Dangling plot threads and dumb decisions... "Avatar: The Way of Water" is gorgeous,
epic, and moving, but these plot holes prove it isn't perfect.
After the return of Colonel Quaritch, Jake and his family decide to go into hiding to
protect the Omaticaya clan from the Colonel's wrath. Since the Colonel
only wants revenge on his human form's killer, Jake assumes Quaritch will leave
the Omaticaya alone. But going into hiding doesn't guarantee anything.
The plan hinges on the assumption that Quaritch knows what Jake knows. Jake
didn't exactly announce to the Resource Development Administration — a.k.a. the
RDA — that he'd be leaving the jungle. Quaritch has no reason to believe Jake
and his family would leave their home in the Hallelujah Mountains,
where they'd be mostly safe thanks to the Flux Vortex and the Omaticaya's guerilla
warfare tactics. It follows that he would try to find Jake in the Hallelujah Mountains first.
Even if Quaritch couldn't seize the Hallelujah Mountains, he would
certainly be capable of taking individual Na'vi prisoners, like he already did with
Spider and almost did with Jake's children. If the Omaticaya tried to explain that Jake fled,
Quaritch might not believe them. After all, he didn't believe the innocent Metkayina
tribes when they told him they hadn't seen Jake, and he still torched their homes.
It was only by a stroke of luck that the Omaticaya tribe was spared the same fate.
Jake has a huge bounty on his head in "The Way of Water," but the plot may be
overstating his importance. Does the RDA really think that taking
out a single person will silence the Na'vi insurrection for good?
It makes sense for Quaritch to be single-mindedly focused on finding Jake. He doesn't care about the
other Na'vi; he just wants revenge. But Quaritch isn't the only one making decisions at the RDA.
Certainly, killing Jake would deal a huge blow to the resistance. He was
the one who rallied the Na'vi to victory fifteen years ago,
and without him it would take them a long time to regroup. Jake is also one of the few
characters on Pandora who has inside knowledge of the RDA. But he's not the only one who knows
how to use human technology, and he's not the only one capable of organizing an army.
This oversight is especially apparent in the battle at sea. Viewers will notice that
Tonowari gathers his clan into an imposing battle formation — and on very short notice,
too. This moment reminds audiences that the Na'vi are quite capable of organizing
themselves. Clearly, the movement to free Pandora will live on even if Jake dies. So,
maybe the last thing the RDA wants is to turn Jake into a martyr.
When they learn that their kids are being held hostage in the forest, Jake and Neytiri
swoop in to rescue them. It's a good thing that they're able to respond so quickly,
but it's a little surprising that their rescue party consists of only two people. Why didn't
they ask their clan for reinforcements? Perhaps with backup they could have prevented Spider's
capture. You'd think Jake and Neytiri would pull out all the stops to save their children.
Jake and his son were both equipped with throat mics,
so it should have been relatively easy for Jake to radio for help. After all,
it's not like Jake and his family are the only Na'Vi using human technology. Considering that
Jake and the Omaticaya clan have been staging guerrilla warfare against the RDA for the past
year, it's hard to believe that all the Na'Vi aren't equipped with throat mics.
While there may not be an in-story reason for this, the choice at least makes sense
from a storytelling perspective. Most likely, the filmmakers wanted to keep the cast to a manageable
size, and that meant not dragging a bunch of additional characters into the fight. The film
is about Jake and his family, so it makes sense that only these characters would be involved.
If nothing else, this is one movie epic in scale, but maintaining an intimate focus. Still, no doubt
some viewers were frustrated watching this scene, knowing that Jake could have made a smarter move.
Without unobtanium, the events of "Avatar" would have never happened. After all,
it was the whole reason the RDA funded the mission on Pandora.
"Because this little gray rock sells for $20 million a kilo. That's the only reason."
Yet, unobtanium seems to be the last thing on the RDA's mind these days.
General Ardmore insists that the company's new objective is colonization, not mining,
because Earth is pretty much a lost cause at this point.
It's understandable why the RDA's priorities might have changed. Fifteen years have passed on Earth,
more than enough time for war and climate change to render it nearly unlivable. Perhaps all the
unobtanium in the world won't do them any good, because soon everyone on the planet is
going to need to jump ship. Still, it's a little strange that the film never mentions unobtanium,
not even once. You would think that the miraculous material would come in handy
for the RDA if they want to expand their colony and crush the Na'vi resistance.
The RDA's purpose is further obfuscated in the scene where tulkun hunter Mick Scoresby extracts
a chemical called amrita from the tulkun's brain. Scoresby brags that amrita can effectively stop
aging entirely, making it eclipse unobtanium as the most valuable resource on Pandora. He also
adds that amrita is "paying for everything on Pandora," which seems to contradict the notion
that the RDA cares only about colonization. While it makes sense that amrita is extremely valuable,
it seems doubtful it would be of much use to the humans back on a dying planet Earth.
Colonel Quaritch goes to some great lengths to bait Jake and capture his children,
even though he already has one of Jake's children in his custody. Okay,
Spider is technically Jake's adoptive son, but Jake still cares about the boy. Why lay
out an elaborate trap for Jake when the RDA already has something Jake wants?
Obviously, the real reason Quaritch doesn't hold Spider hostage is clear: Spider is his son. And
as one key scene from the climax demonstrates, Quaritch loves his son more than he hates Jake.
