The Avatar Ride At Walt Disney World Had An Avatar 2 Easter Egg The Whole Time
Pandora is 4.37 light years away from earth, so visiting the totally-real-and-not-at-all-fictional space moon is a bit of a chore for us regular folks. Fortunately, there's a much nearer locale which replicates the experience ... sure, it's in Florida but nothing is perfect, right? Located in the Animal Kingdom, and replacing the old Camp Minnie-Mickey, Pandora – The World of Avatar lets fans of James Cameron's highly successful science fiction epic play around in a beautifully realized alien world. It wouldn't be a Disney attraction without a few rides, though, so Pandora – The World of Avatar deviates from the source enough to feature fun, bite-sized adventures.
One such ride is the "Avatar Flight of Passage," which takes its passengers on a 3D ride across the moon's lush surface, as viewed from the back of an Ikran (those dragon things that the Na'vi ride like pets). Observant fans will have already caught this but the attraction, which opened in 2017, showcases an easter egg from "Avatar: The Way of Water," which didn't come out until the end of 2022. It's a small thing, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it detail. Now that the "Avatar" sequel is out, however, Cameron is happy to talk about its inclusion in a more public space.
Where's Waldo but for space critters
In an interview with The Wrap, James Cameron explained how employee sharing and studio blending lead to the "Avatar" attractions at Walt Disney World featuring easter eggs for "Avatar: The Way of Water" long before the sequel ever released. Cameron said:
"We knew what we were doing on the movie and at Lightstorm, my company, a lot of the creative people that were about to move onto 'The Way of Water' worked on the ride Disney's group, Imagineering. We actually merged the two groups together, the Imagineering team with the robotics and the show ride staff, and our team for the film software and the design ... we even stuck a couple of Ilu in [the ride], the long-neck creatures. If you look as you're flying out over the ocean, before you go through the big wave, there's a couple of Ilu jumping over on the left."
As far as Easter eggs go, this one's pretty obtuse. No one would have spotted the creatures and known that they're essentially ocean motorcycles for a water-faring tribe of Na'vi. That said, as far as world building goes, including the Ilu in the Walt Disney World attraction goes a long way to narrative cohesion. Also, less analytically speaking, it's just plain neat.