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James Cameron talks taking the Avatar sequels to dark places in new 30 minute Empire podcast

Scullibundo

Scullibundo

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Oct 25, 2017
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https://www.empireonline.com/movies...n-talks-jake-neytiri-family-sequel-exclusive/

Talking for a very special Empire Podcast documentary for Empire 30 – a 30-minute Avatar making-of, featuring brand new interviews and insights – the filmmaker revealed some interesting tidbits about the highly-secretive sequel. For one, it's set several years on from the 2009 original – Jake and Neytiri are still together, and they now have an eight year-old daughter. Cameron detailed a 'critical' argument scene between the bickering parents, shot from the point of view of their kid – all part of the 'emotional rollercoaster' that Jake faces in the coming instalments.

"There's a three-page argument scene between Jake and Neytiri, a marital dispute, very, very critical to the storyline," Cameron explains on the Avatar Podumentary. "I wound up shooting it all from the point of view of the eight year old hiding under the structure and peeking in […] Having gone through the experience with [Sam Worthington] on Avatar, I now knew how to write the Jake character going forward across the emotional rollercoaster of the next four movies. It's been tough on him. He's done two pictures back to back now, because we did 2 and 3 together. He had to go to some dark places."
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Also says that whilst the capture work is all completed, he has 5 months of live action shooting still to complete this year.
 
Mona

Mona

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Oct 30, 2017
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listening now, dont care about avatar that much, but i aint gonna skimp on james
 
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Scullibundo

Scullibundo

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Dark Knight said:
Avatar is some weird shit.
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This is a film where Blue cats have a sacred challenge where they force dragons to bond with them. And the dragon that protests the most is - too the Na'vi, choosing the challenger. Then our hero wrestles the resisting dragon, forces his organ to pair with the animal's organ (again, while its screaming protest) before smiling and saying You're mine now.
 
Dark Knight

Dark Knight

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Scullibundo said:
This is a film where Blue cats have a sacred challenge where they force dragons to bond with them. And the dragon that protests the most is - too the Na'vi, choosing the challenger. Then our hero wrestles the resisting dragon, forces his organ to pair with the animal's organ (again, while its screaming protest) before smiling and saying You're mine now.
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I am now terrified in retrospect...
 
dabig2

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Scullibundo said:
This is a film where Blue cats have a sacred challenge where they force dragons to bond with them. And the dragon that protests the most is - too the Na'vi, choosing the challenger. Then our hero wrestles the resisting dragon, forces his organ to pair with the animal's organ (again, while its screaming protest) before smiling and saying You're mine now.
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What happens on Pandora, stays on Pandora.
 
Mona

Mona

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Oct 30, 2017
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@ 5:40

"the rest, as people who say 'the rest as they say is history' say, is history"

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Mona

Mona

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thesoapster said:
The first one got pretty dark/grim at times...
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Hometree goes down within about 20 mins of the 2 hour mark IIRC, so my sister thought the movie was going to be ending soon with that as the big ending moment, she started to get upset

the same thing also happened when i recommend she watch Infinity War, except she didn't get any closure with that one
 

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Scullibundo said:
This is a film where Blue cats have a sacred challenge where they force dragons to bond with them. And the dragon that protests the most is - too the Na'vi, choosing the challenger. Then our hero wrestles the resisting dragon, forces his organ to pair with the animal's organ (again, while its screaming protest) before smiling and saying You're mine now.
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Do you really want to open that Pandora's box?
 
luca

luca

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Oct 25, 2017
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"There's a three-page argument scene between Jake and Neytiri, a marital dispute, very, very critical to the storyline," Cameron explains on the AvatarPodumentary. "I wound up shooting it all from the point of view of the eight year old hiding under the structure and peeking in […]
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See it's stuff like this that gets me so damn excited for Way of the Water. All these little details from the production that Cameron shares with up. And then my excitement slowly but surely rises little by little. I'm just picturing this scene in my head now and how it'll be shot.
 
HStallion

HStallion

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I don't doubt Cameron but nothing about the original inspires me to believe these kinds of boasts. I'm sure the movie will look excellent but the first film was about as safe and by the numbers as you can get.
 
HStallion

HStallion

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JB1981 said:
Got anything more than a marital argument? 🤔
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Yeah I was a bit confused as while that could certainly be a dark scenario depending on how its depicted, especially if coming from the eyes of their child, but I was expecting a bit more especially considering the world and context of the story.
 
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Scullibundo

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JB1981 said:
Got anything more than a marital argument? 🤔
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He's been preparing you for this movie for a while with The Abyss vibes. You're basically going to get The Abyss all over again, just with a different setting.

Here's the leaked scene he's talking about:

NEYTIRI: Jake! You weiner! You never could stand up to a fight You --

Jake disconnects his queue from Tree-Skype.

JAKE: Bye bye.
(beat)
God I hate that bitch.

NORM SPELLMAN: Then you probably shouldn't have mated for life with her, eh Toruk?
 
