Disney+ just edited the first Avatar movie to help set up the sequels

Avatar: The Way of Water was a sequel more than a decade in the making, and after raking in upwards of $2.3 billion at the box office to become the third-highest grossing film of all time, it is now finally available for home streaming on Disney+. With more Avatar movies on the way, the streamer is setting things up for the long haul; in addition to the original Avatar movie, there are also a handful of behind-the-scenes featurettes available to watch, all of which are aimed at getting viewers more invested in Pandora than ever before.

To that end, The Direct reports that eagle-eyed fans have noticed a sudden change in the original Avatar movie on Disney+, which was seemingly made in order to better set up the fact that there are sequels on the way. “Better” is subjective here, because this may be one of the weirder edits of this nature that a streaming service has made to a film.

Disney+ made a small but baffling change to the original Avatar movie

The scene in question comes right at the end of the film, when the Na’vi are marching the human invaders off of Pandora following the climactic showdown near the Tree of Souls. One of the humans getting booted off of Pandora is Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), the corporate figurehead responsible for the mining operations which drove much of the movie’s conflict.

In the theatrical cut of the movie, Sam Worthington’s Jake Sully narrates this moment uninterrupted, exchanging only a fraught look with Selfridge before the businessman walks onto the transport ship that will bring him back to Earth. However, the version of Avatar now available on Disney+ has a brief addition where Selfridge walks up to Jake, prompting Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) to draw her knife in alarm. “You know this isn’t over,” Selfridge tells Jake and Neytiri, while the soundtrack turns ominous. Then Jake nods Selfridge away and the narration continues like normal.

Including this scene is obviously meant to set up more sequels; it’s been confirmed that Ribisi’s Selfridge is returning in Avatar 3. But it also interrupts the flow of the movie, so it feels like something that’s tacked on rather than something the movie needed.

And don’t take my word for it: Cameron previously released a Special Edition Re-Release cut and Collector’s Extended Cut of Avatar; both of those versions include extra footage, some of which add quite a bit to the movie, like the exploration of Grace Augustine’s (Sigourney Weaver) defunct school for Na’vi children. This scene with Selfridge didn’t make either of those editions, so clearly it was something Cameron felt was better left on the cutting room floor. If Disney+ wanted to introduce new footage, why not actually just give its subscribers access to the Collector’s Extended Cut?

Watch the Avatar movies on Disney+ and judge for yourself. Both Avatar and The Way of Water are available. We’ll see Selfridge return in Avatar 3, due out on December 20, 2024.

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