a week ago, is
also one that seems quite interesting, because in the photo, he's most likely looking down
at the exo-skeleton that his human self was in during his death in the original film.
We do get a shot of him in the latest trailer crushing
a human skull, and as you know, me and some others talked about this potentially being
his own skull from that original death site, so it
would link in with this new image, especially if Quaritch went back to that original location
in the forest, to learn more about what happened to his human self.
But now that we've discussed all the new images, it's time to breakdown all the details that
were shared with the exclusive interviews from the Total Film article.
We got new info from Cameron, Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang,
plus producer Jon Landau and the team behind the groundbreaking VFX in the sequel.
Starting with Cameron, he speaks a little bit about the
potential of the franchise with these 4 planned sequels and what the compromises would be
if the second film didn't do as well as we could see it doing right now.
He said, "the market could be telling us we’re done in three
months, or we might be semi-done, meaning: ‘OK, let’s complete the story within movie
three, and not go on endlessly’, if it’s just not profitable.
We’re in a different world now than we were when I wrote this stuff.
It’s the one-two punch – the pandemic and streaming.
Or, conversely, maybe we’ll remind people what going to the
theatre is all about.
This film definitely does that.
The question is: how many people care now?"
And what Cameron raises here is of course the question that many Avatar detracters have
been bringing up over the recent years.
I personally think Cameron's just being realistic here in the situation that it doesn't do as
well as he hoped, but I've got to be honest, I
think it's going to do really well.
I mean just take the attention that the re-release got or the views the latest trailer made and
you might be able to get a good idea from that.
It made over 30 million views in just a few days,
and compare that to another big upcoming release in Black Panther Wakanda Forever, and the
official trailer for that film got 30 million views in over a month.
If I had to be honest, putting aside the online detractors, Avatar is one of those films that
can bring all types of people in, and the release of this latest
trailer, showed the attention that has remained very much in place.
We'll of course have to see, but I do think Cameron's just being cautious in the instance
of it not doing too great, even if it likely will do good.
If any filmmaker knows how to pull off a second instalment and make it even better and bigger,
it’s the filmmaker behind Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment
Day.
And speaking of that, Cameron was asked about his sequel history in this article, and he
said, "the key to a sequel is to be surprising in ways that are not off-putting.
To reconnect with the familiar that was fun and
good, and that caused the first film to be a hit.
But then doing it in a way that’s unexpected, or that takes you someplace that’s unexpected.
There are a couple of things that I took out of The Way Of Water that I want to put in
Avatar 3.
But these are hideously expensive movies.
It was a sketchy business case before the pandemic to make a movie that cost this much.
At this point, we just have to play it out to see what happens.
But what I know right now is: we’re delivering three hours of a pretty much
insane experience."
And speaking of those insane things, Cameron and the cast did start to discuss more about
the Avatar 2 story in these exclusive interviews.
It says in the article that the 3 hour runtime comes down to character and storytelling versus
sheer spectacle.
Which is of course a critisism of some people towards that original film.
Cameron said, "the goal is to tell an extremely compelling story on an emotional basis.
I would say the emphasis in the new film is more on character, more on story, more on
relationships, more on emotion.
We didn’t spend as much time on relationship and emotion in the first film
as we do in the second film, and it’s a longer film, because there’s more characters
to service.
There’s more story to service.
People say, 'Oh my God, a family story from Disney?
Just what we want...'
This isn’t that kind of family story.
This is a family story like how The Sopranos is a family story."
So based on those words from Cameron, I think we can expect
some characters to at least bite the dust or a big emotional drive behind the plot that
will really get you connected to the family you're
watching onscreen.
Zoe Saldana also referenced in the article that although Jake and Neytiri are still the
same figures who led the charge against a technological force, as parents, they
are now "compromised on a much deeper level".
She further said, "when you have children and you care for their welfare, different
emotions creep in".
The article discusses a little bit more about that dynamic and particularly
the one between Jake, Neytiri and their children, and the obstacles in their way.
It says, that while he is still a great war leader,
fatherhood leads Jake to reassess his priorities.
Sam Worthington follows this, saying, "Neytiri wants him to be Toruk Makto.
In the first film he was protecting the Navi.
With The Way Of Water the dilemma is: do I protect my family
in this time of war?
Or do I lean into being Taruk Makto and protect the whole tribe?
Part of him leans into being a pacifist, and running
away to fight another day - even though it goes against every instinct that is in him,
and Neytiri".