"I'm getting all emotional. Might just give you a big wet kiss."
Yet, once again, Quaritch isn't the one in charge, and it seems like General Ardmore
has no such qualms about using Spider that way. Why doesn't she just order
Quaritch to ransom his son? The only reason why the RDA might not take advantage of the
prisoner they already had would be if Quaritch was convinced that Spider was
genuinely cooperating with his captors. But General Ardmore would need to be convinced,
too, and somehow it seems doubtful she would automatically trust the boy like Quaritch.
"Avatar: The Way of Water" isn't the first movie in the "Avatar" franchise to contradict itself
about the science of Pandora. The first film made it clear that humans couldn't survive long without
a mask in Pandora's atmosphere; specifically, they'd be unconscious after 20 seconds and
dead after 4 minutes. But that doesn't seem to stop Quaritch from opening an airlock and then
firing on Jake for a heck of a lot longer than 20 seconds. Though, granted, he's basically a
finely tuned murder machine and would have no trouble holding his breath that long.
But the sequel also plays a little fast and loose with the specifics. Early in the movie,
Spider establishes a key rule of worldbuilding. He tells the Na'vi,
"You can breathe Earth air for hours. I can only breathe yours for, like, 10 seconds."
Yet Quaritch, who now inhabits a Na'vi avatar with recombinant DNA – "recom" for short – doesn't seem
to follow this rule. Quaritch is quite comfortable breathing Pandora's air,
as well as the Earth air inside the RDA compounds, aside from a brief moment when Quaritch sucks in
a few gulps from a gas mask before talking to Spider. One possible explanation here is that
the recoms were bred to be able to breathe in both Earth's atmosphere and that of Pandora — though,
it might have been nice if the film had taken a moment to mention that.
"Just breathe. Breathe."
To be honest, Quaritch attempting to ride a Banshee wasn't the smartest move. Surely
Quaritch could tell that Spider was hoping the Colonel would humiliate himself. However,
that's not a plot hole in itself, because it makes perfect sense for Quaritch's character.
He's stubborn and wants to prove he can do anything that Jake can do, so that's
why he takes the bait. However, one moment from the Banshee scene doesn't quite add up.
Quaritch is seen tumbling off the cliff on the back of a Banshee much like Jake did in the
first film, only to emerge victorious a minute later. How does he learn so quickly? Clearly,
the Colonel is a novice to Banshee-riding, not even knowing that he should muzzle the
Banshee before trying to mount it. According to the rules established in the first movie,
Quaritch could have only tamed the beast by completing the bond which involves linking
the nerve receptors in his queue to the Banshee's receptors. But how does Quaritch know about this?
Most likely, the RDA knows about this ritual from Jake's videologs from the first movie, but whether
or not Quaritch knows is a different story. Knowing Quaritch, he wouldn't do his homework.
He has a pretty rudimentary grasp of the Na'vi language, to the point that Spider says he has
the vocabulary of a three-year-old. These Avatar movies sure do have a grudge against babies.
"You're like a baby."
Anyway, the point is the Colonel would have probably only researched the bare
minimum necessary for the mission. And unless he predicted that his guide would
goad him into trying to tame a Banshee, the bonding ritual probably wasn't in his plans.
The first half of "The Way of Water" seems to be building toward Quaritch and his fellow recoms
trying to go undercover among the Na'vi. That's why they go out of their way to tame Banshees and
learn the language — so they can get close enough to Jake to kill him, and then destroy the Na'vi
insurrection from the inside. Yet, this plot thread is abandoned halfway through the movie.
It's understandable why the filmmakers didn't take this route. The "undercover"
angle was already explored in the first movie with Jake, and honestly the recoms
wouldn't have gotten very far — they wouldn't fool a real Na'vi for an instant. However,
the way that Quaritch and his team switch gears is a little contrived: the RDA conveniently
picks up a signal from a rogue gunship, which sends the plot in a new direction.
Everything that happens in the second half of the movie hinges
on Quaritch guessing — correctly — that the unidentified aircraft
will lead him straight to Jake. That's an awfully lucky guess. Up until this point,
Quaritch had every reason to believe that Jake was in the Hallelujah Mountains. Besides, it
feels implausible that General Ardmore would let Quaritch travel halfway around Pandora on a hunch.
There's one plot hole in "Avatar: The Way of Water" so enormous that Reddit users called
it out almost immediately after the film came out: Where is Jake's army when he needs it most?
The Metkayina clan had Jake's back throughout the first hostage exchange on the ship and the
ensuing battle — but the moment that the chief's daughter Tsireya is rescued, the clan is nowhere
to be found, leaving Jake and his family to fend for themselves. So, why did they bail?
Perhaps the Metkayina retreated after Tsireya was safe because they no longer
had a personal stake in the conflict. Or maybe they were physically unable to help.
One Reddit user speculated,
"They couldn't get past the fire on the water."
That is a fair point, though it seems like the Metkayina might have been able to swim
under. Meanwhile, another Redditor offered a solid explanation — even if it wasn't an
in-universe explanation — saying that the real focus of this part was the family unit. Had the
filmmakers included the whole army in the final battle, it would have become too crowded. Trying
to focus on any characters other than Jake and his family would, honestly, have only hurt the story.