As we know, two actors whose characters seemingly died in the first “Avatar” are coming back – Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang.
Earlier this week came the reveal that Weaver would be playing a whole new character – Jake and Neytiri’s teenage daughter.
But what of Lang? It was already made clear a long time ago that not only would he be reprising his Miles Quaritch character, but he would serve as the main villain throughout the four sequels.
How did the Na’vi-hating, cigar-chomping military commander of the Resources Development Administration (RDA) survive the two massive arrows to the chest he got at the end of the first film? Speaking with Empire, it seems he didn’t.
Instead, his consciousness has been transferred to a Na’vi avatar body. Talking about his return, Lang says:
“He’s bigger, he’s bluer, he’s p–sed off, but there may possibly be an aspect of humility. When you take two Na’vi arrows in the chest, that’s gonna have some kind of effect on you.
[He] was always a character who moved in straight lines and at right angles. But now he is as lithe as they come. He can move with the same kind of cunning and feral quality that any of the Na’vi can.”
The outlet confirms the RDA will now have a whole set of Recoms/Recombinants – avatars embedded with the memories of human soldiers and they mean business with producer Jon Landau saying: “They are coming back with an armada to take back the prized possession that they lost.”
In addition, the RDA has built an entirely new city named Bridgehead and is stripping away the resources of Pandora’s oceans. They also have a weapons-manufacturing 3D printing facility that can churn out all the munitions they want.
Cameron himself also spoke about his larger overall plans for the sequel, saying the point of doing them was to tell a much larger scale story:
“What I said to the Fox regime at the time was, ‘I’ll do it, but we’ve got to play a larger game here. I don’t want to just do a movie and do a movie and do a movie. I want to tell a bigger story.
I said, ‘Imagine a series of novels like The Lord Of The Rings existed, and we’re adapting them.’ Now, that was great in theory, but then I had to go create the frickin’ novels from which to adapt it.
I had to think long and hard whether I even wanted to make another Avatar film, because it was kind of ours to lose. When you’ve done something that’s been that transcendent in terms of success, do you really want to go try and do that again? There’s a lot of pressure on it. I thought about it for a good two years before we finally made a deal.”
“Avatar: The Way Of Water” will arrive in December with a third film due in 2024. Both have been shot along with a little bit of the fourth film – the majority of the fourth and all of the fifth will shoot at a later date.
EXCLUSIVE IMAGE ALERT
In #Avatar: The Way Of Water, Stephen Lang’s Quaritch is ‘bigger, bluer, and pissed off,’ he tells Empire.
READ MORE: https://t.co/78ox7vum2W pic.twitter.com/gYpz3jwZqr
— Empire Magazine (@empiremagazine) July 3, 2022
EXCLUSIVE IMAGE ALERT
James Cameron likens the #Avatar sequel saga to Lord Of The Rings: ‘I had to create the frickin’ novels to adapt,’ he tells Empire.
READ MORE: https://t.co/r82r6so5bg pic.twitter.com/ddkE31CyrE
— Empire Magazine (@empiremagazine) July 2, 2022
Source: Empire
