Avatar: The Way of Water, take two (spoilers!)

Things that stood out to me the second time I saw this film.

I went back to the theatre for a second helping of Avatar: The Way of Water this week. I saw it with my sister and two of my kids, and we all agreed it had a better story than the original Avatar, thanks in part to all the new characters it introduces.

I hesitate to say that this is the kind of movie that rewards multiple viewings, but I did notice some things this time that hadn’t stood out to me so much the first time ’round, so I figured I’d jot a few notes down, to supplement my review (spoilers ahoy!):

• The press screening I attended was in IMAX 3D, and this time I saw it in HFR 3D. I have never been a fan of High Frame Rate movies—I think the only ones I’ve seen are The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Gemini Man—but I had heard good things about the HFR in this film, and I appreciated James Cameron’s assurances that he’d only used the format some of the time, when it worked. So I figured I’d see what he had done with it, and… I’m still not a fan. It still looks to me like a video being played on fast-forward, and it was a bit jarring to me how the film moved in and out of that format not just from scene to scene but from shot to shot.

• Kiri is still the standout of the movie for me, and I am kicking myself for not realizing the significance of her name until now. It has been noted in the past that James Cameron likes to give “religious” names to the more “positive” supporting characters in his films, e.g. Bishop in Aliens, Monk in The Abyss, and obviously Dr Grace Augustine in Avatar. (Some would also note that John Connor, in the Terminator movies, has the same initials as Jesus Christ, but those are James Cameron’s initials too, so let’s not make too much of that.) But it wasn’t until this viewing that I realized Kiri—the mysteriously conceived daughter of Grace Augustine who has a unique connection to the mother-nature goddess Eywa—has a name that sounds just like “Kyrie”, as in “Kyrie Eleison” (“Lord have mercy”).

• I still get a kick out of the fact that Sigourney Weaver, who is now in her early 70s, got to play a teenager with the help of motion-capture technology… but her voice did sound a little “older” at times. Not often, though. Just at times.

• Jake and Neytiri have two sons, the younger of whom is named Lo’ak, and I plugged into his story much more this time than I did the first time. I remembered isolated bits of his story from my first viewing, obviously—the Jonah moment chief among them—but I was much more conscious of how those moments were integrated into his character arc this time. I’m afraid his arc got eclipsed, so to speak, by Kiri’s when I was processing this film the first time ’round.

• In my review, I said this film avoided the ‘Junior Knows Best’ trope, as Steven D. Greydanus has called it, and I still think that’s true—but, because I am more attuned to Lo’ak’s story now, I see more clearly how the film has elements that could have lent themselves to that trope. Thankfully, they don’t play out that way, or at least I don’t think so. And why don’t they? Two reasons, at least:

  • First, the main point of contention between Lo’ak and the grown-ups is that he forms a connection with a sea-creature who is considered an outcast by other sea-creatures, as well as by the Reef People with whom Lo’ak and his family are staying.¹ Right there, you have all sorts of complications: Lo’ak is at odds with his parents, but he is at odds with them partly because they are all guests of the Reef People, and the Reef People elders are, themselves, deferring to the social organization of the sea-creatures. So there’s no simple child-knows-better-than-parent set-up there; there are all sorts of inter-family, inter-tribal, and even inter-species politics in play. Also, the sea-creature saves Lo’ak’s life after Lo’ak is lured into a dangerous situation by some bullies—it is the sea-creature, not Lo’ak, who initiates contact—so this is not one of those movies like How to Train Your Dragon where the kid has a smart idea at the beginning of the story and he pursues it on his own until he reaches a place of enlightenment that none of the adults have.

  • And second, the climactic moment where the children teach their parents something—namely, how to breathe underwater—has absolutely nothing to do with the tensions and conflicts that existed between the parents and the children earlier in the film. If anything (as my sister pointed out), the children are able to teach their parents because they followed their parents’ instructions and got to know their peers among the Reef People, who in turn taught them how to control their breath underwater. If there is any ‘Junior Knows Best’ element here, it is born out of obedience. So there is definitely growth in this film, in the relationships between the parents and their children. But it is not predicated on the parents admitting that they were wrong, etc.

