After 13 years of unrest, the world-famous film "Avatar: Way of Water" has finally landed in mainland China this week.
For the 2009 "Avatar", a movie that once brought epoch-making visual effects to global audiences, even promoted the development of IMAX and 3D technology in mainland China alone, people's expectations for its sequel are naturally not to say much.
Although more than ten years have passed, the tastes of a generation of viewers have changed, and people have different concerns about this sequel; but it is undeniable that while continuing and even innovating the first stunning visual effects, this sequel still provides rich details for its story.
. Here, let’s take a look at the various details of the movie. The content will involve some plot spoilers.
01 Iconic eye-opening lens
I believe many viewers can feel that "Avatar: Way of Water" not only tells a new story on the planet Pandora, but also pays tribute and even replicates of the first "Avatar" in various senses.
The most obvious one is that at the end of the film, Jack Sally and Netily came to the soul tree of the Ocean Tribe to establish a connection, and saw the image of the eldest son Netiya; under a rotating shot, the picture moved closer to Jack Sally with his eyes closed and then freezes. His eyes suddenly opened, the movie title was released, and the end of the drama - this is exactly how the previous work "Avatar" ended.
At the beginning, this imaginative and charming ending shot shocked countless viewers. Now it is the same ending of the shot, which is indeed intriguing. I believe this shot will also become the way to end every subsequent "Avatar" movie, becoming the iconic "last shot" of this series.
02 Parallel Character Perspective
As mentioned above, there are many places in this film paying tribute to the previous work, and even the relationship between the characters corresponds.
After the Salli family came to the ethnic territory of the marine tribe Metcana, the children of the Salli family were not accepted by the locals because of their mixed human and Navi people, but Tiria, the daughter of the Metcana leader, accepted the second son of the Salli family, Loak.
Not only did she teach him to be familiar with the life of the ocean and the skills of the locals, but she also gradually developed feelings for him in the process and developed feelings for Loak. The handling of this plot in
is obviously in line with the relationship between Jack Sally, who was also not accepted by the Neville people in the first part, and Netilly, who taught her how Neville lives. This experience, which is parallel to "parental love", has also become an important growth arc for Loak, one of the important characters in this film.
03 Mirror Character Perspective
This corresponding character shaping method that corresponds to the first part is not only applicable to Jack Sally's son, but also to Jack Sally himself and his old enemy Colonel Quarridge - but the way they write is to mirror each other. In other words, they all "live to what they hate" to a certain extent:
For example, in your own home, Jack Sally also keeps guns and bullets away, and also has military-based strict management of their children, even children They all want to call him the commander, which is exactly the same as Quarlic in the first part;
This one who became an Avatar not only learned from Jack Sally to become a Neville Knight, but also showed a rare tenderness to his son, just like Jack Sally in this film - so no matter what the story of this film evaluates, it is hard to deny that for this script that has been revised several times over the years, Cameron has indeed put in the effort to polish the characters.
04 Lens language and English meme
As we all know, Cameron is famous for having high requirements for actors. He has been in Hollywood for many years and naturally knows the importance of combining actor performance and camera scheduling.
"Avatar: Way of Water" has some notable shot details, which can be seen: for example, when Jack Sally stated the key points to the Metcan tribe and said that the Skyman would kill all the people they love, the pregnant leader's wife subconsciously touched her belly.
In addition, this film also has some English memes worth mentioning. After understanding something, the camera language will become more intuitive - for example, when the Sally family first came to the Metcan tribe, they were like new-born foreigners, and they had to re-understand everything here, and even learn to swim.
The producer of this film, Jon Landau, has a more accurate statement: the Sally family "is like a fish that leaves the water (fish out of water, roughly meaning 'non-familiar newbie')", but it's interesting that for the Sally family, they need to enter the water to truly become familiar with the world.
In addition, after Nethia followed the advice of his younger brother Loak to save people but unfortunately died, Loak, who put down his brother's body, was covered in blood. Here he even gave a special shot - this is an intuitive manifestation of "blood on one's hands" in English, highlighting Loak's guilt at this time that he owes his brother a life.
05 "Spider" actor story
focuses on the children of Jack Sally and Netily. This film introduces many new characters, and among them, Miles, the son of Quarridge who grew up on the planet Pandora, also known as "Spider", is one of the most important new characters in the film.
is forced to enter the planet Pandora as the guide of Quaric Avatar troops. Spider has become one of the characters who thread the story and also carries a certain emotional center of gravity. Therefore, it is not easy to play this role well.
For the role of Spider, director James Cameron assigned 18-year-old actor Jack Shanpiyong to star in the role. Shang Piyong, who debuted at the age of 9, is down-to-earth and willing to work hard, and has worked hard in the film and television industry for many years. He has played all kinds of supporting roles, and is finally attracted by Bole Cameron.
It has been confirmed that he will continue to star in three sequels after "Avatar: Way of Water", and his fate with Avatar will continue until 2026.
Moreover, I believe many movie fans already think he is familiar with him, because this is not the first time Shang Piyong has appeared in a multi-billion-level super blockbuster - as early as "Avengers 4: Endgame", he played a cameo role as a little boy riding a bicycle, without lines, but it is enough to impress Ant-Man with a confused look.
06 Foreshadowing of the follow-up story
Although the narrative rhythm of "Avatar: Way of Water" is very compact, as a story dominated by group portraits, it still successfully gave several main characters a relatively complete character arc, and an ending as appropriate as possible for each character.
Of course, there are still some characters whose questions have not been answered, and these questions are not indecisive, but many foreshadowings laid for the sequels "Avatar 3" and even " Avatar 4" and "5".
For example, at the beginning of the movie, it began to bother the audience and some characters in the play: Who is Qili's father? This question was not answered until the end of the movie, only a few hints given by Spider and Loak. Obviously, Qili's life experience will be revealed in subsequent movies.
In addition, after witnessing Netilly killing the Sky people with hatred and coercing Quaritch by her as a hostage, his sense of belonging to the Jack family has disappeared, which has also become the reason why he saved Quaritch.
But in the end, he returned to the Jack family, but the grudge in his heart obviously would not disappear. What consequences will this thorn grow in the heart cause and will also be displayed in future sequels. I believe that the spider will also gain a good arc of character.
In short, in addition to the extremely outstanding visual effects, "Avatar: Way of Water" still successfully tells a story of affectionate and moving, logically self-consistent , and its philosophy can travel through countries and races.
Such rich details and layered emotional experiences ultimately need to rely on ideal viewing effects to convey to the audience. Therefore, going into the theater to enjoy the film on the big screen is the only correct way to open the sequel to this once epoch-making movie series.
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