Avatar 2: The Way of Water - First Trailer

[Palanan]

Just out:





Visually phenomenal, as expected. I'm a little uncertain about some of what I'm seeing, but after so long I'm just happy to see it all.

[Eldan]

Saw the trailer this weekend, thought it was phenomenally unexciting. It's a few minutes of pretty visuals and no indication where the plot is going. It's probably just going to be more of the same as the first, which was nice to look at the time, but I think it's been done, now.

[The Glyphstone]

It does seem to show the Evil Corporation reacting to the superiority of the blue cat-people by mass-producing avatars to be used as soldiers instead of spies in the rematch. And if the main story is not 'EvilCorp vs. Primitive Cat-People, Round 2', I'll eat my hat. That is, at least, showing some sort of plot progression from the first movie, though if the sneering avatar at the end is supposed to be the Evil Commander I don't know how they are going to explain bringing him back from the dead.

[t209]

I think Alpha Centauri did the premise better.
And it’s 90’s video game, at least showing more depth than “evil corporation” (Morgan Industries can count as one, but you can also make him pragmatic enough to adopt planet friendly policies).
That or a film marketing with simple message and visual appeal, and a video game that delve into philosophies and ability to adopt different variations are different.

[Eldan]

I think Alpha Centauri did the premise better.
And it’s 90’s video game, at least showing more depth than “evil corporation” (Morgan Industries can count as one, but you can also make him pragmatic enough to adopt planet friendly policies).
That or a film marketing with simple message and visual appeal, and a video game that delve into philosophies and ability to adopt different variations are different.

It just shows how many things Avatar took inspiration from. Alpha Centauri, Midworld... evil corp against planetwide eco-hivemind is a remarkably widespread idea in SciFi.

(Avatar would be more interesting if there were more factions. Steal a few more from Alpha Centauri! Currently, I guess we're seeing more or less Morgan and Deidre in the first movie. Throw in a Sister Godwinson or a Zhakarov or a Sheng.)

[DaedalusMkV]

A decade ago I'd have been hyped beyond belief. Avatar is one of only two movies I've ever gone to see twice in theatres, and I found the setting engrossing and the visuals spectacular. I waited with baited breath for the inevitable sequel, and I'd have marked my calendar and tried to catch it opening weekend. At that point Avatar was still almost certainly the most visually impressive film ever made, and not by a small margin. Five years ago I'd have been pretty interested, though by that point the magic had faded a bit. In a world with multiple Avengers movies and everything the new Star Trek movies could throw out, along with the Star Wars 7, the visuals of Avatar are no longer dramatically beyond the curve. It was still one of the better-realized fictional worlds I'd seen, but the bar on visual spectacle had been raised significantly in the years since it came out, and it was no longer sitting way above that bar.

At this point? Movie's a bit too late. I haven't really thought about Avatar in years. Infinity War and Endgame happened. Pretty much everyone has CGI on par with Avatar these days. I only go to theatres four or five times a year, and that's mostly dedicated to Marvel movies, which might not be the best thing in the world but are something I can chat with all my friends about for a while afterwards and can relied on to bring the visuals and the punch. The trailer just... Doesn't bring the magic for me the way it might have in the past. Which really shouldn't be surprising. This movie was first announced in 2010, right down to the title and general theme. And it looks just like you'd expect an Avatar sequel to look. I'll wait for the reviews. Though, knowing James Cameron, somehow the ten year wait will have served only to lower my expectations enough that he can blow me out of the water again. Say what you will about the guy, but he knows how to make spectacle movies.

[Eldan]

I'll give it credit for at least being colorful. Still disappointed that Dune, while looking great in many ways, also looked so incredibly monochrome.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Saw the trailer this weekend, thought it was phenomenally unexciting. It's a few minutes of pretty visuals and no indication where the plot is going. It's probably just going to be more of the same as the first, which was nice to look at the time, but I think it's been done, now.

Same boat here. Mind, I wan’t a huge fan of the first one, so I might be outside the target audience.

[Peelee]

I read "the way of water" and got way too excited for the long-awaited sequel to The Last Airbender.

[Keltest]

I read "the way of water" and got way too excited for the long-awaited sequel to The Last Airbender.

My reaction was similar, if by "excited" you meant "baffled and horrified."

[warty goblin]

I'm relatively excited. The plot of the original Avatar was fine, the visuals were good, and although less rare at the time it came out than it is now, it is sci-fi that put some real effort into thinking out its world. The space ship design for instance is fantastically well thought out, you can figure out the broad strokes of the evolutionary biology of Pandora, and there's touches of more interesting, slightly farther out there sci-fi ideas like a planet as a conscious self-regulating biosphere that, if we're lucky, get explored more in the sequel.

