Avatar The Way of Water London Film Premiere 2022

1. According to James Cameron, the Avatar sequels were such a massive undertaking that he divided the four scripts between the writing team of Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno. Cameron delves further explaining the story process: "I think we met for seven months and we whiteboarded out every scene in every film together, and I didn't assign each writer which film they were going to work on until the last day. I knew if I assigned them their scripts ahead of time, they'd tune out every time we were talking about the other movie."
2. Kate Winslet broke Tom Cruise's underwater filming record from Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) of six minutes with a record of seven minutes and 14 seconds.
3. According to James Cameron, Kate Winslet performed all of her underwater stunts herself.
4. Weta FX used Amazon Web Services to render the film because its own data center's processing capacity was not sufficient for the task. Rendering each frame took 8,000 thread hours which is equivalent to the combined power of 3,000 virtual CPUs in a data center for an hour. The capacity of three Australian AWS data centers was used to render the film.
5. When Sigourney Weaver first saw Kiri's initial design, she objected to it because she felt it was "too neat and pretty." She advocated for Kiri to have a messier design and for her to be a more awkward teenager.
6. James Cameron seriously considered shooting the entirety of the Avatar sequels in a higher frame rate by stating, "The 3D shows you a window into reality; the higher frame rate takes the glass out of the window". The industry standard is 24fps, and higher frame rates are at least 48fps, 60fps, or 120fps. He later opted out of this route, stating in an interview that as groundbreaking as the format is for cinema, moviegoers have always been used to a specific way to view films and altering that in any way would simply take the audience out of that experience. Instead, only certain scenes will utilize HFR technology.
7. James Cameron is prepared to end the Avatar series after the third film if Avatar: The Way of Water isn't profitable, "The question is: how many people give a sh-t now?" he stated.
8. James Cameron and Jon Landau confirms that Sony specifically listened to the request of Cameron to build a new camera called "Venice" Camera and Cameron also confirmed that he will shoot Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 (2024) with this Venice Camera.
9. There is a 13 year gap between the first Avatar film and this film, giving it one of the longest development times as it was announced almost immediately following the first film's success.
10. James Cameron stated that Jake and Neytiri have matured to have less reckless personalities due to being parents, clarifying, "In the first movie, Sam's character leaps off his flying creature and essentially changes the course of history as a result of this crazy, almost suicidal leap of faith. And Zoe's character leaps off a limb and assumes there's going to be some nice big leaves down there that can cushion her fall. But when you're a parent, you don't think that way. So for me, as a parent of five kids, I'm saying, "What happens when those characters mature and realize that they have a responsibility outside their own survival?"
11. In 2013, Cameron, armed with thousands of pages of notes expanding the world of Pandora, decided on the aquatic setting and set a team of writers to pen the sequels. But Jon Landau, who has produced all of Cameron's films since "Titanic," immediately foresaw a problem: The technological processes used to capture actors playing Na'vi on dry sets did not yet exist for capturing them wet. "Right away we started doing R&D," he said, "because no one had ever done performance capture underwater." all of which the cast and stunt teams performed, outfitted with special wet suits and facial capture camera rigs, while free diving in the water.
12. The Maori people, the inspiration source of the Metkayina clan, have traditionally regarded whales as important figures such as being incarnations of Tangaroa (the water god), Taniwha (mystical beings), and as tribal guardians. Additionally, there are a number of whale-related legends, including the famous Whale Rider which is etymologically similar to The Tulkun Rider, the alleged title of Avatar 4.
13. The Metkayina clan is known to be inspired by the Maori people of Earth, with Maori actors from the cast of the Avatar sequels working with James Cameron to incorporate elements of indigenous New Zealand cultures into the clan's customs and traditions. Notably, Cliff Curtis and James Cameron worked together to adapt a traditional haka dance into a Na'vi-inspired dance for the clan to perform, incorporating tail and ear movement. The tattoos of the clan also resemble traditional Maori tattoos in placement and style.
