In this issue: Avatar: The Way of Water (2022, 192 minutes, in every and all movie theaters) NO SPOILERS!
I saw Avatar: The Way of Water on New Year’s Day with a large group of friends that somehow did not leave when the audio track cut out 30 minutes in and the theater started the movie from the beginning, resulting in a 3.5 hour total runtime.
Whether The Way of Water is a good movie is largely irrelevant to me. It is exactly what it promised to be: a three-hour blue event with an obscene end credits song and some truly questionable racial and gender politics. I can’t get bogged down in the good or bad of The Way of Water for the same reason I don’t go to restaurants I dislike and order food I hate. You don’t go to an amusement park and say, “this place would be better if not for all the rides.” You either agree to ride the roller coaster or you stay at home.
James Cameron’s interest in the reliable beats of an epic—accelerated with unusual visual spectacle—is not one I necessarily share but it’s one I understand, and one that lends itself well to defyingly large box office hits. Old JC has promised to make more Avatar sequels and since this one is proving to be an undeniable financial success, I think we can count on seeing the Na’vi again on the big screen.
Way of Water introduced us to oceanic Na’vi, which of course forces us to ask who else we might see on Pandora in subsequent chapters. How many unique biomes and their corresponding lifeforms can we expect? How can we ensure that Avatar is the world-conquering franchise Cameron has threatened us with? Here are some new subspecies of Na’vi that would challenge the established Avatar universe for Cameron to consider:
Mushroom Na’vi (miniature)
The first Avatar came out the same year as the Slenderman meme and I find the tall, thin forms of both humanoids deeply unsettling. There is something uncomfortably fetishistic about the Na’vi, with their plug-in braid and a camera that seems trained to zoom in on the swaying tails of the most callipygian tribesmen. A cuter, table-size version might de-eroticize the Na’vi and make the franchise more child-friendly, without sacrificing the violent, hour-long denouement that somehow doesn’t disqualify the movie from a PG-13 rating.
Mushroom Na’vi would offer not just an avenue for new stories (perhaps these miniature Na’vi can crawl into enemy territory through mouseholes and dismantle their weapons of mass destruction) but also for lucrative toy merchandising. Give the Na’vi the Tiny Toons, the Master Chef Junior, the Young Sheldon treatment that has proved so financially successful and we can guarantee multimedia Avatar programming for the next five decades. “Isn’t this just a Smurf?” You might be asking. No!
Spider Na’vi (disgusting)
Becoming Na’vi, as Jake Sully did, appears to have no downsides. Though I have personal disgust for the Na’vi’s appearance, it’s undeniable that they are meant to be appealing with their trim lines and expressive feline features. They’re also enviously unbothered by the challenges of an outdoor lifestyle. There’s no scene where a Na’vi’s face swells with mosquito bites or they get salt rash from a water-logged garment (all experiences I had on my last tropical vacation).
The evolution of the intelligent human brain has given us tools, language, and art. It’s also given us massive skulls that complicate childbirth, a plethora of possible mental illness, and email inboxes. Nothing is free, and you can’t have it all. What if every Na’vi ability didn’t have to pass through a beauty filter? Spider Na’vi, rendered horribly with clusters of beady eyes and multiple limbs, would upset this balance and challenge the power fantasy offered by the body-swapping avatar technology. These Spider Na’vi might be skilled hunter that spin beautiful webs thanks to gooey abdomens and grotesque fangs. Perhaps we see the Sullys live among a tribe of people they find physically repellant and even frightening; perhaps the military gets their hands on a Spider Na’vi avatar. For every gift Cameron has given his blue creations, here is an accompanying horror.
Volcano Na’vi (infernal)
The pan-tribal, circle-of-life ethos of the Na’vi is one of the most central components of the franchise, as well as one of its most racist and unsophisticated elements. The calling card for the series is its most limiting: the Na’vi are presented as in constant, idyllic balance with the world, while Earth’s humans are a uniquely all-devouring invader. Cameron’s vision strikes me as fundamentally innocent and even cloying. It’s an Obama-Era story of hope and change unsuited for our modern nihilism.
What if that naïve world view of nature in perfect, peaceful harmony was challenged? I am reminded of how natural wildfires, while they might appear chaotic, actually serve an essential ecologic purpose. I propose a fire-breathing nation of red Na’vi who live by a volcano, the most destructive natural wonder. Maybe they collect gold to brighten their dim caves, or forge armor to protect themselves from their harsh climate, and the struggle for resources results in hierarchies and social conflict.
The Na’vi are closer to earth, but which earth? A planet isn’t just lush hills and floating islands; it’s also maggot-ridden cadavers and plague and mothers that eat their young. Let me see a world where societal friction and the brutal struggle to survive are secondary, inevitable antagonists. Where the pressure of true grief and endless entropy are felt all the more keenly amid endless natural beauty. Where there was never a perfect, untouched world to yearn for.