Over the weekend, Disney/Fox finally released the teaser trailer for “Avatar: The Way of Water.” It’s our first glimpse of the much-discussed and much-speculated sequels to the 2009 mega-hit “Avatar.” Director James Cameron started teasing his many sequels for over a decade now, bragging about the new technology he’s been developing but light on story details.
And there are no story beats in the one-and-a-half-minute clip, but we get some stunning visuals and a few tidbits. Jake Sully & Neytiri are now married with children, including an adopted human complete with a breathing mask. There seems to be an uneasy truce between the humans and Na’vi natives. There are also a few impressive underwater shots hinting that we’ll be seeing the oceans of Pandora.
“Avatar” was a big hit back in its day, ushering in a new film 3-D revolution, but it was also widely mocked. I heard a few groans from the audience when the teaser played before my screening of “Dr. Strange & the Multiverse of Madness.” But I’ve learned over the years never to count out James Cameron. The demanding director takes big swings that pay big dividends. “Titanic” was saddled with a studio busting budget and bad buzz, only to become one of the highest-grossing films and winning a boatload (!) of Oscars.
Mock this Avatar trailer all you want; this movie will be huge when it debuts later this year on December 16.
Must admit until a few weeks ago I’d complexly forgotten they were making these sequels. I think Avatar is a really good film, certainly one of the best I’ve ever seen to use 3D. However that fad seems to have passed fortunately and now we are in the realm of Avatar Sequels, where, if this trailer is anything to go by, the amazing CGI visual effects will no doubt be the key to its success – and hopefully a good story as well.
I’m disappointed that Cameron will be doing only Avatar sequels for the foreseeable future. And the lag time of 13 years will pose a problem. And yes, the 3D fad has come and gone, which was a big selling point for the original. But Cameron seems to have the magic touch with sequels as T2 & Aliens are two of his best films. Hopefully he can continue that trend here.
Cameron certainly has a knack for making great sci-fi sequels, so fingers crossed he can work the same magic that he did with T2 and Aliens with Avatar 2 as well!