14. The Avatar sequels will cost collectively over $1 billion.
15. Sigourney Weaver trained in breath-holding to shoot the film's aquatic motion-capture sequences. She also joined her younger co-stars in learning underwater sign language and parkour, for scenes of Na'vi teens running along tree boughs or racing to the tops of floating mountains. "I was determined to be able to do everything they did. I didn't want anyone to say, 'She's kind of an old lady,'" Weaver says. "We all had to be really fit, and parkour is a very good way of getting there." Other cast members participated in knife-fighting and archery lessons, but "Kiri is not a fighter," Weaver adds. "She's a very gentle person. She can be filled with rage, and she's very sensitive to injustice and cruelty, but she doesn't use weapons. She has other powers."
16. In a December 2019 interview, Stephen Lang stated that his character was always meant to return in the sequels, as James Cameron had shared with him "that Quaritch had a future" while shooting the original film.
17. The film's producer Jon Landau revealed that Kate Winslet left production astounded when she managed to nearly hold her breath underwater for seven minutes. Speaking to the Daily Mail, Landau said: "Kate broke a free-diving record among the cast. It was six minutes 50-something -- but for Kate we agreed to call it seven. "She was phenomenal." Bailey Bass, who plays Winslet's daughter Tsireya in the film, added: "Kate holds the record she set it during training. I managed six minutes and 30 seconds."
18. James Horner had signed on to score the film, until his death in June 2015. The new composer is Simon Franglen.
19. Edward Norton turned down a role after finding out he'd be playing a human, being more interested in playing a Na'vi. James Cameron, who still wanted to work with Norton, eventually had him cast as Nova in Alita: Battle Angel (2019).
20. While Landau declined to reveal the cost of the research and development phase for the sequels the first film has an estimated budget of $350 million, he credits studio 20th Century Fox with meeting the production's unique needs. (The first "Avatar" scored a lifetime gross of $2.92 billion, still the box-office champ of all time.) "I learned a lesson on 'Titanic' where we didn't push to get the R&D money enough for the sinking of the ship from different angles, and it caught us a little bit by surprise," Landau said. "That lesson taught me that if you push for the R&D money now and you do it right, you're going to end up with a much more efficient process." "Yes, our movies are big movies," he said. "But I honestly believe that if you look back at the movies that we've done, at the end of the day for what is up on the screen, they were done as efficiently as anybody could possibly do them."
21. Discussing the character of Tuk in a February 2019 interview, James Cameron mentioned that she was eight years old, and that the film would feature a scene between Jake and Neytiri taking place from Tuk's perspective: "There's a three-page argument scene between Jake and Neytiri, a marital dispute, very, very critical to the storyline. I wound up shooting it all from the point of view of the 8-year-old hiding under the structure and peeking in. Having gone through the experience with [Sam Worthington] on Avatar, I now knew how to write the Jake character going forward across the emotional rollercoaster of the next four movies."
22. Edie Falco revealed she shot her scenes over four years ago. So much time went by in between filming and the 2022 release date that Falco had simply assumed the movie opened in theaters already and just didn't perform too well. "I saw the first one when it was out," Falco said. "The second 'Avatar' I shot four years ago. I've been busy and doing stuff. Somebody mentioned 'Avatar' and I thought, 'Oh, I guess it came out and it didn't do very well because I didn't hear anything about it.' It happens! Someone recently said, '"Avatar" is coming out,' and I said, 'Oh, it hasn't come out yet?' I will never work again because I said that."
