A new image from Avatar: The Way of Water confirms Stephen Lang’s villain will return to the sequel as a Na’vi person. Lang previously played Miles Quaritch in the first Avatar film back in 2009. Quaritch was the chief of security on Pandora, and thus the principal antagonist in Avatar, for he organized the attacks against the Na’vi people. Quaritch was killed off in the first movie during combat in the attack on the Tree of Souls.
Despite his death, however, it has long been known that Quaritch would return in Avatar 2. For a while, director James Cameron would not reveal exactly how the slain villain would reappear in the sequels, just that Lang would reprise his character in some form. When the teaser trailer for The Way of Water was released, one of the Na’vi characters, dressed in military combat gear, bore striking resemblance to Quaritch. This led many to believe that the character will appear in The Way of Water as a Na’vi reincarnation of the formerly human villain.
These suspicions have been confirmed by a newly released Avatar: The Way of Water image from Empire. The image shows Lang as Quaritch, but in a large blue avatar body. He is standing next to human co-workers in what appears to be the Resources Development Administration (RDA, as it was known in the first film), with its high-tech computer screens and simulations all around. Check out the photo down below.
While this news is not a complete surprise based on the strong suggestion of Quaritch in the Avatar 2 trailer, it is nonetheless intriguing to have the villain confirmed to return as a Na’vi. Quaritch’s return as a Na’vi means that his consciousness has been implanted into an avatar body permanently, making him a part of the alien race (albeit as an unwelcome member). Lang’s confirmed return as a Na’vi version of Quaritch comes concurrently with the recent revelation of Sigourney Weaver’s character in Avatar 2. Like Lang, Weaver’s character (Dr. Grace Augustine) died in Avatar. Instead of reprising her role, Weaver will play a young Na’vi girl named Kiri, who is the adopted daughter of Jake and Neytiri.
In both Weaver and Lang’s cases, the mystery is no longer which character they will appear as, but how their characters came into being the way that they are. Now that the nature of Quaritch’s return is confirmed, viewers can focus their theories not on whether that was a Na’vi Quaritch in the trailer, but how Quaritch came to be a Na’vi and what will be in store for his character in Avatar 2. After spending much of the first film disdaining the Na'vi, how will Quaritch feel about being one of them? That theorizing will still go on for a while longer, as Avatar: The Way of Water does not come out until nearly the end of this year.
Source: Empire
