James Cameron Removed Guns, Added More Payakan in Post-‘Way of Water’ Tweaks to ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’

James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which just debuted in theaters, is a behemoth. But at this point in the franchise, a behemoth is something we’ve come to expect.

It follows 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which made $2.3 billion and proved that the franchise was still, very much, something that people were into. “Way of Water,” of course, was the first sequel to 2009’s “Avatar,” which broke all box office records (on its way to $2.9 billion worldwide, still the highest-grossing movie ever), overcame insurmountable technological hurdles and successfully resurrected the 3D format after decades of dormancy.

“Fire and Ash” sees Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), who are mourning the loss of their oldest son at the hands of the villainous Resources Development Administration, an Earth-based company looking to strip-mine alien planet Pandora of all its natural resources. They oversee a boisterous brood that includes a human child, Spider (Jack Champion) and Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), the daughter of a scientist that worked with Jake in the first film (also played by Weaver).

This time they are up against the Ash People, led by Varang (Oona Chaplin), who have teamed with Quaritch (Stephen Lang).

The new movie very much feels like a continuation of “The Way of Water,” which makes sense because both sequels were actually filmed together, a production that Cameron described as “conjoined.”

“We did all the performance capture in an 18-month period for both films. Then we did a lot of the virtual camera work to figure out exactly how we were going to do the live-action,” Cameron explained. “Then we did all live-action together for both films. Then we split it and said, All right, now we just got to finish [movie] two. Ran out, make some money, then maybe we could go ahead and finish [movie] three.”

And while that might seem like the new movie is set in stone, Cameron said that wasn’t the case.

“It’s a fluid creative process – the performance capture is relatively inexpensive compared to live-action and compared to the finished work, so the important thing is to get it right in performance capture. And I spent a lot of time with the actors. I’m not worrying about the cinematography, that all comes later – lens choice, camera movement, all that sort of thing, I do all that downstream without the actors,” Cameron said. “It’s very easy for us to go back into that performance capture suite, which we just keep hot in case we need it. And all the set pieces are just these little modular blocks and ramps and things. I can recreate any set from anywhere in any of the movies in about two hours.”

Cameron said he listened and “learned from the audience response to ‘Way of Water.’” And in that response he wrote new scenes, took scenes out and “called the actors back and we adjusted kind of on the fly.”

One of the things that Cameron adjusted was the role of Payakan, the giant, whale-like creature that forms a connection to Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), one of the Sully kids.

“There was such a strong emotional response to Payakan as a character that I had to build up his part in movie three,” Cameron said. “If any breakout star emerges from a movie, you’d build up that part in the subsequent film.” Even if that star is a giant space-whale.

Another big change was Jake arming the Metkayina, the water tribe that he had been a part of since “The Way of Water.”

“In the original script, he asked the question three times, they finally answer in the affirmative, because they’ve got to defend the Tulkun [the whales]. And I thought it was important to say, All right, you could be a pacifist, but at some point, there are things that are worth fighting for,” Cameron said. He changed his mind after some thought.

“A certain point, it just hit me, if that’s what Quaritch is doing, and it’s right out of the colonial playbook – we’re going to give guns to the Native Americans and let them kill each other. If that’s the definition of evil in the film, Jake can’t do that. He’s got to let them fight the Na’vi way,” Cameron said. “And I think we can see in the battle scene, when you start dropping rocks through the rotors of the ships, the Na’vi way works pretty damn well.”

So Cameron replaced Jake giving them guns with a scene of Jake going to get the Toruk – the mighty, massive banshee that he rode in the first film. (In this movie, he warns of its power – “If you ride the beast, you become the beast” – but understands that it needs to be done.) This was a moment planned for a later “Avatar” sequel but was moved up to “Fire and Ash.” “That was an adjustment on the fly,” Cameron admitted.

And as much as the narrative informed the changes he made to “Fire and Ash,” there were also real-life events impacting his fictional world. Cameron said that the Uvalde shooting in 2022, where 19 students were killed in their elementary school, put him “over the edge.”

“I did not want to glorify or fetishize the assault weapon. Now I’m a little bit trapped, because I got a character who defines himself as a Marine. And the Marines ethos is a Marine and his rifle are the most powerful weapon in the world. That’s how they how they think,” Cameron said. “And so I thought, All right, I’m going to keep it singular to Jake and his way of doing things, but I’m not going to let him contaminate the Na’vi way, and their value system. These are things that that were fluid going along.”

Cameron said that these adjustments didn’t ruffle the performers’ feathers. “The actors all bought into these ideas. They loved it. It’s like, Sure, we’ll get back together,” Cameron said.

Changes for Kiri

“He took some stuff out of two and put it in three, especially for Kiri,” Sigourney Weaver told TheWrap. “And I really couldn’t imagine how it would play, because it’s also takes on these serious themes about corporate greed and war and living in a multi-race family.” She called “Fire and Ash” her “favorite one – not that I have favorites.”

Weaver remembered that there’s a pretty big reveal that was saved for the third movie, but was filmed for the second.

“The news that I didn’t have a father was in two and he put it in three. There’s never a good time to find out this news, because all she wants to be is to know who she is and where she belongs,” said Weaver. “Spider has a little of that too, since his real father’s dead. Somehow we’re able to play these blue people and take on these serious subjects.”

What about ‘Avatar’ 4 and 5?

While Cameron has been iffy about whether the previously announced fourth and fifth films will actually happen, he has already shot some of the fourth movie.

“We’re in a fluid scenario. Theatrical’s contracting, streaming is expanding. People’s habit patterns are changing. The teen demo consumes media differently than what we grew up with. And how much is it changing? Does theatrical contract to a point where it just stops right and doesn’t get any smaller because we still value that, or does it continue to wither away?” Cameron said.

“I make movies for the big screen. They play well on the small screen because a good story is scalable. But the experience of the film in 3D and that unbroken three-hour engagement of the senses, that doesn’t translate to the streaming model. I want that to persist, but I’m also a realist. I’ll always be a storyteller. I’ll always have a gig. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that I get to continue to do what I’ve been doing. Look, I think we all need to invest in this if we want it to happen.”

His cast, however, is game. When we asked Saldaña if she was ready for parts four and five, she exclaimed, “I am!”

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is in theaters now.

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