The Writers Take #003 Junior Year

A Writer's Take on Avatar 2: Way of the Water

Prelude to the “Take”

Part of The Writers Take is the deep diving into the plot and writing of fan favorite movies and tv shows. I will preface that these takes are not considering the other aspects of production other than the writing. While we might comment on, or give praise to various components of a movie or show, the point of this is to give a clerical no holds bar reflection on the story and writing of the IP in question.

Oh yea, you know this because of my impromptu Spider-man post last week. But alas, I wasn’t going to edit this post down, just up.

With that said, let's dive into AVATAR 2: WAY OF THE WATER.

To ensure no one gets mad, there are obvious spoilers ahead, continue at your own risk! 

Humanity’s back!!!

Avatar 2 is a visual masterpiece there is no denying that, a decade plus of engineering went into some of the most mind blowing CGI ever to exist… but the story has some major flaws I’d like to discuss.

For one, why have we abandoned unobtanium? We spent the entirety of Avatar 1 trying to take down the forest Navi and destroy their holy tree in an attempt to obtain the unobtanium. (PS: I won’t even comment on the naming convention there, but you know…) 
So here we are, a decade or so later, and Jake Sully, the military expert is now a seasoned leader of the Navi with a family of his own. But instead of some new threat, instead of some interesting events, we get a plot that is identical to Avatar 1. The humans are coming back and they want the resources of Pandora. (Yawning). 

Let’s keep moving because I want to spend a few minutes walking you through the plot I would have pitched for Avatar 2. But let’s continue. So Jake Sully is faced with yet another incursion on the Navi, but this time it doesn’t seem like it is for the Unobtanium but just for land, for a bigger, badder, human base. I guess that's cool….. 

And with a bigger base, comes more supplies to steal, again, sure… But hold up, Miles is back because they had his memory downloaded and they uploaded that download into an avatar… let’s not spend too much time on this, because if we do, we’d ask ourselves why they didn’t just reupload and recondition a back up of Jake Sully to fight Jake Sully… I digress. So Jake and his Navi brethren are hijacking shipments of goods to help the rebellion against the Humans who are not after Unobtanitum, but just to colonize Pandora…. Ok, I guess.

So we now have a war at our doorsteps, again but this time that is not the climax but the causation of the story. But, instead of standing and fighting for his people, Jake — you know the only military mastermind on the side of the Navi — decides to go into hiding with his family, to “protect” the Navi from being hunted, because some billions of miles away from earth, the human military has some vendetta against Jake, and are willing to spend trillions of dollars in resources just to hunt him and down and kill him. Because that is what's important, revenge on an alien world. Just another blatant colonialism trope used in Avatar. Shall I stop this review here and give an endless array of examples from the Conquistadors to the Whalers or perhaps even Pocahontas? If you want something a bit more timely we can go with the attempted “saving” of the Afghan people from Alqueda because they needed “saving” AND we needed their oil. Classic. Ok ok, I'll stop, let's continue.

So here we are, Jake and his family on the run, and an avatar militant with the downloaded mind of Miles Quaritch and 4 other squad members are hunting Jake and his family… I know, what the hell am I talking about… downloaded minds, new tech, with no explanation, come on, stay with me, people! ;) 

So somehow, during the battle for Pandora the Metkayina, aka the water Navi, were never called on to defend the lands. Sure we might have heard whispers of them, and they most certainly have heard of Jake, but we never saw them, or realized that there were “X” number of types of Navi on Pandora. Cool new information to learn 4.5 hours into a saga. But I digress. So here we are, Jake is on the run from an uploaded version of Miles which is in a Navi body and Jake and his family find refuge with the Water People, who, until this moment, haven’t seemed to even worry that an alien race (humanity) was terraforming their planet. Wait, did I say they worried, sorry, let me rephrase to make it clear, who still doesn’t even seem to worry that an alien race is terraforming their home world? I guess they don’t understand what will happen to them, once the humans secure the forest… 

Table Stakes and Sigourney’s Ascension

Let’s say we’re about 50 minutes or so into this, the table is set, the stakes are understood, and whether you are with me, or believe its a masterpiece up until this point, we can all agree that the story is set, Jake is on the run, and the water Navi are providing safe harbor for a time, but we all know this is a “catch me if you can” plot between Jake and Miles, which is why it makes so much sense to spend the next hour making the most beautifully designed, breathtaking animation ever and just plop a Nat-Geo water documentary straight in the middle of this film. I truly wouldn’t have expected anything else. But, let’s give credit where credit is due, be it the plot being weak here for “why” the execution of this animation is unlike anything before it and is a truly incredible feat by an unbelievably talented team. Now with that said, let's get to my singular favorite part of this film… yes that was sarcastic. 