More immediately exciting though, we get ocean biomes now!

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Eldan
It just shows how many things Avatar took inspiration from. Alpha Centauri, Midworld...

I’m glad someone else remembers Midworld. I loved the book as a kid, and it held up well to a reread, but it’s very obscure now.

Originally Posted by Eldan
Still disappointed that Dune, while looking great in many ways, also looked so incredibly monochrome.

This never occurred to me as a thing to be disappointed about. It’s a stylistic choice and it worked in context of the story.

Also, it’s a desert world, so it makes sense there’s a fine particulate haze everywhere.

Originally Posted by DaedalusMkV
In a world with multiple Avengers movies and everything the new Star Trek movies could throw out, along with the Star Wars 7, the visuals of Avatar are no longer dramatically beyond the curve.

I would disagree. Most of the effects in Avengers and Star Trek are certainly flashy and grand, but there’s often so much glitzy pizazz packed into every shot that it ends up feeling cheap and hollow.

The visuals in Avatar, by contrast, aren’t just there for spectacle, but tell a panoramic story comprised of countless smaller stories, very much like an ecosystem. We may only see a glimpse or two of most of those component stories, but each glimpse hints at a great deal of carefully thought out creative effort that informs the world as a whole.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
The plot of the original Avatar was fine, the visuals were good, and although less rare at the time it came out than it is now, it is sci-fi that put some real effort into thinking out its world.

Amen to this. Solid speculative evolution on the big screen that looks gorgeous and feels right.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
The space ship design for instance is fantastically well thought out….

James Cameron wrote twelve pages of treatment for the ship design alone. He did the research and integrated what he learned into his storyline and his world, which is more than 97% of directors will do.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
More immediately exciting though, we get ocean biomes now!

+10 to this. Flying ichthyosaurs bring happiness.

[Zalabim]

It sounds like another knock-off movie with a name carefully chosen to cash in on the popularity of a better-known brand. Again. It has to be intentional at some point.

[DaedalusMkV]

I would disagree. Most of the effects in Avengers and Star Trek are certainly flashy and grand, but there’s often so much glitzy pizazz packed into every shot that it ends up feeling cheap and hollow.

The visuals in Avatar, by contrast, aren’t just there for spectacle, but tell a panoramic story comprised of countless smaller stories, very much like an ecosystem. We may only see a glimpse or two of most of those component stories, but each glimpse hints at a great deal of carefully thought out creative effort that informs the world as a whole.

You're not wrong at all. The world in Avatar is spectacular, and I can't think of any other movie that presented a fictional world quite so convincingly as Avatar. A few video games, probably, but never a film. From that perspective it's still probably unmatched, and if the sequel can capture that sense of wonder and discovery it should be good. Doesn't change the fact that Avatar can't scrape by on visuals alone in this day and age like in 2009. Back then the 3d visuals and incredible CG work was a revelation. Now it's just what films do. If anyone can make lightning strike twice it's Cameron, but I just can't scrape together the excitement for this I would have if it came less than 14 years after the first film...

[warty goblin]

You're not wrong at all. The world in Avatar is spectacular, and I can't think of any other movie that presented a fictional world quite so convincingly as Avatar. A few video games, probably, but never a film. From that perspective it's still probably unmatched, and if the sequel can capture that sense of wonder and discovery it should be good. Doesn't change the fact that Avatar can't scrape by on visuals alone in this day and age like in 2009. Back then the 3d visuals and incredible CG work was a revelation. Now it's just what films do. If anyone can make lightning strike twice it's Cameron, but I just can't scrape together the excitement for this I would have if it came less than 14 years after the first film...

Speaking entirely for myself, I enjoyed Avatar when it came out not because it looked crazy good (although it did) but because it used that to show interesting things and tell a pretty decent story. I mean I watched it on DVD a pretty large number of times - the Director's Cut improves it substantially - and on DVD in 2017 or whatever it didn't look better than any number of other movies.

[Zevox]

I read "the way of water" and got way too excited for the long-awaited sequel to The Last Airbender.

My reaction was similar, if by "excited" you meant "baffled and horrified."

I might have thought the same had it been "The Way of Earth." Since, y'know, Water was Book 1/the movie we did get. Earth would have been next, had The Last Airbender not sucked and tanked.

