I am not one of those people too proud to admit they liked the 2009 film Avatar. There have been plenty of smarmy "no one liked that movie, lol, why are they making a sequel?" takes on the internet over the intervening years but I've always liked the movie. I watched it 3 times in the cinema and waited for the limited edition collector's DVD to own (I watch it at least once per year). So yeah, I'm an Avatar fan.
Yet even I wasn't so sure about the sequel and on that score, I did understand where all those clickbait articles were coming from. The 2009 film was just that - one film. Is it possible to turn it into a franchise? Or will the sequels simply retell the same basic story over and over again?
I avoided seeing trailers or reading articles about the sequel, I wanted to give it a chance but not to have any particular expectations. Still, over the years I did wonder what the sequel would do. The best idea I had was that -- as the film is really about the effects of colonialism upon indigenous people and the environment and humans are the primary antagonist - what if the humans tried to divide the Na'vi loyalties, finding tribes who resented other tribes, making alliances with them and thereby pit the tribes against each other.
Well, that didn't happen. The film brings back Stephen Lang as Colonel Quaritch, the villain of the original film. Having died, he's returned via the Avatar process, existing now as a human/Na'vi hybrid with most of the original Quaritch's memories. He has a whole squad of Avatars like himself but they're just mooks and are not to be taken seriously.
Plenty of characters from the original return, even most of those who died. Heck, I think Michelle Rodriguez and Wes Studi were the only major performers not to return - although considering how high CCH Pounder and Giovanni Ribisi were listed in the cast I'm a bit disappointed that they only turned up for very brief cameos.
Because Ribisi's character survived the first film I assumed he'd return in the sequels as the evil corporate guy. Instead, his place is basically taken by an extremely obnoxious Aussie played by Brendan Cowell. Where Ribisi was weaselly and spineless, Cowell's character is so reprehensible that I did hope his character would meet a gruesome fate. I was not disappointed on that front.
The movie doesn't spend time reminding the audience what happened in Avatar. You're simply dropped in the story and left to either recall how the world works or to pay attention and see it unfold. There are many, many call-backs, especially from Quaritch (who is, after all, a clone). In fact, Quaritch plays something of a shadow self to Jake Sully's journey in the first film; where Jake awakening in an Avatar body was a moment of wonder, Quaritch awakens angry and begins beating up his own people; he likewise punches out an Ikran while bonding to it; and he swipes Jake's line "oustanding" too.
Yet Jake Sully isn't quite the protagonist this time. The film concerns itself primarily with the character arcs of he and Neytiri's children. I wasn't expecting that and I found the new characters appealing. As the cast moves from the forest to the reefs (permitting Cameron to indulge himself in his love of the ocean) the different environment allows even the characters who were born on Pandora to learn something new.
I was particularly fond of the arc of Sully's son Lo'ak, who befriends a massive sea creature called a Tulkun. The Tulkun is permitted a lot of personality, especially in the big fight at the end where it displays some amusing tactics while outsmarting the odious Aussie character (and ultimately killing him, again to my amusement).
I think I expected an Avatar sequel to attempt something even bigger than the previous film. Cameron seems to have wisely noted that what audiences really connected with in the first film was the lush 3-D environment of Pandora, not as much the big fight scene in the climax. Consequently, most of the money in this sequel seems to have gone to making Pandora look beautiful. That was the right call. There is a big fight scene at the end but it's not on a larger scale or even the same scale as the previous film. The stakes are lower - Jake is fighting for his family, not for the survival of an entire species. The emotional stakes make the sequel just as momentous as the original. It's as though after 40+ years of filmmaking James Cameron actually knows how to put a picture together! Again, I'm astounded at how many people assumed this movie would be a colossal failure. I think they were the same people who predicted that about Titanic, come to think of it...
The film ends with a definite nod towards yet another sequel and I'm sure it's coming since apparently they filmed this and the next film at the same time. I still don't foresee Avatar as some long-running franchise like, say, Indiana Jones (whose latest trailer ran in front of this film). But if Cameron gets to tell all the stories he wants to tell with the concept then that's enough. I think Avatar: The Way of Water is a worthy addition to his filmography.
Finally, I was pleased to see a reprisal of much of James Horner's music in this film. As I've said on the blog many times, he was my favourite film composer and I loved sharing a birthday with him. His Avatar soundtrack was like a "greatest hits" encompassing all the best music of his career. Hopefully some of that music will continue in any future sequels.
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