With Avatar 2, director James Cameron is shifting focus from the forests of Pandora to its oceans, but in doing so is potentially losing slight of the major theme of deforestation from the first movie. Avatar 2 and its three subsequent sequels have been delayed numerous times, with James Cameron once again pioneering new technology in order to bring his vision to life. While the ocean setting offers new opportunities to expand the world of Avatar, Cameron needs to be careful not to prioritize his new filmmaking technology over the heart and themes of the original story.
Released back in 2009, Avatar was a milestone in special effects and 3D filmmaking. It became the highest-grossing movie worldwide of all time, a title that it reclaimed via a China re-release after Avengers: Endgame briefly snatched it. The overall plot of Avatar 2 is being kept under wraps, but it's understood that it's set 14 years after the events of the first movie. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) have settled down and started a family, but a renewed threat sends them out of the forest and to Pandora's oceans for safety.
At its best, sci-fi can be used as an allegory for real-world issues. In creating the world of Avatar James Cameron was inspired by the destruction of the rainforests, strip mining, pollution, and displacement of native populations, among other environmental issues. This gave Avatar an emotional grounding for audiences to connect to. Some found Avatar’s environmentalism overly simplistic, while others used it as a basis for deeper analysis and discussion. However, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron seemed to now be more focused and driven on the exploration of Pandora's ocean and the filmmaking tools to capture that, than the wider environmental themes of the first movie. While Pandora’s ocean will no doubt be visually spectacular in Avatar 2, the key theme of deforestation was at the heart of the first movie and seems to be at risk of being lost or forgotten about.
James Cameron is an expert on deep-sea exploration and underwater photography, stemming from his time making The Abyss and Titanic. This obsession is fulling Avatar 2’s production, with James Cameron developing new underwater technology to film the actors underwater. While the first movie’s deforestation theme seems to have taken a back seat for Avatar 2, the ocean habitat could take its place in terms of a natural environment under threat from man-made issues. On planet Earth, the ocean is the engine of the world. Without it, there could not be life, and ocean conservation is a timely issue that Avatar 2 could explore. Transposing this environmental theme to Pandora could well be James Cameron’s intentions, albeit appearing secondary to his obsession with ocean exploration.
Notwithstanding the change of setting and theme for Avatar 2, James Cameron is a master storyteller. He's directed two of the greatest sequels of all time; Aliens, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He’s proven time and again he’s not to be underestimated, and with Avatar 2 he can hopefully deliver another sequel that surpasses the original movie.