Fearless Fantasy; or Review: Avatar The Way of Water

rip herman melville you would have loved Avatar 2

I saw Avatar: The Way of Water today. It’s fine. I know The Last Psychiatrist always says “if you’re reading it, it’s for you”, meaning that you should always assume your reactions to art are the intended reaction because many forces pushed you to see what you are seeing and you need to take responsibility for your own thoughts. In some sense that’s true here, because I was factored into the profit projections for The Way of Water. But I enjoyed the movie knowing or hoping that it was a movie someone else could connect with more. 

In Avatar, protagonist Jake Sully is a human colonizer to the planet Pandora, a planet humans are stripping for its natural resources. As part of a mission, Jake transformed into a member of the blue alien Navi race via the titular “Avatar” technology, and betrays the colonizers for which he once worked to repel their invasion deep into Pandora’s forest. Years later in The Way of Water, Jake is the leader of a Navi resistance against the continuous force of human colonizers, but he also has a family. The human invaders present grave danger to Jake’s family, so Jake’s family is forced to leave the forests of the first film to flee to the distant water tribes. The Sully family is initially rejected but gradually becomes part of the new Navi tribe. His kids learn the watery world: new friends, new diving techniques, the various animals they commune with. 

Centrally, the water tribe communes with giant migratory whales. These whales are very smart, said to be smarter than humans or Navi. The whales are hunted by humans because their brains contain a substance that can biologically stop human aging. The climactic action of the film occurs during a whale hunt, a hunt which happens to be on a whale to which Jake’s son has bonded. Jake’s entire family is there as the giant sci-fi whaling boat closes in, and some of the kids are kidnapped. With the friendships they’ve made with the water tribe and with the sheer power of the whale, the family destroys the ship and get to safety. But Jake’s oldest son is killed in the combat. This final battle goes for an hour of the three hour runtime, with a huge scale. The ship rotates throughout the battle and you can tell James Cameron put intense thought into how the many fight scenes are ordered as the ship goes down, but the pacing is bizarre. The film as a whole is paced like a YA book, with initial conflict, then time for the kids to learn and grow in a new environment, before the threat returns and they must use what they’ve learned to overcome it. 

A whale destroying a massive boat rendered as a James Cameron setpiece is beautiful, but The Way of Water does not reach the heights of Moby-Dick. I don’t want to be mean because some of the images in this film were striking. I liked when Jake’s son swims into the open mouth of a whale and bonds with the whale inside of its body. I liked how the Navi race has blue dots on their faces that bioluminesce at night like stars. The idea that the inhabitants of Pandora have special extrasensory biological connections and can USB together their nervous systems is creative. The underwater exploration scenes were sometimes pretty, although it sometimes felt like I was at a Disney World 3D fun show. I don’t care about technology used to produce art but I assume they used very modern special effects because I’ve never seen water rendered this beautifully on film before. 

But, my reading is that James Cameron’s ocean tale is not based on his personal ecological vision, but rather his goal to put on the screen a film that’s difficult and technologically intensive to make. The choice to make something difficult and unique led to the watery lush Pandora we see on screen, it wasn’t a watery lush world that came from his ecological vision that then forced him to make such a difficult and technologically intensive film. I found the ecological perspective in the film a bit shallow, to use a water word. I personally wasn’t able to get carried into the world of The Way of Water, in a way that would make me love this movie.

What made me like The Way of Water was that I felt like a child could be carried into this world. It’s about as deep as a Marvel movie, but I think the fantasy was much more compelling to a younger audience. Years ago when the finale aired, I wrote a Medium piece where I was critical of Game of Thrones for shying away from its place as fantasy. Game of Thrones is a successful political drama in the first few seasons, with a fantasy background, and it goes off the rails at the end because it could not resolve its fantasy background of dragons and ice zombies with the same austerity as its earlier political heights. And to make it worse, it rushed the ending because the directors didn’t care about the fantasy parts enough to do them well. 

Game of Thrones, at least the books written by George R.R. Martin, fears its own fantasy because it lives in the shadow of Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings is the ultimate fearless fantasy, the base fantasy which so many fantasies follow, made into the best fantasy films of all time. It had the benefit of working with completed books that have been beloved for fifty years, and those books are also not caught up in anxieties of influence. 

Game of Thrones tries to refute that world by saying you can’t only care about the fantastical parts of fantasy, those are simplistic and too morally black and white compared to the real world. That is fine, and leads to the powerful political dynamics of early Game of Thrones. I don’t think Game of Thrones is a failure. Attempting to refute fantasy is important artistic work, Don Quixote is an incredibly well-done fantasy that examines what it means to be fantasy. But a fantasy has to push against the fantasy genre for the right reasons. 

Marvel is fantasy that rejects its place as fantasy for the wrong reasons. Kids are not compelled by Marvel movies, or at least I’ve never met one who is. Marvel is made for adults who want to read listicles about the easter egg references they missed or want to watch a new movie in theaters where they already know some of the characters. Marvel has none of the traditional superhero elements that appealed to comic books’ initial audience of kids looking for a fantasy: heroes with secret identities that they must keep secrets, superheroes finding a sense of personal power and dignity through the fictional magical deeds they accomplish. Adults don’t care about those things, and Marvel hides behind trope avoidance and quip humor so adults don’t realize that what they’re watching is a fantasy for kids with the soul taken out. Marvel retreated to the original Spider-Man movies, with Tobey Maguire, for Spider-Man: No Way Home, because those original movies were fantasies, and they could milk them for something to sell to viewers. Marvel is fearful fantasy. Kids can feel the lack of soul, and they don’t care about the fantasy. And I think it’s sad, to have such a high budget and culturally central fantasy that discounts the viewers who would get something out of fantasy.

