James Cameron’s Avatar 2 has been in some form of development for more than a decade. For most of that time we were simply waiting for that movie to be written. But even once that was done and the movie began filming, we’ve continued to wait, as the movie has seen delay after delay. It’s still coming, and we’ve still never seen a real shot of the finished product. However, we have continued to get hints at what this new film will look like, and it does look impressive.
There are a couple of things that we know about Avatar 2. One is that the sequel, and the rest of the franchise, will focus largely on the children of the first film's Jake and Neytiri. The other is that the next movie will take place largely in the waters of the planet Pandora, and EW has a new concept art image showing what that could look like.
"It's kind of crazy." https://t.co/gfGYeeTbnYDecember 15, 2021
The image shows a young member of the Na’vi people holding the head of some sort of sea creature. It looks like a loving embrace, like they’re actually petting the creature. The dinosaur-like animal seems to be quite ok with this. In the background we see two adult Na’vi, who are very likely Jake and Neytiri, on a boat, making this kid one of theirs. And another Na’vi appears to be riding another of the aquatic animals.
While we haven’t been lacking in looks at the Avatar sequels, because of the amount of CGI that’s needed, nothing we’ve seen really looks like the movie. We’ve seen a few concept art images like this before that show off the waters of Pandora. Most of those have looked like simple landscapes, designed to give the filmmakers an idea of how the world as a whole will appear. This one has a lot more going on in it and looks like it could be a shot from an actual scene in the movie.
Of course, without context, we still don’t really know what we’ve even looking at here. We can imagine seeing this shot in its full James Cameron CGI glory. It will probably look amazing, but what it all means is still a mystery.
Avatar 2 is set to open in just about one year. Assuming there are no more global pandemics or any other reason to shut down theaters, one hopes that there will be no reason for further delays and the long wait will finally be over. Had it not been for the pandemic Avatar 2 was actually set to open this Friday. That makes the movie closer to being real than it’s ever been before. If it finally does happen next December, we’ll probably get our first real look at the movie next summer when the first trailer hits.