23. Not only did James Cameron shoot two full "Avatar" sequels at once, but he also waited to start filming until all the scripts for "Avatar 2," "Avatar 3," "Avatar 4" and "Avatar 5" were complete. He told Collider that his model was similar to what Peter Jackson did with his "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. "They took that chance to launch on all three of those films," Cameron said. "But he had the books mapped out, so he could always show the actors what they needed to know about their character arc. So I felt I had to do the same thing. I had to play this as if the books already existed. So the only way for us to do that was to write all the scripts and let the actors read all the scripts and see where their characters were going and what it all meant. Not that that's actable in the moment, but I think it's something that the actors could work into their preparation for their characters."
24. Kate Winslet was impressed upon hearing that Ronal would be a fierce pregnant Na'vi because she felt pregnant women are often not represented enough in media despite that many women will become pregnant throughout their lives, and even if they are represented, they are often portrayed as being merely passive baby carriers who do little to nothing to impact the story. In The Way of Water, Ronal saves Kiri's life and helps out on the battlefield.
25. When asked if there was a particular shot or scene or character that was the most difficult, Weta supervisor Joe Letteri stated: "The very first scene we did was the dialogue scene with Jake and Neytiri where they're in High Camp and Jake is trying to convince her to leave. And that was really bringing back the two characters from 15 years earlier, dusting them off, updating them to all the new software, the new detail in the skin, the new lighting techniques, the new hair, but also the new facial system. And that was really where we battle-tested pretty much everything except for the water, in that one scene. So we actually spent a year on that scene just to make sure we had it right and understood it. At that point, we started rolling it out to the other characters and, you know, branching out to do the rest of the shots."
26. Kate Winslet revealed that she has a video recording of her record-breaking underwater breath hold. "I have the video of me surfacing saying, 'Am I dead, have I died?' And then going, 'What was [my time]?'" Winslet said. "Straight away I wanted to know my time. And I couldn't believe it...The next thing I say is, 'We need to radio set. I wanted Jim to know right away." "She's not competitive at all," James Cameron added. "Well, I didn't have to hold my breath for over seven minutes," Winslet continued. "It's just that the opportunity to set a record presented itself. I wanted to break my own record, which was already six minutes and 14 seconds. And I was like, 'Come on!' So I smashed my own record by a minute."
27. The release date has been pushed back to 2022. According to James Cameron this is because all upcoming sequels are being filmed 'back to back', similar to Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy.
28. Spiders mother's identity is revealed in the tie-in comic as Paz Socorro, a Scorpion pilot killed during the assault on the Tree of Souls.
29. This sequel was announced in December 2009. Originally, James Cameron wanted to release it in 2015. After that was delayed to December 2016. After that to December 2017. In April 2016, Cameron announced a delay the release to December 2018. In March 2017, Cameron announced that the release finally wouldn't be in December 2018. In April 27 2017 was announced that the release would be on December 18 2020. In May 2019, Disney announced that the release finally would be on December 17 2021. In July 24 2020, Disney announced it would postpone the film due to the Covid19 pandemic to December 16, 2022.
30. When asked why the movie is 3 hours, James Cameron revealed in an interview with Total Film: "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." Above all, however, The Way Of Water is a family story. This is because, 14 years after falling in love, Jake and Neytiri are now the proud parents of five children. "People say, 'Oh my God, a family story from Disney? Just what we want' This isn't that kind of family story," Cameron clarifies. "This is a family story like how The Sopranos is a family story."
31. The film reveals the Na'vi clans of Pandora have evolved to suit their own unique environments. The Metkayina, for example, have longer tails and thicker arms to help them swim, while the Omatikaya are thinner and with different muscle-structures, optimized for swinging and climbing. There are 15 different Na'vi clans, and presumably all of them have evolved in slightly different ways. The film also offers some subtle criticisms of the Na'vi, though, showing hints of racial prejudice based on these physiological differences. Metkayina are particularly unimpressed with Jake's children, whose five fingers signify human DNA rather than Na'vi. The Messianic subplot involving Kiri is important here, though, because it is interesting to note Eywa chose to sire a child through an avatar - presumably as a bridge between the Na'vi and the Sky People. The five fingers may hint at the deliberate birth of a new species of Na'vi, one optimized for using Sky People tools and technology.