As-is, the subtitle caught my attention enough to watch the trailer just to see what it meant, which is more than it would've gotten out of me otherwise. But the trailer didn't do anything for me - it's pretty, but that's not a good enough reason to see a movie for me. Especially since I never watched the first one anyway.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

Don't think this trailer is doing much for the film. A bit meh looking on first impressions. CGI is about like most movies these days. Maybe another trailer might peek some interest but not much on this alone at the moment.

[Peelee]

I might have thought the same had it been "The Way of Earth." Since, y'know, Water was Book 1/the movie we did get. Earth would have been next, had The Last Airbender not sucked and tanked.

I'm sorry, are you expecting logic or competence from the feature film Avatar series?

[t209]

It just shows how many things Avatar took inspiration from. Alpha Centauri, Midworld... evil corp against planetwide eco-hivemind is a remarkably widespread idea in SciFi.

(Avatar would be more interesting if there were more factions. Steal a few more from Alpha Centauri! Currently, I guess we're seeing more or less Morgan and Deidre in the first movie. Throw in a Sister Godwinson or a Zhakarov or a Sheng.)

I think there are differences in narratives.
Alpha Centauri is rather high-stake, like it is easy to side with humans since Alpha Centauri's ones were literally starting from scratch rather than "interstellar corporation exploiting resources".
And also human focus meant that each faction is meant to study ideology and adapt based on the player's input (either Morgan the evil industrialist who would strip mine the planet for profit or shrewd businessmen who prefer diplomacy over war).

[Eldan]

This never occurred to me as a thing to be disappointed about. It’s a stylistic choice and it worked in context of the story.

Also, it’s a desert world, so it makes sense there’s a fine particulate haze everywhere.

Desert scenes, yes. Battle armour, sure. Still suits, absolutely, that's just camouflage.

But why are all the palaces grey? Why is Caladan, which is supposed to be Greek-mediterranean at least partially in inspiration? Where's all the riches of the Harkonnens? These are noble families who rule planets. They could at least wear some colorful clothes, occasionally. Maybe have some more art or furniture.

I’m glad someone else remembers Midworld. I loved the book as a kid, and it held up well to a reread, but it’s very obscure now.

Midworld was in a collection of SciFI short stories I had as a kid and could never forget.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by DaedalusMkV
The world in Avatar is spectacular, and I can't think of any other movie that presented a fictional world quite so convincingly as Avatar…. From that perspective it's still probably unmatched, and if the sequel can capture that sense of wonder and discovery it should be good. Doesn't change the fact that Avatar can't scrape by on visuals alone in this day and age like in 2009.

True enough, but I don’t think there’s any intention for it to just scrape by. If that was the case, it would’ve been out in half the time or less.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
Speaking entirely for myself, I enjoyed Avatar when it came out not because it looked crazy good (although it did) but because it used that to show interesting things and tell a pretty decent story.

Same here.

It’s also on Disney+, and I was watching some of it just a few days ago. It holds up now as well as ever. The editing is brilliant, and while it doesn’t have the same raw impact on a laptop screen, the story remains as engaging and well-paced as ever.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
…the Director's Cut improves it substantially….

There are a couple versions of the Director’s Cut. There’s a standard version, which gives us some extra scenes that fill in some gaps, and there’s also a crazy-long supercut, which includes animatics of scenes that were planned but never finished.

The supercut ends up being downright exhausting—there’s another major ceremony and some other things I can’t recall, and which the movie does much better without. Good to see it once just to get a sense of how much more material Cameron had developed.

Originally Posted by Eldan
Desert scenes, yes. Battle armour, sure. Still suits, absolutely, that's just camouflage.

But why are all the palaces grey? Why is Caladan, which is supposed to be Greek-mediterranean at least partially in inspiration? Where's all the riches of the Harkonnens? These are noble families who rule planets. They could at least wear some colorful clothes, occasionally. Maybe have some more art or furniture.

I read it as a consistent visual style, which just felt right. To me it came across as sober and restrained, and it made for a welcome counterpoint to most other big-budget effects-heavy movies, e.g. Avengers.

Besides, if you want a little more color in Dune, Jodorowsky's got you covered.

Originally Posted by Eldan
Midworld was in a collection of SciFI short stories I had as a kid and could never forget.

Interesting. Do you remember the title of that collection? I have Midworld as a stand-alone novel, one of those Del Rey classics clocking in at around 200 pages.

[Eldan]

Interesting. Do you remember the title of that collection? I have Midworld as a stand-alone novel, one of those Del Rey classics clocking in at around 200 pages.