The Way of Water is fantasy that wants to be fantasy. It loves its world, it cares about the spectacle, it never breaks the fourth wall with quips. It’s written like a YA novel. James Cameron doesn’t care a little bit about “tropes”; characters escape danger at the last second, slaughter enemies armed with machine guns while they wield spears and bows. The central ecological conflict between colonizer and colonized has been done so many times, but he doesn’t care. In fantasy, tropes are valid, because viewers fantasize the same things. It reminds me of the Star Wars prequels in its own unabashed love for its world, and how it focuses on expanding that world for children’s imagination. Whatever you say about Star Wars prequels, it gave children the ability to imagine themselves as a member of an elite laser-sword wielding monk space order. That element was somewhat in the originals, but George Lucas was left loose to expand in the prequels. The Way of Water has a similarly toned world that I think a kid could relate to, imagining the various Navi tribes, connecting with the animals. I find it sweet that both James Cameron and George Lucas used their immense positions of cultural power to make fearless fantasy movies targeted at children in a way that big studios often fear. 

One cute way that I think The Way of Water is relatable to children is Jake’s family. The four children all have distinct personalities, different skills, again like a YA novel. Neteyam, the oldest son, looks out for his siblings and is a strong warrior. Lo’ak is the second son,  more rebellious and eager to take part in the dangerous war around him. Kiri is not Jake’s biological daughter, she’s an adopted Navi child of Sigourney Weaver’s character in the first Avatar, which isn’t fully explained in the film. She has seizures and prophetic visions and deeply connects with the magical biology of Pandora, which will clearly be more important in sequels. Tuk is the youngest daughter, just eight years old, and she’s playful and innocent and gets into trouble, so her siblings help her. Kids relate to and feel empowered by seeing children on screen, seeing children with different skills, seeing kids help each other. 

One of the biggest strengths and biggest weaknesses of The Way of Water is how much James Cameron loves his characters. The kids are very cute and well-done, to the point where you can care when Jake’s son dies, even though you sometimes forget his name and get him mixed up with his other son. But others are not as strong. The villain from Avatar 1 is back for a central role in Avatar 2, and will be back in the next movie as well, and his entire personality is that he wants to kill Jake Sully. I truly do not understand why James Cameron didn’t try to write a more compelling villain, but he clearly likes this character enough to keep him around. The worst is that Jake Sully is just not that interesting, despite how much the plot wants you to care about him. He’s just a guy, but not in a relatable everyman way, he just has nothing going in any direction. 

Afterwards, I found myself wishing that James Cameron would have ended this film by wiping the slate clean, killing both Jake and the villain from the first movie, leaving himself free to dive deep into the more fantastical world unconnected from 2009 Avatar. But it’s James Cameron’s love for these characters that makes it all work, so I have to respect his vision. The one sad part of the focus on returning characters from the first film is it makes the movie less accessible to new audiences. Kids who weren’t sentient in 2009 when Avatar came out shouldn’t have to watch that movie to get into this fantasy. 

What The Way of Water most reminded me of was Dune. Dune is much better to be clear, and I don’t have to explain why because that would ruin it. The two film’s fantasy worlds are opposites, lush Pandora compared to dry Arrakis. And they’re opposite in their weapon choices, with Dune’s brutal melee sword-based combat versus the blasters and bows quick combat of Avatar. But both are raw and unconstrained fantasies, with central families, interplanetary conflicts. The good guys commune with prophetic magic to overpower enemies they could never beat without it. My hope is that’s where the story goes in its sequels, deeper into the magical biology of Pandora, into an unrestrained James Cameron fantasy world scaled like Dune. Dune was Frank Herbert’s unrestrained fantasy world, but books are easier unconstrained fantasies because you don’t have to pay any VFX artists. My worry is that James Cameron isn’t that brave, that even he isn’t willing to have an out-of-control fantasy for his billion dollar career-defining franchise. But we’ll see what the future holds. 

Fantasy is a difficult genre to discuss. It’s often bogged down in discussion of “the hero’s journey” or autistic discussion about lore or plot continuity. Fantasy is about how it makes viewers feel, it’s visceral, not formulaic. Caring too much about how any fantasy works makes it collapse. Basically, I’m not trying to write a prescriptive guide on how to make good fantasy, just explaining one element that makes your fantasy more compelling, especially to younger audiences. 

I think fearless fantasy is returning. Game of Thrones’ successor show, House of the Dragon, leans into the fantasy much more, marveling at its massive dragons, memorable characters like eyepatched bleach-blonde prince Aemond growing into more-than-human figures. Top Gun: Maverick has no magic, and it’s a very goofy movie, but it’s a fearless fantasy about America. I remain optimistic about the future, and The Way of Water is a positive direction and a movie that I hope kids will like. At the very worst, even if kids hate it because the aliens are blue and weird, hopefully James Cameron is left unrestrained and we get to see his excessive vision of Pandora however he wants it.