32. This is the seventh film in history to cost $300 million or more, after Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Justice League (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
33. Over an 18-month performance capture shoot that began in 2017, Kirk Krack's team, actors and crew logged more than 250,000 free dives. At its busiest, the tank set had 26 people underwater on breath hold with motorized water vehicles standing in for Pandoran sea creatures zooming around the space. But one of Krack's proudest moments was watching Sigourney Weaver, who was 69 years old when she began free diving training, outlast a stunt diver on breath hold while performing a scene as her new Na'vi character Kiri, the teenager Jake and Neytiri have adopted into their family. "It's like holding your breath and running," said Krack, who marveled as Weaver kept going for three minutes before heading back to the surface. "She was so immersed. She was her character. She did this massive breath hold on this huge active metabolic scene. I'm super proud, and that's a testament to all the work she put in." Swimming, much less free diving without breathing apparatus or scuba tanks, didn't come intuitively at first to actor Bailey Bass before she was cast in the sequels as Tsireya, a Metkayina teen who calls the ocean home. But for five months Bass, then 13, trained alongside her co-stars to breath hold for several minutes at a time. Given her character's comfort in the water, she also underwent scuba certification in Hawaii before filming her role over the course of two years as one of the "next generation" Na'vi characters introduced in "The Way of Water." "It was about getting to a point where you can have a calm breath hold and really be comfortable underwater," said Bailey, now 19, who also found that yoga practice helped. "Having the calmness of yoga allowed me to have longer breath holds and just chill out and meditate underwater." By the time back-to-back performance capture for the second, third and fourth films concluded, free diving had become second nature to the cast. "I was more comfortable underwater than I was running on land," Bass said. The average length of a dive for performance capture was 4 minutes, she said. To a non-diver, that might sound daunting. But Bass found it liberating. "When you're underwater and you're swimming and you're there, just you and no sound, it's so freeing," she said. "I would love to do it again."
34. Cameron's sequel required innovation on par with the original: the development of a new, underwater cinematic vernacular, and the technology to capture it. For virtual production supervisor Ryan Champney, the way into "The Way of Water" began in his bathtub. Since 2012, Champney was part of a small team tasked with building on technology used in the first movie and translating it into a water setting without losing the nuances of an actor's performance in the motion capture process. "Most movies get greenlit, there's a couple of months of prep and there are limits to what you can get done," he said. "And I think Jim has this ability to be, like, we've got to do this whether or not other people adopt this, let's push things forward." At first, production experimented shooting dry for wet, with performers in motion capture suits rigged on wires in the air, approximating in-water movement. Needless to say, Cameron didn't go for it. "We did A-B comparisons to show to Jim and said, 'Can you tell the difference?'" Champney said. "He said, 'I don't need to. We're going with the underwater solution.' He didn't even look at the test." Experiments at home, then in Landau's swimming pool, established methods for waterproofing cameras in submersible housings. But the water itself presented new issues. "We quickly found out that the infrared gets absorbed in water, which is normally how we do motion capture, so we had to go to ultraviolet light that would transmit through water but would also be picked up by the camera sensor," Champney said. "There wasn't a lot of information out there on the topic, so it was a lot of trial and error." As methodologies clicked into place, tests graduated to bigger and bigger locations -- a scuba training pool where a single figure could be captured in 3D; a large outdoor tank that could hold more performers. In the process, said Landau, "we realized that the performance capture system that worked above the water wasn't going to work under the water. We needed to create two different volumes, as we call it, but they had to work in sync with one another, because we need to be capturing someone jumping in above and capturing them below and making all those things work together."