So Kiri, one of Jake’s kids, who is played by Sigourney Weaver, is having headaches and seems to be connecting directly with Eywa, which is kinda cool. Oh, yeah, I’m not even going to try to unpack the fact that Sigourney is playing another character in this franchise, that's a whole can of worms I'm staying away from. So here we go, the big moment, Kiri connects directly with Eywa and starts seizing from it, she's dying, I think, maybe, who the hell knows, but she is visibly in distress, I mean I would be too if I connected to a planet's life force without a medium. But nevertheless, she was hurting, and Jake, the master chief military mind that he is, decided to call back to some human scientists who had avatars and have them fly a helicopter when they had dragon birds to his location, even though they couldn’t even actually help, and thus, giving Miles and his team their location to push the story forward in the single most contrived way imaginable. 

Now we spend the remainder of the film watching Miles burn down Water Navi tribes left and right in search of Jake and his family, the decimation that occurs on this sanctioned revenge tirade is a bit over the top, but it gets the point across that no man will go against the human race, and I guess there is some commendable sentiment to that in a multi-planet and species situation, though, this rampage is uncalled for and really not well motivated otherwise. But, we are getting to the best part here, so let's bring this first writer's take-home baby. Whale brains.  

Navi Whale, I wail, we all wail…

Yup, you got it, Whale brains. Whale brains, 2.25+ hours into this 3.15-hour extravaganza we learn that Whale Brain juice is more valuable than Unobtanium and you know what, it is more obtainable. All you have to do is murder a sentient high-functioning creature that the Water Navi relies on, and guess what, you know how the Water Navi didn’t think the human occupation was their problem because it was just on the land? Well guess what, they finally think it’s their problem too. I mean come on, hilarious. But again, I digress, so the big bad epic battle for the life of the whales commences intertwined with Miles' final stand for revenge against Jake and his family and it all crystallizes with… drum roll please, the death of Jake’s delinquent son. Yup, that’s the lesson everyone, no matter how much you try to protect your family, you and your loved ones make idiotic decisions and end up with the death of someone you care about. THAT’s the lesson we all learn. 

But all in all, this film and its output took thousands of minds and hundreds of millions of dollars. It is an incredible feat of cinema and should not be taken lightly. We have the privilege to be so critical because of the hard work and ingenuity of the people who put in the work to share their art with the world  

So there you have it, that is the writer’s take on Avatar 2, the way of the water. And before you say it. Yes, there are a ton of B and C plots that we didn’t cover, like the forsaken Tarzan Esq son that turns out to be, of course, Miles’ and the incomprehensible writing of the water Navi boy’s “Bra’s” every other word. But come on guys I’d be writing these for months on end if I covered each and every little plot point in a 3+ plus train wreck, I mean epic ;) 

Hope you enjoyed this writer’s take, keep a look out as we will have more spread-out writing tips coming up in between the big movie or tv show breakdowns! 

And don’t forget, next week we tackle the giant whale-sized question… why does the brain matter, and goddamnit what happened to Unobtainium… ?

PS: If you really think I am going to do back to back takes on Avatar then you obviously don’t know me very well.

Follow my Twitter for sneak peeks of The Writers Take #3

Stay Curious, and Keep Writing, 

Matthew Medney

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Herø Projects, Gungnir, and other musings…

I wanted to take a moment during our intermission here to shamelessly and directly promote my two companies. Gungnir Entertainment, a genre-focused publishing company with best-selling titles from yours truly hitting shelves nationwide this Fall.  With books focused on classic sci-fi ideas like “What does it mean to be human” and “is the bible right?” “Adventures throughout the stars” are just a few of the prompts for the books you can dive into with Gungnir. Gungnir’s website will launch this summer, and you can stay up to date on the forthcoming titles on my Instagram, @matthewmedney, or at my author page on Simon & Schuster. 

And then there is Herø Projects. The Perennial leader in custom comics and animated services, Herø is a state-of-the-art creative studio that has worked with talents such as Floyd Mayweather, Shaggy, Nghtmre, and brands such as Remi Martin, Live Nation, and Rolling Loud. If Branding through storytelling isn’t your thing you can check out our original titles, the Onyx line with books such as Stable, Remnant, and Best Selling Comic The Red.  To learn more about Herø Projects visit us at heroprojects.io