When James Cameron’s Avatar hit the big screen in 2009, it took the world by storm, quickly becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time, a record that still stands today. Further movies in the franchise always seemed inevitable, but it’s taken over a decade for the first sequel to actually arrive.
Cameron’s anticipated three-hour-long sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, features an ensemble cast, with huge stars such as Kate Winslet (Ronal) entering the fray. But also, we’ll see the return of the core cast: Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Zoe Saldana (Neytiri), and Stephen Lang (Colonel Quaritch).
The latter is surprising, because in the first movie, Quaritch was killed by Neytiri in the final act. What’s happening here?
Colonel Quaritch has a Na’vi body in Avatar: The Way of Water
While we don’t know the specifics of how Quaritch survives, we know that he plays a big part in the story. Speaking to Empire, Lang talked about having to keep his role in the movie a secret.
"For the longest time, everything has been under wraps, right? Yeah, it’s gonna be good. Now all of a sudden to have some of the wraps taken off is an interesting experience."
That said, Quaritch’s return wasn’t the best-kept secret. Whether he’s still the same arrogant, cigar-smoking asshole we remember from the first film…we’ll have to wait and see.
One thing’s for sure: his physical appearance and memories are totally different: “He’s a genetically-engineered autonomous avatar. He has been downloaded with the mind, the emotions, and even more interestingly, possibly the spirit of Quaritch,” Lang said.
"He comes with a full memory bank up until the time he actually undergoes the DNA transfer. So there are certain things that he doesn’t have any memory of at all. He has no memory of his death."
So Colonel Quaritch is now a ful-fledged Na’vi. He is not longer restricted by a human body, nor is he dependent on the machinery he used previously. If he was dangerous as a human, now he’s on another level. “He can move with the same kind of cunning and feral quality that Sully or Neytiri, or any of the Navi can as well,” Lang said. “I think that only adds to his ammunition, to his toolbox. I think he takes a certain joy in that ability to move in that environment in a way that is confident — that’s a wonderful feeling.”
Expect to see more sides of Quaritch’s character in The Way of Water, rather than the fairly one-dimensional “big bad” figure he was in the first movie. “We’re seeing parts of him that we have not seen hitherto,” Lang teased. “That only makes sense because we don’t want to be massaging the same territory over and over again. We need to go to new places and indeed he does.”
If a three-hour sequel isn’t enough time to develop his character, something is very wrong. The Way of Water is merely the first of several Avatar sequels planned. It premieres on December 16. Are you excited to return to Pandora?
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