35. A title card reveals the Sky People's home is called "Bridgehead City," an important term because - in military strategy - a bridgehead is a strong position secured inside enemy territory from which to advance or attack.
36. After the proof-of-concept stage, two massive tanks were engineered at Cameron and Landau's Lightstorm Entertainment hub at Manhattan Beach Studios, one used for training and more intimate character scenes. The larger second tank the "Swiss Army knife of water tanks," measuring 120 feet long, 60 feet wide and 30 feet deep with a 250,000-gallon capacity was outfitted with powerful wave and current machines, used to capture the film's more action-packed sequences involving Na'vi characters. Performance capture cameras were set up around the tanks' perimeter along with safety cameras for monitoring those in the water. To control light reflection from above, the water's surface was covered with small, white floating balls, inspired by an L.A. Times article Champney read about shade balls deployed in the Los Angeles Reservoir to reduce evaporation, and from a similar method Cameron used on his 1989 film "The Abyss." "Once we got it working, they started putting in vehicles and safety divers and waves and everything else. I was like, 'OK, we didn't test any of that.' But we made it work!" Champney said. "That's the good thing about Jim. He pushes it until it breaks and comes back a little bit, and then he says, 'Now work on the part that broke.'" To capture the underwater action with sufficient clarity, it was not possible for anyone in the tank to use scuba gear, because air bubbles might interfere with the accuracy of the sensors. So how could Cameron keep his cast in the water long enough to capture their performances the solution was both simpler and more complicated than the alternatives: Everyone including new and returning actors like Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Kate Winslet, reference camera operators, grips, and the safety divers accompanying each actor would have to work while holding their breath under water, requiring extensive training, additional safety procedures, and ample time.
37. According to Weta Digital, 57 new species of sea creatures were created for the film. Artists also consulted with researchers at Victoria University of Wellington about coral reef biology.
38. Similar to how avatar Grace could be seen wearing Sylwanin's necklace, Kiri can be seen wearing human Grace's necklace.
39. Speaking to Digital Spy, Stephen Lang shared that he was told the entire arc for his character Colonel Miles Quaritch across the saga..Eventually I was, I have read all of the scripts," he said. "So I've read through to Avatar 5. So I know everything that happens to Quaritch. I give nothing away to say that Quaritch is running throughout, because [James Cameron] said that himself." But Lang added that his knowledge didn't have any effect on his performance in The Way Of Water. "I'm not skilful enough to do that," he continued. "I want to just be as honest and authentic within the framework of what we're trying to achieve at that moment. "Certainly there were always discussions about: well, what does this mean? Do we need this now? Because we're going to need this later. Or whatever. "But I'm not really thinking beyond the scope of The Way of Water when I do that."
40. Amrit or Amrita is a concept from Hindu mythology: it is a drink or food which makes the consumer immune to death, or, metaphorically, which addresses serious issues leading to death, such as antitoxins, vaccines, antidotes to poisons, etc. For example, vaccines have been called Amrit, as have revolutionary treatments like chemotherapy. This is a concept running through Hinduism from Vedic times.
41. On December 17, 2019, via filmmusicreporter.com, it was announced that Simon Franglen would be composing the score to Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 (2024). Fraanglen was originally arranger and score producer on the first movie and had numerous other collaborations with James Horner, who scored the first Avatar (2009), including Titanic (1997). Franglen composed the soundtrack to The Magnificent Seven (2016), of which seven original themes were written by Horner. James Horner died in 2015.
42. Of the 3,240 effect shots Weta Digital did, 2,225 involved water.
