James Cameron shares ‘proudest moment’ in bringing Avatar sequel to life after 13 years
After 13 years in the making, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, the “first of four sequels” to his ground-breaking sci-fi epic Avatar, is arriving in Philippine cinemas today, Dec. 14, ahead of the US premiere.
We have been feeling the anticipation since the “re-release” of Avatar — still the highest-grossing film of all time — last September. The excitement became even more real when yours truly attended the Disney Content Showcase in Singapore early this month. There was a sneak peek of the full slate of upcoming TV series and films, with the The Way of Water preview closing the two-day APAC event with a bang.
And this is what we know so far from the teaser: If the original film tells the love story between the paraplegic ex-Marine Jake Sully and the Na’vi woman Neytiri from the alien planet of Pandora, there’s another kind of love at work in the sequel — love for family.
Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña reprise their iconic roles as Jake Sully and Neytiri, now loving parents who will do everything to protect their brood and keep their family together. So, when unexpected events disrupt the jungle-dwelling family’s peaceful life and displace them from their Hometree, the Sullys travel across Pandora to seek refuge in a territory inhabited by the “oceanic” Metkayina clan.
There, the Sullys find themselves having to navigate both the dangerous water world and their newfound community. The film also stars Oscars nominee Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang (who are brought back despite how their characters ended in the first Avatar), and new additions Cliff Curtis and Oscar-winning Kate Winslet. Joining the film’s established names are emerging young talents, including Britain Dalton, James Flatters, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jack Champion and Bailey Bass.During the recent global virtual presscon for Avatar: The Way of Water, James was asked when and why he decided to do a sequel. He pointed out that his motivation to “come back and do this all again” wasn’t because the original film was a blockbuster hit.
“That’s an interesting question, because it seems obvious to everyone, ‘Oh, you just made a bunch of money, do a sequel,’ right? Well, Stephen Spielberg didn’t do a sequel to E.T., the highest-grossing film that time, right? It’s not a no-brainer, do you want to call down the lightning strike again in the same spot? It’s a lot to live up to.
“But, you know, we have this amazing cast… the amazing cast that returned, and we figured out a way to bring Sig back as well, even though her character from the first film dies, obviously. We also had this amazing family of artists and troupe players, you know, all the other actors.
“When you see a crowd scene in this movie of a hundred people, it’s the same 10 actors just moving around, right? (Laughter) So, it’s a small group and we kind of love each other and enjoy the process. And Kate (Winslet) got to join that and feel that vibe as well. And that was a big incentive for me to come back and do this all again.”
Steering the sequel to the screens, James stressed how important it was for him to honor what the audience loved about the experience of the first time. At the same time, he wanted to send them “off-balance” by pulling off things the movie fans wouldn’t expect.
“There are a lot of surprises in terms of where the story goes in this film, that we’re not putting into the trailers and the TV spots and all that,” he said. “You kind of have to experience it.”
With the importance of family at the heart of this sequel, The Way of Water “goes a lot deeper, in terms of the heart and the emotions.”
“I was inspired by the fact that both Zoe and Sam are (now) parents, and I’m a parent of five, and so we wanted to get into the family dynamics, and the responsibilities of having kids. Also, what’s that all like from the kid’s perspective, right?” James said.
Sam readily agreed with James during the presscon, saying that exploring the family dynamics in the second installment is the “natural extension” of the love story from the first film. “It gave us a good jumping off point to understand how to fill in that gap that’s missing,” he said.
Asked about his own character’s journey into love and fatherhood, Sam said, “I think in the first one, he says it in the voice over, ‘Open your eyes.’ I think he’s opened his eyes to love, and the love of culture, the love of the planet and the love of Neytiri. I think, in this one, it is, as I said, the natural extension of that (love). They have a family. And to be honest, it’s about the protection of that love, that world and that culture.”
As for Zoe, jumping back into her character was admittedly “terrifying.” She realized that she and Neytiri possessed many similarities.
“It’s so funny, because when something is… very similar to you, you can’t see it. It’s just so close to you that it’s not in front of you. And Neytiri and I, in a way, we’ve lived parallel lives. There’s a level of fearlessness and rebellion that I have, I guess as a person, that Neytiri had as herself. And we were able to sort of find kindred in that.
“But the leap of falling in love with something outside of you, that challenges you to see something that you’ve never seen before. That has always been her dilemma. To surrender to that, and then to bring forward the fruits of that love. But that presents the challenge for her. Because forcing her to grow, it’s forcing her to love something that she’s been taught to hate. And it’s hard, it’s really, really hard.”
Zoe was able to relate not just to Neytiri’s sense of fearlessness but also fear, especially when she became a parent, “fear entered my realm.”
“The fear of losing something you love so much, you know? And you just spend a great deal of your time creating these hypothetical scenarios that are just unimaginable. When I read the second script, that was her, that was Neytiri. But I didn’t see it then. I see it now because my job wasn’t to see it, my job was to be it.”
Meanwhile, The Philippine STAR asked James about his proudest moment while filming the follow-up to his revolutionary first film, which was hailed for pushing the visual effects technology to heights previously unimaginable.
The motion capture technology to make the sequel’s characters “more expressive and engaging” on screen is “so advanced” compared to the first film, but James said that the people and their performances in the film were his biggest source of pride.
He said, “When I look at the film, and I had watched it once six months ago, unfinished, the visual effects unfinished, not in 3D. I watched it again a week ago for the first time, because I try to do that very sparingly. I work on the minutia all day long, you know, 10, 11 hours a day, but to stand back and see the whole thing…
“What struck me was the work, the performances, the people, you know? I look past all the spectacle, all the design, all the creatures and all that, and as Jon (Landau, producer) was saying, look at this. And I’m not only proud of the work — you’ve got to start with that, right — but I’m also proud of the entire downstream team, over a thousand people who preserved it so eloquently and so subtly.
“And the subtlety of that being preserved gives us permission, when we’re in the capture space, to be as detailed and specific as we want to be. Because if you’re just being generic, that’s not the kind of challenge that we want.
“I mean, at this stage in our lives and in our careers, we want a challenge. We want to find just the right timbre for every moment. But if you can’t trust the downstream process, that it’s going to come through in the computer generated-characters, then what’s the point?
“So, I’m, I’m very, very proud not only of what we created together, but how that was preserved into these final fantasy characters that are not human, you know, they’re very physiologically different from human.”
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