When it comes to sequels, James Cameron has a better track record than any other filmmaker. He multiplied the extraterrestrial threat and significantly deepened the Ellen Ripley character inAliensand he super-sized the onslaught of Skynet in the explosive, action-packedTerminator 2: Judgment Day. Now, Cameron is back with another mega-scale sequel,Avatar: The Way of Water, after 13 years of anticipation.AliensandT2have been universally praised as two of the greatest sequels ever made. How does the newAvatarmovie compare to Cameron’s other sequels?
As he hammered out the script, mapped out a multi-movie arc, and pioneered new CGI technologies to shoot motion-capture performances underwater, Cameron kept fans waiting for over a decade to seethe first of many sequels toAvatar. Now that the movie has finally arrived in theaters, those fans are determining whether or not it was worth the wait – and where it ranks against the rest of Cameron’s legendary filmography. There’s no doubt thatThe Way of Wateris a dazzling addition to theAvatarcanon, but it’s not quite as mind-blowing or outside-the-box as Cameron’s other sequels.
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What Made Cameron’s Other Sequels So Great?
Cameron earned his reputation as Hollywood’s greatest sequelizer when he managed to catch lightning in a bottle twice. When he was hired to write and direct a sequel toRidley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpieceAlien, Cameron knew he couldn’t helm another haunted house movie in space that would match its predecessor. So, he switched genres from horror to action. After the crew of the Nostromo faced one xenomorph in the firstAlienmovie, a band of space marines took on a whole festering hive of them in the sequel. And not only that;Alienshas a more engaging arc and deeper characterization for Ripley. She learns that her daughter has died of old age back on Earth while she was drifting through space and fills the emotional void by becoming a surrogate mother figure to Newt, the orphaned sole survivor of a human colony ravaged by bloodthirsty xenomorphs.Aliensis every bit as intense asAlien, and a lot more emotionally engaging.
LikeAliens,T2also multiplied the monster and put a fresh twist on the formula. Aftera single Terminator terrorized Sarah Connorin the first one, this time, one Terminator comes back in time to kill Sarah’s son and another one comes back in time to protect him. With more than 10 times the meager budget of the original,Terminator 2has bigger, bolder action sequences than its predecessor. Cameron crashed a truck into the L.A. River, blew up a convoy of cop cars, and flew a helicopter under a low-hanging bridge to makeT2as thrilling and action-packed as possible. It set a new bar for action cinema that no one but Cameron himself has come close to topping in the years since.
Does The Way Of Water Live Up To Aliens And T2?
Thelatest sequel in Cameron’s oeuvre,Avatar: The Way of Water, doesn’t sink its teeth into a new genre or a new spin on the franchise’s formula; it just takes the cast to a new ecosystem. The opening train attack teased all-out guerilla warfare between the Na’vi and the returning humans, but that conflict promptly takes a backseat.The Way of Waterboils down to essentially the same story as the first one: Jake Sully has to once again adapt to an unfamiliar culture and ingratiate himself into a tribe that wants him to turn around and go home.
UnlikeAliensandT2, which stand on their own as cinematic landmarks regardless of their connections to an existing franchise, theAvatarsequel is structured more like a TV episode with an A-plot and a B-plot. The A-plot sees Jake and Neytiri going on the run with their kids and seeking a new home, while the B-plot seesColonel Quaritch – resurrected via cloningand digital memory implants – trying to track them down. There are some fresh elements that prevent theAvatarsequel from feeling like a shallow rehash of the original. The oceans of Pandora give Cameron a whole new visual language to play with. The time jump in which Jake and Neytiri have had kids swaps out the original movie’s love story for a tale of family bonding.
Cameron’s other sequels flipped the original on their head, butAvatar: The Way of Wateris just more of the same. It has the same poignant environmentalist themes, the same stunning visual effects, and the same structure of outsiders integrating themselves into a hostile clan in time for a large-scale final battle. Individual subplots, like Lo’ak’sFree Willy-style friendship with a tulkun named Payakan and Quaritch reckoning with the existential terror of being resurrected in a new body, are more compelling than the main plot.The Way of Waterisa welcome return to Pandora, but it’s not a game-changer likeAliensorT2. It doesn’t plumb new depths of the characters or explore the natural progression of the narrative or even find a fresh perspective on the story; it just takes that story to sea.
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