Did cutting the weirdest moments out of Avatar hurt James Cameron's box office extravaganza? With the combined might of the Marvel Cinematic Universe only able to oust Avatar from cinema's record books temporarily, the Na'vi must've been doing something right. Upon release in 2009, Avatar met with mammoth commercial success, but through the massive piles of cash, it's easy to lose sight of how contemporary reviews were largely positive towards the James Cameron sci-fi opus.
Opinion has shifted considerably since, but even Avatar's harshest critics struggle to find fault with Cameron's visual world-building. The moon of Pandora arrives rendered in unprecedented levels of cinematic detail, and there's a rich variety to the alien environments, arguably making Pandora Avatar's most interesting and well-rounded character. James Cameron spent many years crafting Avatar's geography, flora, and fauna, and the hard work pays off, as each vibrant leaf and glowing blue mushroom feels curated by hand. At over 2-and-a-half hours, Avatar doesn't exactly weigh in light for a family-friendly blockbuster. Given the intricacy of the world Cameron sought to introduce, however, cinema-goers might've been expecting a longer stay. Sure enough, Avatar snipped plenty from its initial edit.
Cameron's original Avatar cut was significantly darker, riskier, and weirder than the finished film. And whereas some dropped ideas were definitely surplus to requirements, others could've vastly improved Avatar's story. One missing sequence (released with only semi-complete CGI) sees Jake Sully ingest a psychoactive worm that the Na'vi use for "dream hunts" - essentially a drug trip Sam Worthington's character undergoes in order to cement his status as a genuine tribe member. The sequence as described in Avatar's script is a frightening, surreal experience to rival Willy Wonka's boat trip. Elsewhere, a victorious Jake breaks the ice with Tsu'tey over Pandora's local alcohol, leading to Avatar's protagonist getting drunk around the campfire. Shortly after that, Jake and Neytiri have tendril sex - a moment only to be found in Avatar's extended editions.
The perils of sex, drugs, and booze are well-documented, but in this instance, they contribute something Avatar lacks. Avatar's Na'vi come across somewhat too sanitized for an alien race obsessed with nature, and Jake's "dream hunt" would've added a much-needed adult edge to Pandora's tribal culture. His Avatar getting drunk, meanwhile, injects an element of fun as a counterpoint to the common criticism that Avatar takes itself much too seriously. The Avatar extended edition sex scene is weird, no doubts there, and asks a raft of questions parents wouldn't wish to answer with kids present, but that sensual strangeness is a vital ingredient for any fully-realized fictional alien culture. Quivering hairy tendrils aside, Avatar's sex scene isn't just azure-colored smut - it elevates Jake and Neytiri's connection, like Rose's famous hand print did in Titanic. The setting of Pandora may be Avatar's greatest strength, but Na'vi culture doesn't quite reach the same levels of realism and uniqueness. Avatar's cut scenes worked towards remedying that.
Other scenes deleted from Avatar's final cut add a darker slant to James Cameron's much-maligned environmental message. Look past the stunning visuals, and Avatar is regularly accused of peddling a rather unoriginal man vs. nature narrative. However, the original cut's opening once included an Earth-based scene showing how drastically Jake's home planet had fallen in the 22nd century, with non-breathable air, a sky filled with advertising, and zoo animals getting cloned because so many species are extinct. Though depressing, seeing Avatar's dystopian Earth casts new light upon mankind's action against Pandora, and actually tones down the simplified moral absolutism Cameron's blockbuster-to-end-all-blockbusters has been criticized for.
