Avatar: The Way of Water

Colonel Miles Quaritch is back from the dead to serve as the main villain once again. This had me hesitant at first when I heard it in announced in the media, but I was surprisingly unbothered by the way this was done in the movie. His brain was uploaded prior to the big fight so he could be brought back as a full avatar in case he died, i.e., an avatar “recombinant” no longer tethered to a human body? Sure dude, plausible enough to me. And I do think this opens up some interesting avenues for character development—this is not Quaritch, it’s a new man with Quaritch’s memories, who is now in the body of the people he despises. Who is he? How will he change? He’s not Spider’s true father, but he’s close enough to make things complicated. And most importantly, I think, he’s set forward on a war path to retrieve Jake Sully, presumably to make him answer for his treason in whatever fucked up justice system exists in this universe, but he’s only moved by the memories of a past life, another man.

This revenge story as the main thrust of the movie was a bit confusing for a moment or two for me. We only follow Quaritch on a mission to get Jake Sully, not the general mission of colonization that the past Quaritch headed in the first movie. All of that is skipped over. More than a decade since the first movie, it is a given, quickly summarized in the opening, that humanity has successfully set up colonies on at least some parts of Pandora. The humans are still fighting the Na’vi (or, at least, the Omaticaya clan featured in the first movie) to continue their extraction efforts, but we see very little of that. We quickly leave to focus on the Sully family in hiding with the Metkayina clan, and any struggle with the Omaticaya clan is never mentioned again. At a certain point it became clear that we weren’t going back to the Omaticaya, and Quaritch’s mission seems to be focused on capturing Jake not for any particular tactical strategy against the Omaticaya but simply as justice and/or revenge for his betrayal in the first film.

It would have helped to have the motivation for Quaritch made a bit clearer, but I do wonder if the decision to make things so personal between Quaritch and Jake is purposeful in order to set up future character development. I’m not fully convinced that Quaritch will remain the central villain in all the remaining Avatar sequels. Back in 2017, Cameron stated that Quaritch would remain the villain in all four (currently) planned sequels:

But more recently, in 2021, Quaritch’s actor, Stephen Lang, commented that the character will have “extreme growth”:

Quaritch was kept around at the end of this movie, saved by his not-son Spider (who is very endearing, by the way). He seems shell-shocked at his near death experience, and surprised that Spider saved his life yet still refused to join him. To me, this reads as setting up Quaritch for a major change going forward. This could be utter copium, but perhaps the way in which this movie blindly led us on a revenge story without the best motivation is meant in some way to mimic Quaritch’s rationale. Maybe this experience will stop Quaritch, and make him question why he is even doing any of this. Jake betrayed another man, not him, and where this past man hated the Na’vi, he now for all intents and purposes is Na’vi himself. This Quaritch seemed more concerned solely with Jake rather than motivated by a hatred and fear of the Na’vi, of the enemy he is meant to colonize, as in the first film .I’m not sure how quickly his allegiance will falter, if ever fully at all, but I suspect that Quaritch will end up taking a back seat to another villain at some point, before eventually either joining the Na’vi, or at least being redeemed shortly before dying, a la Darth Vader. That’s right, folks: Cameron is gonna Na’vi-pill even the most terrible colonist by the end of all this.

Or he’ll just be a one-dimensional villain and it’ll suck. We’ll see!

The often ignored aspect of these films is the ideology behind their representation of indigenous people. The story is of course literally about an alien species fighting humans colonizing their land, but the Na’vi are also clearly heavily inspired by various indigenous groups. This is not something James Cameron is trying to hide:

While I have praised both films for telling a story in support of the native group against the colonizers, there are still many who have criticized them as problematic in their representation of native groups, and it is fair to do so. I don’t intend to judge here what is and isn’t problematic in the films, as I don’t necessarily feel it’s my place to tell native people how they should feel about the way the Avatar films use indigenous tropes and imagery. They have had and will continue to have that conversation themselves. I do, however, want to generally discuss what I think is interesting in that conversation, which is the conflict between the legitimately pro-native narrative and the criticism of the film as problematic. How should we judge the film and its overall political impact? It cannot be as simple as casting the movies aside as problematic, especially given the fact that the reactions to the films from various native people and groups has been and will continue to be diverse. The article quoted above was about two panels on indigenous issues in 2010 that Cameron was invited to speak at. Several indigenous people in attendance were quoted praising the film for telling ‘their’ story, but the article also described Cameron trying to defend Avatar after an audience member asked him why he made a white savior film. And of course, as of a few weeks ago there are some native groups that have called for a boycott of The Way of Water.

