Avatar: The Way Of Water Is Somehow Bigger And Smaller Than The First Film
This article contains spoilers for "Avatar: The Way of Water."
It took 13 years, a budget rivaling the GDP of a small nation, and no shortage of capital-D discourse along the way, but one of the greatest blockbuster filmmakers of all time has finally debuted his long-awaited sequel to the highest grossing movie of all time. Yes, "Avatar: The Way of Water" is currently riding a tidal wave of hype into theaters — look no further than /Film's review by Chris Evangelista – to once again plunge audiences headfirst into the paradise known as Pandora. While it remains to be seen if this wildly expensive and extraordinarily risky gambit will pay off, one thing's certain: It's still James Cameron's world, folks, and we're all just living in it.
Now that audiences have begun to experience the highly-anticipated film for themselves, the biggest debate will likely unfold over whether it has outdone its predecessor or not. But as fun as that will be to discuss and analyze all the way until the moment the third movie releases (in two years time, but who's counting!), there's perhaps an even more fascinating aspect of "The Way of Water" that's worth appreciating.
For all the years of expectations and pressure placed on this follow-up to be even bigger and better than the original "Avatar," James Cameron instead took a much more interesting route altogether. As spectacle-driven as this franchise obviously is, especially considering how the sequel opens up our perspective into a whole new culture and biome of Pandora that we've never seen before, Cameron's greatest instinct was to balance such an epic sense of scale with its much more intimate, character-driven storyline.
Like many great sequels before it, "Avatar: The Way of Water" effectively made itself both bigger and smaller than the original.
Yep, size still matters
Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell readers with a straight face that "Avatar: The Way of Water" works as well as it does because it avoids indulgence and spectacular visuals. Not only would that be an outright lie, but it muddies up the fact that the world has been looking forward to this sequel precisely because of those qualities. The filmmaker behind "Aliens," "Terminator," and "Titanic" has a penchant for coming up with some of the loudest and most showy shots in the history of the medium, and in an age where it feels like blockbusters have generally become duller, more cynical, and less wondrous to look at than ever, "Avatar" was exactly the breath of fresh air that we needed.
"The Way of Water" is no exception in that regard. Pretty much every carefully composed shot overflows with an overwhelming amount of information, detail, and emotion (and whales). The sequel never once fails to dial up its most stunning sequences and set pieces all the way up to 11, as /Film's Luke Y. Thompson points out. Though the first half or so remains (relatively) light on action, Cameron and his director of photography Russell Carpenter take an impressively measured approach to shooting more low-key moments. Consider instances like when Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his family explore their new aquatic surroundings, learning to find symbiosis with the environment right alongside careful camera framing that constantly communicates the scope and scale at play to audiences. Of course, the steady pacing leads to a no-holds-barred final hour which is filmed with the director's usual bombast and brilliantly choreographed sense of flair.
Don't be mistaken — the sheer immensity of "The Way of Water" is a feature, not a bug. But Cameron being Cameron, the real magic happens in the smaller moments, too.
Magic in the margins
What truly sets "The Way of Water" apart from the rest of the pack is in how its overarching storyline refuses to follow conventional wisdom for blockbuster sequels. In a throwback to "The Empire Strikes Back" scaling down from a space battle in "Star Wars" to destroy the Empire's Death Star to a simple duel between a father and son, "The Way of Water" slams the brakes on the fresh outbreak of battle between the indigenous Na'vi and the human colonialists to tell a much more intimate conflict. Notably, the script (co-written by "Planet of the Apes" veterans Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver alongside Cameron) steers well clear of the big picture of the war. Instead, we zero in on something tangible, immediate, and real.
On paper, studio executives would raise hell about how this is the exact opposite approach to keep audiences hooked for another new adventure; in practice, the sequel's streamlined focus and ground-level perspective instantly provides a shot in the arm that makes the storytelling feel that much more vital and worth investing in. It's an age-old storytelling adage that blowing up an entire planet (to stick with the "Star Wars" theme, looking at you, "The Force Awakens") matters far less to viewers than a single act of personal malice (hello, have you heard the good news about "The Last Jedi"?).
In the world of Pandora, this takes the form of essentially boiling down to a grudge match between two men and the unfolding interpersonal conflicts between the Sully family and the water-dwelling Metkayina clan. It's easy to get swept up in the family drama between spurned sons and distant fathers, all while the threat of a reanimated Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) hangs overhead. In short, we're dared to wholeheartedly buy into the smallest stakes and the most personal conflicts. With expert-level precision, the ending moments set up the third film to carry the weight of war. In vintage fashion, Cameron makes the most of both extremes to make "The Way of Water" an invigorating experience that tops the first film in every way.