Avatar: The Way of Water returns to Pandora after 13 years, meaning there are plenty of new characters for the audience to meet. Among these new characters is Sigourney Weaver's Kiri, a young Na'vi girl who's been adopted by Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña). According to Weaver, to play the younger character and get into the mindset of a teenager, she returned to high school.
Avatar: The Way of Water is set more than a decade after Avatar. At the end of that film, humans were officially launched off of Pandora following a lengthy battle with the native inhabitants. They left behind numerous scars, however, including orphans and abandoned technology. Kiri was born in the aftermath, and she has no biological parents. James Cameron has already justified Avatar: The Way of Water's runtime by saying that the film focuses on emotions and character development more than the first did, and Kiri is a major fixture of the movie.
In an official press conference for Avatar: The Way of Water, Weaver stated that she went back to high school to get back into the mindset of a teenager. “I love that I had the opportunity to play a real adolescent. There’s a big range of who an adolescent is between 12 and 15, and once I saw that I realized I can let Kiri come out—whoever she is—and combine her with who I was at 14," Weaver said. "It gave me so much to work with. And by the time I got there, I just got to enjoy leaving this shell behind and becoming this sometimes-brat.”
The movie brings back a few actors and actresses whose characters appeared to have died by the end of Avatar. Stephen Lang's character returns in Avatar: The Way of Water through the use of futuristic technologies. Basically, he's a human/Na'vi hybrid - known as a Recombinant - that has the memories of the original Colonel Quaritch.
The Avatar sequels are reportedly set to be quite an emotional affair. According to Cameron, his Avatar 4 script got zero notes from executives, and he seemed excited about where the story is headed. Kiri is probably set to play a pretty big role moving forward, as the next generation of Sully children will be carrying the story forward in a big way.
Cameron has also said that the sequels will be cancelled if Avatar: The Way of Water fails. Avatar 3 is pretty much guaranteed, but the films are expensive to make. Should Avatar 2 underperform, there may not be as many as Cameron would like.
Avatar: The Way of Water is now in theaters.
Source: Gizmodo