The Na'vi of Pandora don't seem to show outright signs of aging, so how old are Jake and Neytiri and Avatar and the sequel, The Way of Water? James Cameron's Avatar introduced audiences to the mythical world of Pandora, a planet filled with an extraterrestrial race known as the Na'vi. Avatar also introduced the RDA, a human organization meant to farm Pandora's resources. Both Avatar movies focus on the RDA's efforts to deplete Pandora of its precious resources, with the main character Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) becoming one of Pandora's Na'vi, eventually joining with Neytiri (Zoë Saldana) and having a family of their own.
Avatar: The Way of Water released a whopping 13 years after its predecessor, though in the Avatar timeline 15 years have passed since Jake Sully decided to live his life out as his avatar. Avatar 2 did little to confess the Avatar Jake and Neytiri ages, despite promoting a more concrete timeline than the first film. Avatar 2 also introduced Jake and Neytiri's children. While two of them are adopted — Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and human child Miles "Spider" Socorro (Jack Champion) — they have three children of their very own: Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), and Tuktirey (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss). Here are the Avatar Jake and Neytiri ages, in Avatar and Avatar 2.
Jake And Neytiri's Age In Avatar Explained
James Cameron's Avatar script actually has Jake Sully aged 22 when he's first introduced, not 28. However, that's when he's back on Earth, getting into a bar fight that constitutes Avatar's most important deleted scene. Once he's recruited to take his brother's place in the Avatar program, Jake travels to Pandora for nearly six years, "five years, nine months and twenty-two days," to be exact, which is why he's 28 on arrival: Jake is born in the year 2126 and arrives on Pandora in the year 2154.
Unfortunately, the Avatar Jake Sully age debacle is complicated thanks to physics. Time dilation in space travel means that he would have aged more slowly in those six years than someone who wasn't traveling close to the speed of light over the same period, so he might be somewhere between 22 and 28 relative to whatever is left of humanity on Earth in Avatar. But that's ignoring that Jake spends his entire journey frozen in a cryo pod, which probably means he's not aging at all. This all adds up to the reality that Jake's age for most of Avatar really can't be determined, but he likely feels like he's in his mid-20s, roughly.
Neytiri's age in Avatar might seem more straightforward, but work out how old Neytiri has some complexities as well. In Cameron's script she's introduced with the descriptor "in human age she would be 18," but that raises as many questions as it answers. As with the math that leads to Jake being 28, Neytiri's birth in the Earth calendar year 2136 and the film's setting in 2154 add up to make her 18, but that's by Earth standards. Avatar's Na'vi homeworld of Pandora is in an entirely different solar system, orbiting a planet that orbits a different sun. Logistically, and culturally, the Na'vi certainly mark their age very differently from humans.
However, Neytiri's character does behave roughly like an 18-year-old, albeit a rather mature one with a lot of responsibilities, and she seems to occupy a social space in her clan of someone who is on the cusp of real adulthood. Assuming Jake feels about 22 and Neytiri feels about 18 also helps ease some of the awkwardness of the ten-year age gap they technically have. There's also only a two-year age gap between Worthington and Saldana, as they were 33 and 31, respectively, when Avatar first came out. Avatar's next three sequels may shed more light on how old the Avatar Jake and Neytiri characters are, but their ages will always be a bit uncertain.
How Old Are Jake And Neytiri's Kids In Avatar 2
As previously mentioned, the Avatar Neytiri and Jake characters have five children in Avatar: The Way of Water: Lo'ak, Kiri, Neteyam, Tuktirey, and Spider. Unfortunately, Avatar 2 sheds little light on the ages of Jake and Neytiri's children. In addition, it remains unknown how long a Na'vi gestation period is, or how their bodies work when it comes to birthing children, or how fast the Na'vi age in general. That being said, some clues point to their respective ages within the timeline. The easiest age comes from Spider, who was very young in Avatar. It can be deduced that Spider is around 15 years old during the events of Avatar 2.
Neteyam is the Avatar Jake and Neytiri characters' eldest son, meaning he's probably around fourteen years old. While Lo'ak is technically Neteyam's younger brother, the two are nearly indistinguishable in age and act very similar, meaning Lo'ak is probably either 13 or 14 years old. Kiri's backstory is a little more complicated, as she was gestated in Dr. Grace's avatar. However, it can be surmised that Kiri is around the same age as Lo'ak, making her either 13 or 14 years old. Tuktirey, or Tuk for short, is much harder to guess as there are really no clues given. It's likely that, given the difference in appearance between her and the rest Jake and Neytiri's kids, Tuk is no younger than nine years old and no older than 12 in Avatar.