• Or, to put this another way, the family dynamics among the Na’vi are just too complex to settle into the kind of storyline where One Side Was Right. There are too many sides. And they all have valid concerns, etc., etc.

• Could you argue that there is a ‘Junior Knows Best’ dynamic in the relationship between Spider and the avatar-clone of his father Quaritch? Doesn’t feel like it to me. Spider did not grow up with Quaritch, and the Quaritch clone makes it clear from the outset that he doesn’t consider Spider to be his child. (That sense of distance between the Quaritch clone and the original Quaritch is deepened by the scene in which the clone crushes the original Quaritch’s skull.) Plus, Spider goes on an interesting trajectory of his own in his relationship to Quaritch; his feelings towards Quaritch grow more ambivalent over the course of the film, possibly because his adoptive Na’vi mother/auntie Neytiri, who never really cottoned to him, actually threatens his life to get back at Quaritch at one point—and she seems to mean it. Spider instinctively sides with the Sullys against Quaritch and the Sky People, but after what “Mrs Sully” did to him, he may have doubts… and after Spider saves Quaritch’s life, Quaritch calls him “son”, and he seems to mean what he says, too. (I’m sure these issues will all be dealt with in Avatar 3.)

• Speaking of the Quaritch clone, I do like the way he seems to be growing fonder of Spider over the course of the film. Very incrementally, but it’s there. The way Quaritch lets Spider influence his actions at times—which doesn’t make Quaritch a good guy by any means, but it does make him less of an unreflective monster in this film than he was in the original film—is almost reminiscent of how the Terminator played by Arnold Schwarzenegger became more “human” as he spent time with the preteen John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

• My daughter said she felt a bit bad for the older brother Neteyam, who didn’t get as much screen time or character development as Kiri and Lo’ak. Yeah, I agree. (Is this because my daughter and I are both firstborns? You be the judge.)

• James Cameron has highlighted the fact that his movie goes further than a lot of “female empowerment” movies by including a pregnant woman—the tribal leader Ronal, played by Kate Winslet—among its warriors. It occurs to me that this is also one of the very, very few movies where a pregnant woman stays pregnant until the end of the movie. Usually they give birth, or something happens so that the characters aren’t pregnant any more by the time the end credits roll. But not here. Ronal goes into the climactic battle pregnant, and when the battle is over she’s still pregnant. So, props to the film for breaking that mold, too. (Sarah Connor’s pregnancy in The Terminator doesn’t really break the mold, as she’s only pregnant in the epilogue—not in the main action of the film—and in any case that’s a time-loop movie, parts of which take place many years after her son is born.)

• There are some people who think the second hour is the best, as the Sully family learns more about “the way of water” etc., and there are some people who think the third hour is the best, as James Cameron finally delivers the action-movie goods. I’m definitely in the second-hour camp. The third hour is fine, but I love the sense of awe that permeates the second hour, and how that theme is woven into the social and cultural dynamics between the Na’vi characters.

And, I think that about covers it.

Oh, but one other thing: I actually shed a tear at the end of the film this time. (I can’t remember if I did that the first time I saw it.) So, make what you will of that.

Yeah, I’m actually kinda looking forward to the third film now.

Things I wrote about the original Avatar:

• My review for BC Christian News (January 2010).

• How Avatar reverses the tropes of Aliens, Terminator 2, and True Lies by getting us to root for the monster, the non-human, and the terrorist (January 2010).

• The importance of breathing in Cameron’s science-fiction films (February 2010).

• My review for The Anglican Planet (April 2010).

• The importance of breathing in Cameron’s Titanic (April 2012).

Things I wrote about Avatar: The Way of Water:

• My review here at Thoughts & Spoilers (December 2022).

Things I wrote about other James Cameron films:

• My review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day for my zine (September 1991).

• My article on the Terminator franchise—the first four movies and the TV show The Sarah Connor Chronicles—for Christianity Today Movies (May 2009).

1. Sorry, I’m not going to pretend that I’m fluent in the Na’vi vocabulary here. The chief of the Reef People—Tonowari, played by Cliff Curtis—uses expressions like “Reef People” and “Forest People” and that’s good enough for me.