This seems par for the course. As Native Media Theory discusses, while movies like Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves have been rightly criticized over the years for various aspects of how they portray indigenous groups, for many native people they remain important films with a positive impact. Similarly, I am reminded of discourse surrounding the Black Panther films—how they do or do not positively represent Black culture, and the larger political message supported by the films. Media can impart conflicting meanings and values, and these films are no exception. James Cameron clearly thinks he is crafting a pro-indigenous narrative, and clearly admires at least some aspects of what he sees as native cultures. But these are still ultimately major Hollywood blockbusters made by a white guy, and how they choose to represent native groups is probably always gonna be a bit weird and rightfully met with distrust. For example, I noticed that the Na’vi seem much more bestial in this film, baring their fangs frequently, as does the depiction of the little Tarzan-boy Spider. There was more focus on them being “feral” in this one (both with Spider and in the way Neytiri lost herself in rage after Neteyam’s death, seemingly nearly choosing to kill Spider), which is certainly a choice that some people may think is ugly.

The films are rife with these kinds of conflicting messages (conflicting insofar as it’s not all part of the same perspective of Cameron, separated from actual native people). There is of course an argument to be made that both movies are predicated on the trope of a white savior, with Jake Sully being necessary to lead the Na’vi to victory in the first film. But at the same time, it is hard to think that the takeaway from both wasn’t supposed to ultimately be that the Na’vi were completely right, and Jake very wrong. In both films, Jake tries to convince the Na’vi to surrender, as they don’t understand the forces they’re up against, only to end up doing it their way and fighting the sky people in the finale. In the first movie, the scientist studying the Na’vi, Grace, understands only in her last moments that the Na’vi were actually right about Eywa all along, it is a powerful force that cannot be understood through her empirical measures. Both characters reject their cultures to join the Na’vi and literally put their life in the hands of Eywa. As Cameron will mention in any interview he can, the movies are very spiritual, and he seems to see this spirituality as in reverence of native cultures. It’s debatable how successful it is communicated, but it would seem that Cameron is aware of and at least trying to subvert the white savior trope.

Ultimately, though, these are movies about indigenous people, but not movies made by them. And I’m not sure whether they are intended for them either, or whether Cameron is (rightfully or not) focused on speaking to a non-native audience. In response to his movie being called a white savior movie at the 2010 panel, he said: “I understand the white messiah argument, but in this movie, I am trying to make everybody a white messiah” (emphasis added). The story is told from the perspective of a white American man experiencing another culture from the outside looking in. Write what you know, indeed. In this sense, it might be easiest to judge Cameron’s work similar to Kendrick Lamar’s Auntie Diaries, a clearly pro-trans song in which he nevertheless deadnames and misgenders his trans uncle, and raps the either cringy or authentic refrain “my auntie is a man now.” The song has surely made a positive impact on many listeners, but that doesn’t mean trans people have to like it. In this view, it’s easy to see why many native people would see these films as insulting or tired (particularly coming from James if only the Lakota Sioux had fought harder they wouldn’t now have a dead-end society Cameron), as just a white guy borrowing vague aspects of native cultures that he likes without ultimately respecting those groups. I wouldn’t blame anyone for not being impressed with what could be seen as baby steps in terms of depictions of indigeneity, and who instead favor Indigenous-led media like Reservation Dogs or Rutherford Falls or Dark Winds. But I also wouldn’t take away from those who may feel represented in a very important way, and the very real impact these films may have when they, through their story’s design, make the audience root for the native population to kill their colonizers. When they take that white savior and have him run his head into a brick wall over and over until he realizes that he should have listened to the natives from the start.

To end this on a lighter note, I just want to throw this out there real quick: if you hated the first movie as soon as they said the resource they were seeking on Pandora was called unobtainium, you’re dumb and I hate you. Rationally, I know that it’s no big deal and different things do and do not challenge someone’s suspension of disbelief, but also, no fucking way man, that was totally fine.

Aside from the fact that unobtainium is an actual purposefully tongue-in-cheek term used in engineering for any impossible material or something close enough to it (not that I knew that when I first watched Avatar, it didn’t come off as cheesy to me either way), get this nerds: it’s a simple and effective MacGuffin that doesn’t need any more time spent on it than it gets! That’s why they do basically the same thing in this movie, introducing as an aside a golden goo the humans are harvesting from the whale-like creatures for its ability to stop human aging. This happens about three quarters into the film and it never comes up again. That’s not an oversight, this stuff just doesn’t matter! It’s not the point of the story. The humans could be extracting anything, no reasoning or amount of value is supposed to excuse their decisions. You gotta know what the actual story is when you’re watching a movie. What actually matters versus what is just a simple narrative tool. The hunting scene preceding the golden goo exposition is the one that matters, that’s the one that repulsed me into my seat, that’s what actually drives home the primary themes. The golden goo, like unobtainium, is a given. It’s necessary for the plot, but its actual details are inconsequential. Focus on what matters folks!