By the D23 Team
Legendary filmmaker James Cameron transports audiences back to the breathtaking world of Pandora with 20th Century Studios’ Avatar: Fire and Ash, an immersive new adventure with Marine turned Na’vi leader Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Oscar® winner Zoe Saldaña), and the Sully family.
The story picks up just a few weeks after the events of Avatar: The Way of Water. The Sully family is still living amongst the Metkayina in the picturesque reefs of Pandora, but they’re still learning to adjust to life without Neteyam (Jamie Flatters)—who was killed in a brutal skirmish with the “Sky People” from the RDA (Resources Development Administration). Jake, Neytiri, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), Spider (Jack Champion), and Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) are each dealing with the loss in their own way. Worried for Spider’s safety, the family begins a journey to take him back to High Camp, the Omatikaya’s stronghold.
Their passage is cut short, however, when their party is attacked by members of the Mangkwan, a.k.a. the Ash People, led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). The RDA, meanwhile, is struggling, following their devastating defeat at the hands of Jake Sully and the Metkayina, and is regrouping and planning their next attack...
With Avatar: Fire and Ash blazing into theaters December 19, we’re taking a spin through both new and beloved characters.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington)
An ex-Marine, soldier, warrior, husband, and father, Jake Sully will do anything to ensure the safety of his clan, his family, and to protect Pandora. After seeking refuge on the atolls of Pandora, Jake and his family have become members of the Metkayina. Worthington says about his character, “Fire and Ash is almost a direct kind of step from the end of the second movie; it’s literally where we see them starting to tear. Jake goes back to his essence, which is just being a grunt, because that makes sense for him to go back to war, to do what he has been trained to do...he thinks that will get him through the pain. And that tear, as well as the pressures of the outside world and the pressures of other clans trying to push them back together to find a way through for the greater good, is what we’re exploring in this movie.”
Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña)
Originally a member of the Omaticaya, the Na’vi warrior now oversees an extended family that includes two of her own children, as well as Kiri and Spider. When the film opens, she is mourning the loss of her son Neteyam, who died while trying to rescue Spider from the RDA in the climactic battle at the end of The Way of Water, and is struggling with her feelings for the human child, Spider, who now lives under her family’s care. Says Saldaña, “I don’t think Neytiri wants to be where she is at the beginning of this film. I think she’s just hanging by a thread. Her heart is just full of sorrow, and she doesn’t have any answers anymore. She thought she knew what she needed. She thought she knew that love would conquer all. And I don’t think that she believes that she can make it. She doesn’t believe that she has it in her, and her faith for the very first time in her life is being put to the test.”
Kiri (Sigourney Weaver)
Kiri is the teenager born of the avatar body of Grace Augustine (the former head of the RDA’s avatar program), and she’s being raised by Jake and Neytiri as one of their own. Following the death of Neteyam, Kiri is now the oldest child in the Sully family. She is especially close to Spider. “I identify with Kiri in many ways,” says Weaver. “When Jim first gave me the scripts, he said, ‘Well, Kiri’s 14, but that’s how old you are anyway. We know how immature you are, so you won’t have a problem doing this.’ When you are 14, even though life is complicated, you’re still a joyous creature, and despite the strain of the battle, the fact that we won, the sadness of losing Neteyam is weighing heavily on Kiri. But she is with her best friend, Spider, and life begins again. And that friendship is so much fun for both of them.”
Spider (Jack Champion)
Spider is a human child orphaned by the war who has grown up alongside the Sully children. While Spider thinks of the Sullys as his family, it was revealed in “The Way of Water” that he is actually the son of Quaritch. “Spider has gone through a lot,” says Champion. “He’s just saved his ‘dad,’ Quaritch, so there is a lot of guilt with that and just a lot of confusion because there’s his family that he’s known his entire life that he’s always really wanted to be a part of, but he’s never been fully accepted. And there is some part of him wanting to be accepted by Quaritch, even though he is, in a lot of ways, a despicable person. The thing about Spider is that, at the end of the day, he is an orphan, and he doesn’t have a full-on family that fully accepts him anywhere. So, he really just wants full acceptance from someone…it’s just kind of a tug of war of emotions for him.”
Lo’ak (Britain Dalton)
Cameron says of Jake and Neytiri’s middle child, “Lo’ak, like Jake and Neytiri, goes on a journey. He is our storyteller in this film. Lo’ak internalizes his brother’s death, believing it is his fault, and he is struggling with all the issues of being a young man, 15 years old, in a family of exemplary, heroic people. His father is a great legend, so how can he ever live up to his father’s expectations? What I’m trying to do with these characters and with this story is make it very relatable for people, because families have these problems.” He also has a special connection with Tsireya (Bailey Bass), of the Metkayina people.
Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss)
The youngest Sully child, “Tuk is always the underestimated one in the family,” says Bliss. “She’s the underdog, and her siblings often forget to include her, but she’s still always going to show up for them and often times, will be there to surprise them when they need help the most.”
Tsireya (Bailey Bass)
The youngest child of Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis), Tsireya has a close relationship with the Sully children, especially Lo’ak. “Tsireya has basically been a caretaker since day one,” says Bass. “Her parents asked her to teach the Sully kids the ways of the Metkayina people, and she immediately jumped at the opportunity and was happy to do it... And she bonds with Lo’ak, and helps him to see how great he is, and to continue to support him on his journey.”
Ronal (Kate Winslet)
Ronal, the Tsahik of the Metkayina, is mother to Tsireya and Aonung (Filip Geljo), and is now pregnant with her and Tonowari’s third child. In “Fire and Ash,” the relationship between Ronal and Neytiri continues to be a complex and challenging one, and one that is based on both jealousy and ignorance of each other. According to Winslet, “Ronal is fighting for herself and her family. She’s fighting for everything she’s ever known, everything she lives and breathes. And the message in that is just so important.”
Quaritch (Stephen Lang)
The Colonel in charge of an elite team of soldiers resurrected as recoms, or recombinants, he’s part of a new breed of transgenic human/Na’vi hybrid warriors created by the RDA. “Quaritch is regrouping at the beginning of ‘Fire and Ash,’” says Lang. “In his own words: ‘You can kill us, but we’ll regroup in hell.’ He’s not someone who takes defeat particularly well, so he’s going to get back out there. The stakes have only gone up for Quaritch; he develops and evolves despite his own self. But Quaritch always remains, fundamentally, Quaritch at heart. The changes are incremental. They’re hard and coming for him, but he learns.”
Varang (Oona Chaplin)
The leader of the Mangkwan, Varang rides a terrifying creature called a Nightwraith and is considered the savior of her people. Says Chaplin, “Varang has her subjects, and they really worship her. She’s like this young queen, but is in a pit of despair where everything is just covered in ash, and everything started to die, and everyone is going completely berserk and desperate. She zeros in on the place and the power and the force that completely devastated her world, and just charges towards it and studies it and devotes herself to it, becoming an ally of this force.”
See Avatar: Fire and Ash in theaters beginning December 19!