43. James Cameron's first sequel since Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991).
44. When asked about how long he could hold his breath, Stephen Lang described the difference between holding your breath while acting and holding your breath while static. "I think I could do four, five minutes, but when you're acting, it's different," explained Lang. "That would be what we call a static hold. If I'm not doing anything, if I'm just hanging out in the water, I can hold my breath for a while. But when Sam Worthington pulls a knife on me 30 feet under then I can't stay under that long!"
45. Several creatures introduced in the theme park attraction Avatar Flight of Passage will be featured in the film.
46. Sam Worthington commented that he found the long underwater filming to be a particularly frightening experience, saying he had to overcome and face his fears.
47. For the tulkun's design and how it moved, production designer Dylan Cole referenced whales, sharks, and seals. "It was almost like more sea turtle/whale/seal because its tail could bifurcate and then fold down and flatten like a seal," he told IndieWire. "And so a lot of the movements weren't trying to have it move like a whale. If you notice, it twists a lot -- it curves on itself."
48. For many of the scenes with Payakan, the art department made a large, practical fin that an actor could hold onto, such as when Lo'ak rides the creature. Then they had a spot for his eyes, so they could match the eye line during the interaction. "Sometimes we were dragging the fin through the water so you could have the proper resistance," said production designer Dylan Cole," and then other times when all the kids are climbing on him, we built a set that approximated his back with the blowholes and the plating, so that we could set that in the tank and they could perform on that."
49. After being resurrected, Quaritch begins making the same "not in Kansas" speech that he made in the first film. The line is a hint for the classic The Wizard of Oz (1939), turned in popular icon after the movie, referring about someone far from home.
50. Kiri is said to be 14 years old, suggesting she was born in the year 2155, a year after the events of the first film.
51. For some of the underwater performance capture, actors played the tulkun with their legs bound together in the tank, in order for the creatures to perform human-like dance choreography. A scene with Tsireya dancing with her tulkun was cut from the final film.
52. James Cameron stated that he wanted the story to be very unpredictable, saying, "I guarantee you, you won't be able to predict it. What people hate the most is to go and see a movie and say 'oh predictable.' This is not predictable, I don't think."
53. Kirk Krack, founder of Performance Freediving International, worked as a free-diving trainer for the cast and crew for the underwater scenes
54. Way of the Water took 14 days to gross $1 billion dollars. The original film took 19 days to hit the $1 billion mark.
55. Production designers Dylan Cole, Ben Procter, and the art department populated an entire ocean from the sea floor up, from many species of coral and water plants (many bioluminescent) to dozens of fish designs, covering bait fish to apex predators. Though their main reference for the akula was a great white on steroids, the source for the mouth was something scarier -- to Cole, at least. "Speaking from a personal fear, I don't like snakes," Cole added. "So I wanted to think of like a rattlesnake. And the way it really opens wide up top and even going further than a snake where the top of its mouth bifurcates open. And so to stick that kind of head on a shark, we tweaked the body."
56. The human skull on the 1st Recom logo features three scars across its head, reminiscent of the ones Miles Quaritch's human body gained during his first day on Pandora.
57. Stephen Lang discussed the way Quaritch had changed between the first film, released in 2009, and its sequel. "In the original film, there was a wonderful, colourful character, but he really was primarily there as a function of evil. You know, he was there to be the conflict," he said. "And now I think he is that. He still is the source of conflict. But he's also something else again, as he becomes part of the landscape. He becomes part of Pandora, in a way, and that operates on him in very confusing ways."
58. Disney's Animal Kingdom Park in Orlando, Florida, opened Pandora as a themed area in the park on May 27, 2017. It is inspired by James Cameron's Avatar (2009) and features Pandora's floating mountains, alien wildlife, and bioluminescent plants. It includes two major attractions, Avatar Flight of Passage and Na'vi River Journey, as well as retail and dining outlets.
