With “Avatar” poised to temporarily re-conquer cinemas when it gets re-released into theaters on August 27th, director James Cameron is once again talking about the film, the novel and its potential sequels.
Speaking with MTV, he has revealed what fans can expect from the forthcoming extended theatrical edition of the film, which adds nine more minutes to the already lengthy film. Among the sequences added back into the film is the death of Tsu’tey, which occurs off camera in the original cut of the film. “There’s a pretty powerful emotional scene at the end which is Tsu’tey’s death… which happens off-camera in the original release. [In the original film] he kind of falls off the back of the shuttle and that’s the last that you see of him, but here we follow through. We have this emotional scene with Jake [Sully] and Neytiri and some other Na’vi that gather around him in the forest,” Cameron said.
Also added, is a hunting sequence with a new creature called the Sturmbeest: “There’s a big scene we called the Sturmbeest hunt,” Cameron said. “The Sturmbeest is an animal that basically will be new to audiences because all of the Sturmbeest stuff got cut out. Once I took out the hunt, I took out the scene where I establish it [and] I took out the moment where it appears in the final battle. All that stuff’s now been reinstated so there’s gonna be a lot of Sturmbeest in your diet.”
And to round out what sounds like a very action heavy set of scenes added into the film, audiences will also get to see the Na’vi attack on the bulldozers after they raze the willow glade: “We’ve got a scene where the Na’vi attack the bulldozers after the scene where they’ve mowed down the willow glade,” Cameron said. “It’s kind of [an] action scene plus the aftermath with the human troopers finding the bodies of their friends. It’s sort of like the stepping stone of the escalation to war. We sort of jump over all of that in the [original] film. [Human leaders Colonel Miles Quaritch] and [Parker] Selfridge just say, ‘OK, all right, let’s go take ’em out.’ But this sort of shows that there are steps in the process.”
But all this is just a drop in the water of “Avatar”-related stuff that is on the way. Sequel talk has been surrounding the film ever since it hit theaters, but Cameron has been adamant about knocking out a prequel novel first, and it seems he’s sticking to that plan. While “Avatar” sequels are definitely in the works, the director wants to get the book out of the way first, telling MTV: “‘Avatar 2’… we’re still working on deals. We don’t start the movie until we get the deals worked out….But really, what I’m working on primarily is the novel.” He continued, “I never had a chance to get the novel done while we were making the movie, and I always intended to. I didn’t want to do a cheesy novelization, where some hack comes in and kind of makes s–t up. I wanted to do something that was a legitimate novel that was inside the characters’ heads and didn’t have the wrong culture stuff, the wrong language stuff, all that.”
While dates and time-frames for what are sure to be blockbuster sequels are still being ironed out, Cameron hasn’t ruled out shooting the two follow-up films back-to-back: “We’re actually talking about that. That’s not a decision yet,” he said. “That is something that makes a lot of sense, given the nature of these productions, because we can bank all the [motion] capture and then go back and do cameras over a period of time.”
So what will these sequels include? While details are scarce and Cameron is probably still putting it together, earlier this year he revealed that “Avatar 2” would explore Pandora’s oceans while the third film will expand into the universe further, telling the LA Times, “We created a broad canvas for the environment of film. That’s not just on Pandora, but throughout the Alpha Centauri AB system. And we expand out across that system and incorporate more into the story – not necessarily in the second film, but more toward a third film. I’ve already announced this, so I might as well say it: Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment – a different setting within Pandora. And I’m going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora, which will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative, but it just won’t be a rain forest. I’m not saying we won’t see what we’ve already seen; we’ll see more of that as well.”
And if all that isn’t enough to float your boat, more crappy “Avatar” merchandise is set to hit stores this fall and basically, James Cameron is gonna keeping adding to his bank account thanks to the the film that has already netted him an estimated $350 million dollars.
Gosh, if only Tobias Funke realized just how rich he could have gotten if he just blue himself a little bit better.
