After thirteen years and countless delays, 20th Century Studios has finally released the Avatar 2 trailer for James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel to 2009s Avatar — the highest-grossing film of all time — which will be released on 16 December 2022. The sequel’s official title, recently revealed at CinemaCon 2022, is ‘Avatar: The Way of Water‘.
When we last saw Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) in the first Avatar, he’d essentially become the Na’vi’s saviour after being adopted into their tribe, forgiven for being a human spy, and finally choosing to stand with the aliens in their struggle against mankind in order to rescue the Na’vi homeworld of Pandora. By transferring his consciousness into the body of his human / Na’vi hybrid avatar. Jake was able to establish a new life on Pandora with his mate Neytiri (Zoe Saldana).
You can check out the Avatar 2 trailer below:
While Jake and Neytiri appear in the Avatar 2 trailer, it’s not just the two of them this time. Jake and Neytiri have had children between the first film and The Way of Water, and there are several scenes in the trailer that emphasize how the growth of Na’vi families will be essential to the story. Aside from a Na’vi infant, the trailer shows Jake and Neytiri caring for a supposedly human child who needs to wear a special mask to survive on the planet, whose atmosphere is toxic to humans.
The presence of the human child raises some questions regarding how Earth reacted to the Na’vi preventing its attempt to steal Pandora’s precious Unobtanium, but the implication is that humanity couldn’t be deterred in the end. Because along with new glimpses of Pandora’s coastal Metkayina reefs, the trailer features shots of Na’vi dressed in human-like military gear and wielding guns, implying that humans have only increased their use of avatars as weapons of war.
Although the premise of The Way of Water is unclear based on the trailer alone, all of the necessary elements for a story about the Na’vi being once again forced to defend their civilization from resource-hungry invaders are present. A simple premise might not be enough to get audiences to cinemas with any other franchise, but with all the buzz surrounding Avatar: The Way of Water ahead of its release, it just might.
Avatar: The Way of Water will hit cinemas on 16 December 2022. Cameron originally stated that he hoped to release the film in 2014, but it has since been pushed back several times to its current release date later this year. Production was completed in 2020, just in time for the release of ‘Avatar 3’ in 2024.
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