Oh, just something like "Classics of Sci Fi". I remember there were around ten paperbacks, each had a longer novella like Midworld in the front, and then 2-3 shorter stories in the back. My father got them for me, probably from a second-hand store, when I was around ten.

All different authors, I don't remember most of the stories. There was some Bradbury in there (A Sound of Thunder, I remember), some Asimov, some Heinlein.

[warty goblin]

So they played the trailer for this before Dr. Strange the other day, and the phone screen did not do it justice at all. This looked just phenomenal on a technical level. It maybe wasn't as comparatively far ahead as Avatar was when it came out, but it was still next level good. Dr. Strange was not bad looking, but Way of Water was head and shoulders above it, everything looked like it had weight and friction and was there in a way so little CG manages.

I continue to be moderately excited.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by warty goblin
I continue to be moderately excited.

Same here. I’m daring to hope.

Spoiler: Puzzlement

Show

I’m still a little puzzled by what seems to be two Jake Sullys—one in the avatar, which is the “real” Jake Sully who was transferred, and another which seems to be the body he left behind.

My best guess is that Jake’s full consciousness was transferred into his avatar, but the human body was healed and has been developing a separate identity of its own.

I’m wondering if they’ll finally address an issue I’ve wondered about—how the avatar brain was grown without developing a consciousness of its own. There’s a host of ethical issues involved, and it would be great if the movie at least tried to deal with some of them.

[InvisibleBison]

Spoiler: Puzzlement

Show

I’m still a little puzzled by what seems to be two Jake Sullys—one in the avatar, which is the “real” Jake Sully who was transferred, and another which seems to be the body he left behind.

My best guess is that Jake’s full consciousness was transferred into his avatar, but the human body was healed and has been developing a separate identity of its own.

I’m wondering if they’ll finally address an issue I’ve wondered about—how the avatar brain was grown without developing a consciousness of its own. There’s a host of ethical issues involved, and it would be great if the movie at least tried to deal with some of them.

Spoiler

Show

I seem to recall that one of the human scientists who sided with the Na'vi survived the final battle and stayed on Pandora when the humans left. If I'm correct, I think that's who that human is, not Sully's old body.

[Clertar]

Same here. I’m daring to hope.

Spoiler: Puzzlement

Show

I’m still a little puzzled by what seems to be two Jake Sullys—one in the avatar, which is the “real” Jake Sully who was transferred, and another which seems to be the body he left behind.

My best guess is that Jake’s full consciousness was transferred into his avatar, but the human body was healed and has been developing a separate identity of its own.

I’m wondering if they’ll finally address an issue I’ve wondered about—how the avatar brain was grown without developing a consciousness of its own. There’s a host of ethical issues involved, and it would be great if the movie at least tried to deal with some of them.

Spoiler

Show

In some basic plot points that have been disclosed, Jake and Nayara have three children in the sequel: two biological na'vi, and one is an adopted human child. This is the "human body" seen in the trailers na'viing about.

[Eldan]

I just want to know how they repair and refill their breathing masks with stone age technology.

[t209]

I just want to know how they repair and refill their breathing masks with stone age technology.

Well,

Spoiler

Show

The movie ended with the company mining leaving, but scientific research is allowed and possibly there could be resupply.
Plus trailer show that they have permanent colony, so either a. The movie was set in one of many facilities or b. company made a second push.

[Tyndmyr]

Saw the trailer this weekend, thought it was phenomenally unexciting. It's a few minutes of pretty visuals and no indication where the plot is going. It's probably just going to be more of the same as the first, which was nice to look at the time, but I think it's been done, now.

This. "Dances with Wolves in Space" was fine for one go-round, but there wasn't a lot of the idea left unmined. The original movie relied greatly on its visuals, which were fairly innovative for the time, but are now routine. That crutch won't matter for a sequel. And a sequel that is very late, as well.

So, I, uh, mostly just don't care. A generic evil corporation vs blue people round two isn't breaking all that much ground. If they are doing *more* of them instead of the numbers in the previous film, okay, whatever. The hobbit movies had a really big battle, too, that doesn't make them better than the original trilogy.

Not every story needs a sequel. Some things are good, yet are finished in one movie, and that's fine.

[Anteros]

I'm not getting anything from this trailer that I couldn't also get from watching a nature doc. Sure, I like pretty water and animals. I absolutely could not possibly care less about space Pocahontas, space catgirls, or their conflict with "generic evil corp #39184". I think I'll just skip this and watch Blue Planet instead.