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Scullibundo

Scullibundo

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TAJ said:
When did they ever suggest that the moon was sentient? All of the plant and animal life was communicating. The rocks, dirt, and water are intelligent now?
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From the early scenes, onward. The earliest scene being Grace and Norm taking tree root samples and her explaining 'signal transduction', where information was being passed through the roots of the trees. Then you have Neytiri teaching Jake to listen to the stored memory banks of the moon/Eywa.

Then you have Jake directly connect his queue to the tree of souls to speak to Eywa/Pandora in order to warn it about what was coming:



...which then resulted in the moon's sentience basically telling all of its native inhabitants to fight off the humans like white blood cells fighting off a virus:



Cameron has explained as much as well.
 
TheHunter

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Sculli... I think we need to have a James Cameron intervention for you.


You can put it down. He'll still be there making awesome movies :P
 
spookyduzt

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Listened to the podcast on my commute home. Cool little history lesson, and was interesting to about some of the process of making the film. Kinda wanted a little more on the sequel, but the scene that was described and Jake's journey over the next four films sounded great. I really hope I live long enough to see all of these.
 
Miamiwesker

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Oct 25, 2017
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Miami
Deeply emotional and Sam Worthington don't really mix. I hope for the best but he never struck me as an actor that can carry a franchise so huge. They should have just recast him.
 
Dream Machine

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If Avatar 2 is a body horror movie with the planet hive mind trying to assimilate all the non native inhabitants with usb ponytail dicks, then we forgive you, king.
 
TAJ

TAJ

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Scullibundo said:
From the early scenes, onward. The earliest scene being Grace and Norm taking tree root samples and her explaining 'signal transduction', where information was being passed through the roots of the trees. Then you have Neytiri teaching Jake to listen to the stored memory banks of the moon/Eywa.

Then you have Jake directly connect his queue to the tree of souls to speak to Eywa/Pandora in order to warn it about what was coming:



...which then resulted in the moon's sentience basically telling all of its native inhabitants to fight off the humans like white blood cells fighting off a virus:



Cameron has explained as much as well.
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Ok, so you just misinterpreted the movie. I thought that you dug deep into some obscure interview material.
 
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Scullibundo

Scullibundo

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TAJ said:
Ok, so you just misinterpreted the movie. I thought that you dug deep into some obscure interview material.
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Sigh. I mean, I don't know what else you can glean from the scenes I posted, but here you are from Cameron's own original treatment:

Back home we called it Gaia. A single being made up of all that's living on the whole planet. The only problem is, back home it's a myth. There is no Gaia. If she ever lived, she's been long dead.

But it's not a myth here. On Pandora there is only one entity. The forest is its brain. Like a vast neural net, with every tree being a single brain cell, or dendrite. And all the roots co-mingling... those are the synapses. One vast sentience, covering all the land. And everything that walks and breaths and lives within it is a part of it. It is like a government, which keeps everything in balance. That's why the Na'vi don't kill, or make war. No ownership, no territory. They are given all they need... a place to live, a part in the great pageant of life here.

Is she intelligent, this Gaia? This Mother Forest? Sort of. But she's almost more like a kind of bio-internet. The willows are access points, the Well of Souls and other places like it around the planet are like big servers, storage centers. A place of memories. The Gaia mind can be accessed from anywhere. It can be used to communicate over long distances. That's how the clan knew Zuleika had found you. She accessed the willows. And that's why the Na'vi only have one language all over the planet, with regional dialects of course, just for fun.

But more than a network, she has a will. An ego. She guides, she shapes... she protects. Sometimes she sacrifices something she loves for the greater good. And sometimes she is very strict. Gaia does not take sides. Gaia will not necessarily save you... her role is to protect all life, and the balance of life... and to protect that balance, death is necessary. She is, quite literally, Mother Nature.
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From the actual film itself referencing the same idea:
GRACE
Alright, look -- I don't have the answers yet, I'm just now starting to even frame the questions. What we think we know -- is that there's some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons. Each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora -SELFRIDGE That's a lot I'm guessing. GRACE That's more connections than the human brain.
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And also from the treatment:

Josh, on camera, tells whoever is watching that the natural defenses, the immune system, of Pandora will not allow humans to set foot here again. Just like the cold and flu counterviruses were created, a new virus will be created.
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You also have shit like this to tell you as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBGDmin_38E#t=3m0s

But no, I clearly just misinterpreted the movie.
 
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vinnygambini

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Dec 11, 2018
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The Eywa Has Heard You clip is so well choreographed, personally I think it's one of Jim's biggest forte's - he has an acute sens of how to direct a scene and clear visual action/geography. It's such a rare quality in directors these days.
 
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Scullibundo

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Mona said:
dunno how its possible tbh, Avatar looks just as good if not better than most CG these days

i gotta chalk it up to a god-tier level of aesthetic understanding like the first Jurassic Park
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Cameron just has a better understanding and unrelenting eye for VFX than pretty much any other director working today. Him starting out as a VFX artist himself and having an engineer's mind contributes a lot towards it. He'll also work harder than anybody else to make sure his work is a level beyond everybody else.

There's a quote from Cameron where he says something to the effect of 'I might not be as talented as an artist as guys like Spielberg, but I know I can grind harder than any of those guys.'
 
TAJ

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