Star Wars creator George Lucas became infamous for making changes to those movies and it looks like James Cameron may be following suit.
Last year saw the re-release of Avatar with improved sound and visuals, but a change has since been made to the Disney+ version. It's a minor alteration, but one that sets up both Avatar: The Way of Water and Cameron's other planned sequels.
At the 2:32:45 mark, new footage has been added which sees human antagonist Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) briefly stop to address Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), saying, "You know this isn't over," before being ushered away.
In the theatrical release of Avatar, there was no dialogue beyond Jake's voiceover, so what's the deal with this change?
It's presumably meant to more strongly hint at Earth's Resources Development Administration (RDA) returning to Pandora - which was explored in The Way of Water's opening scenes - though it is a little strange to utilise a character who wasn't even in the sequel for that.
However, this may well be setting the stage for Ribisi's return as Selfridge because it has previously been reported that he'll be a big part of Avatar 3 and 4. Last year's theatrical re-release simply had a post-credits scene teasing The Way of Water.
Disney+ has become known for making changes to the movies and TV shows streaming on the platform, with even Star Wars: A New Hope receiving a small edit with Greedo uttering the now-infamous "Maclunkey" line before being shot by Han Solo. In Marvel Studios' Ms. Marvel, the Statue of Liberty had its colour changed to reflect what we saw in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Avatar 3 is currently set to be released in theaters on December 20, 2024. Both the first and second movies are currently streaming on Disney+ and we're assuming this change will also be seen in Avatar's upcoming 4K Blu-ray release.