«I present to you the boys of Avatar 2. There is the point of view of teenagers»- Corriere.it

The watchword, in the second long-awaited chapter of Avatars, the saga that has shattered all records, is to amaze. We are in the liquid, submarine epic. “For the first time ever, the actors are performing underwater, never done before,” says visionary King Midas director James Cameron. Thirteen years later, Jake and Neytiri, with the face of Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana (in the meantime become a global star), have started a family, have five children, two are adopted. Sam: «If in the first one Avatars discovering love I opened my eyes to the world, now I have to protect love». Zoe: «Neytiri looks like me, she is a rebel. But when she becomes a mother, as I have become, she lives in fear ». The two adoptees are a human boy and a Na’vi orphan girl played with the computer graphics by Sigourney Weaver, 73 (the actress bends over backwards, is also the scientist and her avatar). Mixed race, uprooted children, a theme of identity and therefore current. “Here is also the perspective of teenagers, their point of view, the desire to be heard,” says the director. Kate Winslet as a warrior, new entry, returns to Cameron’s magic circle after Titanic: «It’s not a performance, it’s a world that James creates, a universe created from nothing. He has always created strong, powerful female figures».

The water way goes out on December 14, distributed by Disney. It is the second of five chapters: «It wasn’t obvious, Spielberg didn’t make the sequel to ET, you have to respect what the audience loved and surprise them at the same time,” says Cameron. The hope is to surpass himself, in the stronghold of a family story that puts itself more at the service of the characters and characters, while the first was a more personal journey of the marine in the body of an Avatar. In 2009, Avatar was the biggest hit of all time, over 2 billion and 800 thousand dollars, and 3 Academy Awards. Cameron returns to the abyss of the sea, literally plunging his actors into the water. No tanks, free diving exercises. Weaver in the meeting on zoom talk like a soldier about training and diving techniques. Cameron rides the new technological frontiers: «I tried to make tests with the green screen simulating that they were in the water but they didn’t work, it wasn’t credible to use the computer. For the underwater scenes we had a tank with two million liters of water». There are the new creatures of Pandora, and the ocean that opens up before the eyes with all the hyper-realistic paraphernalia possible (but the media could not see the entire film).

What does it tell? Jake and Neytiri have to leave their rainforest home. Here they are fleeing to the territory of the Metkayina clan, led by Kate Winslet. They live in harmony surrounded by the ocean, Jake in that distant atoll learns to ride dangerous waves but the real threat still comes from humans, “this time not to exploit Pandora’s mineral resources but to colonize it, creating a new home for the Earth which is on the precipice of uninhabitability. Stephen Lang, the head of security who despises Pandora: «Before I was a brainless shark, now there is irony in my character». «The heroes of fantasy blockbusters seem to have an allergy to relationships. So I thought I’d tell a familiar story within a war, the one that Jake and Neytiri have to fight and give them values ​​in the meantime». The family as a biological and belonging community, with the problems of adolescents who feel like outsiders, children of a human father and a Na’vi mother, in search of their identity, while their parents try to protect them.

With 3D glasses we will be all underwater in the sci-fi environmental fable inhabited by three-metre-tall blue heroes, half human and half feline, tails, plaited hair, yellow eyes, flat nose. They live in harmony with nature until they come into contact with man’s greed. Machine guns and missiles against arrows and bites. The second chapter lasts 190 minutes, “don’t tell me it’s long if by now the audience sits in front of the TV to watch an entire series”. In «normal» format and in 3D, which seemed to be the future of cinema… «Today it’s an option, it can make a good film better but it can’t make a bad film good», says producer Jon Landau.