The report goes on to mention that Jake and his family will struggle to settle within
the new Metkayina clan near the oceans, as previously showcased in the trailer, and once
there, the Metkayina are also going to be challenged by the Sullys, because as Zoe Saldana
puts it, "they have seen things that no one else
has seen before on Pandora.
Their minds are much more open.
It makes them wise in so many ways that the Metkayina are not".
But coming now to the other side of things, there's also a little bit more on Quaritch
and it includes coming back to what I mentioned before about what this could mean for humans
being brought back alive using Avatar bodies.
It says in the article that he is a recombinant avatar with all of his old memories, able
now to level the physical playing field against the navi
themselves.
Stephen Lang says, "Obviously someone within the structure of RDA has thought that the
concept of a Navi machine is not a bad idea for a fighting machine.
But of course, it puts him in somewhat of a peculiar position.
Because he was dead, and now he's been reconstituted.
The question for him is, who is he?
What is he?
There are warring forces going on within him.
The Navi way starts to become his way.
He begins to move much more like a Navi, and he begins to adopt their weapons and their
mode of travel.
From his point of view, he's adjusting his methods to fight the enemy,
but what you find on Pandora is the planet operates on you.
Eywa will have its way.
That's very true of Quaritch, but he still thinks he's the
master of the situation".
Sam Worthington adds to this by saying, "I loved the idea that Quaritch is now a Navi,
and he's going to have his own conflicts, and his own eyes opened, just
like what Jake went through before".
So overall, it seems like when it comes to the story and character side of things, cameron
is injecting a film that was hailed for it's a vfx with a
much stronger plot and twists on character setups.
Just hearing these quotes about Quaritch makes me think we might see a redemption arc for
the character over time but one that will of
course take some big initial steps to get to that point.
He'll have to understand who he is and what he wants to be in this new avatar body, and
that's something that like Worthington says, is quite relatable to his character
from the original film, just in a slightly flipped way.
Finally, we now come to what was said about the visual effect work and the filmmaking
in general on the upcoming sequel.
Senior visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri said, "we actually
never stopped work after the first movie.
Lightstorm kept a team going, and we kept a team going, mostly focused on writing software
and getting the things that Jim would need for the
stage to get the next movie ready."
An example mentioned in the article is that while Weta's work on the first film was able
to reliably capture three performers in frame at the same
time, their work on The Way Of Water meant that they could capture 25 performances all
at the same time.
Eric Saindon added, "on the first Avatar, we were, let's say, shooting with a
super 8 camera.
With the effects detail it's like we're shooting in HD now.
The fidelity is so much higher".
Avatar The Way Of Water is of course going to be presented in high frame rate
48fps and that will only maximise the elevation in realistic visual effects, even though it
meant for a much tougher job on the part of the filmmaker and his team.
Cameron explained, "I had to very carefully author the first
film to not do certain types of camera moves that created strobing.
We spent quite a bit of money on testing and found that we could mitigate
against the strobing artefact by selectively using high frame rate.
So we're basically going in and painting with it here and there to smooth out the 3D and
make it a better experience.
We're using it more heavily in the underwater scenes, because underwater and 3D and high
frame rate go together like peas and carrots.
It's just this lucid, dreamlike, wonderful experience".
So we'll have to wait and see if it all comes together this December for another unforgettable
ride by james Cameron and co, and as you already know, I'm personally excited
to see what the filmmaker does with it and especially with the story.
I think some of these details work with the idea that Cameron takes his time to make the
film he wants to put to screen, so that he gets it right for himself
and pushes the audience in a new direction.
And hopefully with The Way of Water, he's done exactly that.
But they were all the main images and details from the new Total Film edition of Avatar:
The Way Of Water.
It gives us more reasons towards Cameron taking so long to release the sequels
and it just shows the effort that is going into this new saga.
We're now coming to that last stage of marketing and I think just based on the amount of people
who tuned into that new trailer last week, the upcoming Avatar films
are in a very good position to succeed.
The quality of the film is what I'm looking forward to seeing though, and we'll soon find
out if it was all worth the wait.
But I'm interested to hear what you guys think towards the new images and details, alongside
what personally excites you about James Cameron's Avatar 2.
So let me know down below in the comments section.
For more videos surrounding Avatar: The Way Of Water leading up to it's release date in
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But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it, I've been Cortex and as always make some
noise.