Avatar: The Way Of Water will easily become one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. The 13-year-old sequel to the original Avatar expands the world of Pandora with new traditions and characters. With a new generational story at its heart, the Avatar sequel gave us a lot of new concepts, ideas, relationships and dynamics to chew on. With over 3 hours long, The Way Of Water properly resolved most of its story in this movie. However, we’ve long known that writer-director James Cameron is planning multiple sequels to his epic franchise. So here are 5 storylines that the Avatar 3 story needs to focus on resolving.
Disclaimer: The following will contain many spoilers about both Avatar and its sequel, Avatar: The Way Of Water.
The Villain Is Still Alive And Will Return
One of the more obvious plot threads left dangling at the end of Avatar: The Way Of Water is of the villain himself. While Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) very obviously died at the end of Avatar, his return in The Way Of Water was genius. Downloading his memories before his death allowed the corporation occupying Pandora to implant those memories in a new Na’avi Avatar.
So the Colonel Quaritch that returns in The Way Of Water is a Na’avi clone of the one from the first film. However, the climax of The Way Of Water sees him go head to head with Jake (Sam Worthington) in an intense hand-to-hand brawl, as a massive ship explodes and capsizes all around them. As Jake wins the fight, he leaves an unconscious Quaritch to drown in the water.
In the final moments, Spider (Jack Champion) is unable to help himself and ends up saving Quaritch by bringing him to shore. So at the end of The Way Of Water, Quaritch is very much alive, and will obviously return in the Avatar 3 story. No doubt to wreak havoc for Jake and the Sullys all over again.
Spider And His Daddy Issues
And speaking of Quaritch, his (apparently) own son saves him. But even though Spider saves him, he ultimately still chooses the Sully family, instead of riding off with his own biological father. And while it might feel like that’s the end of his story, I think there’s a lot more to explore here. Throughout Avatar: The Way Of Water, we see Spider constantly struggle to do the right thing. And while by the end, he consistently is on the side of good, he’s seen and knows things that might fester within him later on.
The movie makes a point early on to make sure that Spider sees footage of Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) killing the original Quaritch. Later on in the climax, Spider is hiding from her during her angry attack on Quaritch’s squad. Things come to a head when Neytiri threatens Spider to try to free Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) from Quaritch’s clutches. In the last scene, we see Jake embrace Spider for saving his family, and seemingly accept him as his adopted son, after the passing of his own with the words “a son for a son”. The same phrase Neytiri used when threatening Spider, meaning to kill Quaritch’s son, since his actions killed her own. But Jakes uses it in a different context altogether, implying acceptance, over revenge.
I wonder how much of these issues will factor into Spider’s decisions and story arc going forward. Will Neytiri resent Spider, even more, when she learns that he saved Quaritch? Will Spider’s soft spot for his dad cause him to ultimately betray the Sullys? I’m very curious to see where his story goes in the Avatar 3 plot.
Will The Avatar 3 Story Reveal Spider’s Mom?
In Avatar: The Way Of Water, it seems that Spider’s lineage isn’t a secret to anyone. Everyone knows he’s Quaritch’s kid. Even Quaritch himself. When realizing who Spider is, he mentions that he thought he would’ve been back on Earth after his predecessor’s death. Revealing that Spider, or Miles, was around during the events of the first Avatar movie, but audiences just didn’t know about him.
But this begs the question: where is Spider’s mom? More so than who his mom is, which doesn’t feel as important unless it’s someone we know. Which seems even less likely. Because, if his mom was alive, then why wasn’t she on Pandora with him? And it seems just as unlikely that she would be among the humans that left Pandora after the first movie, abandoning her infant child on a hostile planet. So hopefully the Avatar 3 story will give us some more insight into this whole thing.
What The Heck Is Going On With Kiri?
One of the major storylines intentionally not resolved, so as to explore further in the Avatar 3 story, is that of Kiri. Throughout Avatar: The Way Of Water, Kiri is different from everyone else. More thoughtful, troubled, in tune with nature and just generally standing apart from the other Sully kids.
This could be because of how she was born. The sequel reveals that Grace’s Avatar from the first film was inexplicably pregnant, giving birth to Kiri. Without knowing how or who her father is, Kiri spends most of the time sad and conflicted. However, when they reach the water tribe, it seems that Kiri is able to influence or control the world around her. She seemingly has a strong connection to Eywa and the other beings of Pandora.
While nothing was resolved at the end of The Way Of Water, I’m sure we’ll get a lot more information about Kiri’s powers in the Avatar 3 story.
Avatar 3 Story About Immortality Or Fountain Of Youth?
Another plot line of Avatar: The Way Of Water that the movie very much glosses over is the discovery of new-fangled immortality juice. During the whaling scene, we see a bunch of no-good bad guys hunting the whale of the Pandora world.
The Tulkuns are supposedly much smarter than humans, and even have the ability to communicate with the Na’avi. But when poachers find and kill one of them, we find out why they are also a precious commodity for the humans. Apparently, the Tulkun have fluid within them that is able to stop human aging. The poachers explain this is why they hunt them, as this fluid is highly sought after going for millions on Earth. Given that this fluid might coulld potentially be the answer to human immortality, that makes sense.
The information came very quickly and was never addressed again in the 3-hour movie. So I’m hoping that it goes somewhere in the Avatar 3 story, otherwise, it feels odd to introduce something so significant, and do nothing with it.
Avatar: The Way Of Water is now in theatres everywhere.
Are there any other plot lines or stories you want to see featured in the Avatar 3 story? Let me know in the comments below.