59. Payakan's name resembles a portmanteau of the Na'vi words for "water" (pay) and "brother" (tsmukan).
60. According to The Visual Dictionary, Neteyam's bow is made from wood of the Hometree that fell in the first film.
61. James Cameron revealed there won't be a director's cut of the film.
62. According to The Visual Dictionary, Neteyam's neckpiece is stylized after the classic neckpieces that the legendary warriors of his clan would wear, including Tsu'tey, showing Neteyam's desire to be a strong warrior. Neteyam also made it himself, since making one's own clothing or being given clothing by loved ones is very important to the Na'vi, meaning their clothing and accessories are very symbolic.
63. Stephen Lang went into how the cast of the Avatar sequel trained in order to perform underwater scenes -- a process that included learning how to hold their breath for extended periods of time. "It was long, it was arduous, it was difficult, but very rewarding." Lang said. "We all have this capacity to hold our breath for long periods of time but we don't tap into it. But we learned to do that so we could actually act underwater. We'd do takes up to two minutes, There were those among us, Kate Winslet for example, could hold her breath for seven and a half minutes."
64. According to the Avatar: The Way of Water: The Visual Dictionary, amrita is always spelt lowercase.
65. Director of Photography Peter Zuccarini has long been the go-to cameraman for filmmakers who need difficult underwater shots he was dragged by a shark while filming "Into the Blue" and ventured into a crocodile-infested section of the Amazon (rumored to be cursed by locals) for "The Motorcycle Diaries" but nothing in his career prepared him for the sequel to Cameron's groundbreaking science-fiction epic. While Zuccarini has found that on most shoots there's always a limit to what can be done given time and money, in Cameron he found a director unique in his refusal to settle. "With the specificity of someone like Jim, it has to be exactly what he imagines or better," Zuccarini said. "It takes a long time because there are no compromises."
66. Lo'ak's name is similar to lo'akur, the Na'vi word for the Toruk Makto Amulet.
67. According to The Visual Dictionary, Tuk's shell armband was made by Jake to her as a gift.
68. Tonowari wears a necklace crafted with akula teeth. "Akula" is a Russian word for "shark".
69. Jake raises the newly born Neteyam into the air for his entire tribe to see in a manner very reminiscent of the iconic lift from The Lion King (1994).
70. Quaritch holds the skull of deceased Colonel Miles Quaritch like Hamlet holds Yorick's skull in William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" and the scene symbolizes the inevitable decay of the human body.
71. Zoe Saldana and Jack Champion both appeared in Avengers: Endgame (2019), which briefly held the the title of highest grossing film of all time before a rerelease of Avatar (2009) took back the title.
72. Miles Socorro was previously known as "Javier Socorro" during production. At some point, his first name was changed to "Miles" which was confirmed in The High Ground.
73. James Horner, who scored several of Cameron's films as well as the first Avatar film, was originally slated to compose the score for this film and its sequels, but his fatal plane crash in 2015 ended any chances of him staying as the franchise's composer, leading Simon Franglen to take over Horner's intended scoring duties.
74. There is a sense of irony in his casting because Cliff Curtis portrayed another leader in another "Avatar" film: Fire Lord Ozai from The Last Airbender. It is ironic because Tonowari and Ozai represent the opposite elements (water and fire), Tonowari is a good-natured character while Ozai is a villain, as well as the fact that The Last Airbender is generally critically panned while The Way of Water has received general acclaim.
75. In Spain the movie was titled "Avatar: El sentido del agua", instead the more accurate "Avatar: El camino del agua". However, in Spanish the word "sentido" has two main meanings, one as "sense" in a physical way (i.e.: sense of sight, hearing) and another as "reason", "mean" or "purpose", in a moral or spiritual way, which is more appropiate in Tsireya's speech to Lo'ak. "The way of water has no beginning and no end. Our hearts beat in the womb of the world. The sea is your home, before your birth and after your death. The sea gives and the sea takes. Water connects all things: life to death, darkness to light."
