Thirteen years following “Avatar”, which approached three billion euros in revenue, “Avatar 2: the way of the water” takes the path of the star Pandora. If the lush jungle images have given way to a stunning marine archipelago, the message of James Cameron’s film remains the same.
The plot takes place a decade following the events of the first film and we find some of the protagonists there. Former Marine Jake Sully became fully Na’vi, the indigenous blue species, and with his companion Neytiri they started a large family, living in harmony with the forest. As for the human villains, they are also back aboard a ship lined with war robots, to seize the precious resources of Pandora. Hunted, Jake Sully takes refuge with his relatives with another tribe, adapted to marine life, and led by Ronal (played by Kate Winslet).
This new “Avatar” is no longer burdened with the Na’vi dialect, largely evacuated in favor of English, nor connections to integrate the body of the Na’vi: exit the “avatars” therefore, only humans now coexist, the Na’vis and their hybrids. And the questions that come with: how to coexist together?
>> To see: the trailer of the film
Colossal technical resources
Like the first opus, the strength of this film lies in the realism of the digital images. The sets, the richness of the universes and the precision of the images, everything is extremely detailed in James Cameron’s universe and the boundary between “real” images and those created by computer remains very tenuous. The American filmmaker reused the “motion capture” technique; the actors are filmed once morest a neutral background and their movements and expressions are digitally transcribed. The novelty this time consists in the fact that many scenes were shot in apnea and a giant swimming pool was built for the occasion.
Director James Cameron on the set of the film “Avatar: the way of the water”. [20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved]
James Cameron may be crazy regarding digital and special effects, for the king of the box office it is the “artistic talent” that makes the difference. The production of this film required colossal technical means. “I’m a sort of central filter for everything, but I have many artists working for me, drawing the characters, the architecture, the world, the plants, the costumes…”, summarizes the director in an interview with the app. “The heart, the emotion, the creativity… All of this happens first”, during the filming of the “real” scenes. “It is only then that the technical work begins”, he develops.
First impressions
Thomas Gerber and Aimée Papageorgiou are unanimous: the result is breathtaking and this new marine world is “staggeringly beautiful”. The opinions of the two film critics on behalf of the RTS differ on the other hand on the plot. For Thomas Gerber, there is a real plot, James Cameron knows exactly where he is going with his story of exodus. While for Aimée Papageorgiou, the director used the same ingredients as in the first opus, namely the criticism of American hegemony and the vanity of the human species. In the cinema debate of the show “Vertigo”, she raises two things that marked her in “Avatar 2: the way of the water”: a villain still as abominable and a whale hunt that particularly marked her touched.
>> See also the topic broadcast at 7:30 p.m.
A saga in five episodes
Shot in 3D, “Avatar 2: The Way of the Water” cost over $400 million. A cost attributable to the technical prowess but especially to the marketing of Disney. The Hollywood studio wanted the film to be broadcast in 2D, 3D and 4DX (armchairs with movements and sensory effects) in all rooms, explains to RTS Chloé Delaporte, lecturer in socioeconomics of cinema at the University of Montpellier.
>> To listen: the radio subject of Virginie Langerock broadcast in the Morning
To remain profitable, the film must exceed two billion in revenue. But it must be admitted that even with a drop in attendance at dark rooms, the risk is limited. So far, all of James Cameron’s films have proven to be extremely profitable. With its 2.2 billion dollars in revenue, “Titanic” has long been the most profitable film in the history of cinema, before “Avatar”.
James Cameron has also planned everything: the images of the third part of the saga have already been shot and the script for the 4th Avatar has already been written. Its goal is to release an Avatar every two years at least until the fifth, in 2028.
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“Avatar 2: The Way of the Water” by James Cameron, with Kate Winslet, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Yeoh, Oona Chaplin, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, Edie Falco
