Avatar: The Way of Water begins rolling into theaters later today, and it's not hard to see why there's so much excitement for James Cameron's long-awaited sequel.
The first movie was released back in 2009, and broke new ground with jaw-dropping 3D effects that haven't been replicated since. Based on reviews for the Avatar follow-up, the filmmaker has delivered another epic spectacle of a movie, and we were recently fortunate enough to be in attendance for The Way of Water's global press conference.
Taking place in London, England, Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, James Cameron, and Jon Landau were among those in attendance.
Once they had finished taking questions from moderator Edith Bowman, we got to ask Cameron about Avatar: The Way of Water's strong female characters. Powerful women have always been part of his approach to storytelling dating right back to Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor in Terminator, and Neytiri continued that trend in Avatar.
Cameron issued a very lengthy answer to our question, breaking down the roles played by The Way of Water's female leads, which you can check out in its entirety below.
Like the first film, the sequel includes a lot of strong female characters. You've always been ahead of your time in that respect, but how did your approach to that sort of inclusion evolve with The Way of Water?
Well, it was easy enough with Zoe's character, Neytiri, because she’s very strong in the first film. But then what happens when she’s a mother and there’s something outside herself that she puts herself beneath, in terms of her priorities? Her pride, and so on, as the chief’s daughter [and] princess of the clan; what’s her new social standing? It’s really interesting to see how Zoe, with all the innate strength and intensity that she [brings], to see her with the shoe on the other foot when she has to go before Ronal and the Metkayina, and she has to kind of eat crow, and she has to be kind of submissive, but that doesn’t last very long with her, as you might imagine, and major sparks are struck between the two alpha females very quickly. And then, you know, that resolves over time, not just within this film but across into movie three as well.
It was important for us to talk about what the arc is across the films. Of course, what a pleasure, to work again with Sig. And it was by design. I mean, her character’s dead. Dead, dead, dead, from the first movie. There’s not much you can do. Everybody knows that, no spoilers, but how to being her back? Well, Grace’s avatar was still alive, it has no mind of its own because it needed to be infused with Grace’s consciousness in order to move around and talk and so on.
[It] turned out to be pregnant, a vessel for this little baby. That’s Jake’s problem and Neytiri’s problem, and so she becomes the adoptive daughter. You know, Jake had a kind of mother/son relationship with Grace in the first film; she took him under her wing, and so, of course, he’s going to protect her child, and raise her child, as his own. She’s the daughter, but she’s also a bit strange. There’s something unknown about her, something enigmatic about her, and I think Sig walked a beautiful line of classic teenage awkwardness, and yet as she comes into her power, as she comes into her strength, she’s not a warrior. She’s not somebody who would react in a situation like Neytiri would. She’ll react very differently. And she’s not really that much of an alpha until we see her manifesting her power.
I thought we had the opportunity to speak to teenage girls in a way that might make sense to them. I was very well aware of this problem, I read ‘Reviving Ophelia’ and I have daughters of my own. I’ve seen them go through it. I see their confusion, and the sense of ‘Who am I?", identity, who’s listening to me, [and] all the things you go through when you’re a teen. I had researched that for ‘Titanic,’ and then I had lived it as a father after that. We thought there are different ways to be strong, there are different ways for a female to be strong.
And Kate’s character, she goes into battle – I don’t think this is a spoiler, because we show it in the trailer – Kate goes into battle six months pregnant and she does not hesitate. When her kids are in jeopardy, boom, she’s on the move. And it’s instantaneous, There’s a close-up of you [Kate], and the decision is, one one thousand, she goes and gets her weapon. It t took her that long. And her husband, Cliff Curtis’ character, tries to hold her back, puts his hand gently on her belly, and says, says, 'Honey, don’t go,' and Kate says, 'We ride, I go.' You know? And it’s instantaneous."
Avatar: The Way of Warter splashes down into theaters on December 16!