76. "Socorro" is a Spanish word that it means "help", "aid" or "relief" in Spanish as in Portuguese. It is also a real Hispanic/Latino surname.
77. In the Japanese dub, Maaya Uchida (Tsireya) and Yuma Uchida (Spider) are siblings in real life.
78. The blue beings in this movie are called the Na'vi. In the Hebrew language, there is a word, Navi, and it means prophet.
79. Actress Alicia Vela-Bailey (Zdinarsk) previously played Ikeyni, leader of the Tayrangi Clan in the first movie.
80. Parallels are a constant in the sequel; the ending sequence is a testament to this. The first film ends with Jake Sully opening his eyes in his permanent Na'vi body. The film also closes in on Jake's eyes. Whether filmmakers intended for the moment to be significant, the moment is vital under the surface. A consistent theme in the movie is how the characters "see" each other, and not in the physical sense, but more so in how they respect and understand one another. The visual of Jake's pair of eyes looking directly into the camera is not just a reflection of its predecessor but the idea that he's embracing the world through a new set of eyes.
81. One of the few differences between the Avatar bodies used by humans and the Na'vi individuals is their number of fingers. While the importance of having one less finger is never mentioned, it clearly shows their biological deviation. Jake has five fingers, while Neytiri and the other Na'vi have four. Unsurprisingly, they're called out on the fact when they seek refuge with the Metkayina clan. Two of Jake and Neytiri's biological children, Tuk and Neteyam, have four digits, while their middle biological son Lo'ak and adopted daughter Kiri have distinct five. Though the fact is such a small detail, it feels thoughtful.
82. Audiences taking notice of costumes and accessories in the first film may notice that the necklace Grace Augustine wears is Na'vi jewelry. Not only is Grace wearing a Na'vi necklace, but she also received it from Neytiri's late sister. Of course, Grace isn't exactly back in the sequel in the same sense as Quaritch, her daughter, Kiri, adorns the same necklace throughout the film. The nod to the character's reverence for Na'vi culture and taking place as her daughter's heirloom is a heartwarming and touching detail that might have been missed.
83. When Sky army captures and kills a Tulkun, they extract a golden yellow fluid/elixir from its brain and referred it as 'Amrita' which will stop aging. The term Amrita is a Sanskrit word that means "immortality" which is referred within many Indian religions. This is another Sanskrit word used by James Cameron. He named this film series title as 'Avatar' which is also a Sanskrit word meaning a manifestation of divinity in bodily form.
84. Neytiri can be seen wearing Neteyam's neckpiece at his funeral.
85. One of the hardest designs for production designer Dylan Cole was the inside of Payakan for a scene when he invites Lo'ak to tap into his large, colorful membrane to glimpse the creature's most tragic memory. "It's Jonah, right? Going into the mouth of the whale," Cole said. "But it's also an enchanted cave from old fantasy stories. So it's sort of combining those two things and getting that bioluminescent pattern. The roof and the sides of the mouth are our kind of standard bioluminescent colors -- the cyan and blues. And then what we did is just concentrate on it to give you a focal point where we start getting into some of the purples and then when it unfurls it becomes gold. It was important for their relationships that [Lo'ak] understand the history of Payakan."
86. Before his death, Neteyam says he wishes to go home. This can be seen as ironic foreshadowing because Tsireya mentions the sea is one's home, and Neteyam ends up being buried in the ocean. Jake also ends up saying Awa'atlu is their new home.

Where was Avatar The Way of Water filmed?

Avatar The Way of Water was set around this are the locations:

• Stone Street Studios, Wellington, New Zealand
• MBS Media Campus - 1600 Rosecrans Avenue, Manhattan Beach, California, USA
• Los Angeles, California, USA
• Manhattan Beach, California, USA
• California, USA
• USA

Genre

Cast

Sam Worthington

as Jake

Zoe Saldana

as Neytiri

Sigourney Weaver

as Kiri

Stephen Lang

as Quaritch

Kate Winslet

as Ronal

Cliff Curtis

as Tonowari

Joel David Moore

as Norm

CCH Pounder

as Mo'at

Edie Falco

as General Ardmore

Brendan Cowell

as Scoresby

Jemaine Clement

as Dr. Garvin

Jamie Flatters

as Neteyam

Britain Dalton

as Lo'ak

Trinity Jo-Li Bliss

as Tuk

Jack Champion

as Spider

Bailey Bass

as Tsireya

Filip Geljo

as Aonung

Duane Evans Jr.

as Rotxo

• Avatar The Way of Water official website`
• Avatar The Way of Water imdb