Cameron expands Avatar 1, expounds on Avatar 2 & 3

Avatar gets a theatrical re-release on August 27. Lots of people are excited about the 8 minutes of new footage, so I’ll gamely feign enough interest to post the same details.

It’s actually nine! [Extra minutes.] I added some since that press release. It’s all CG. None of it is kinda boring shots of people sitting around in offices at the base, drinking coffee. It’s all out in the rainforest, some of it is at night. There is a big hunt sequence that’s got a lot of flying, a lot of banshee stuff, riding direhorses, very high-energy, high-impact action. There’s a very powerful emotional scene towards the end that has been added back.

There’s some stuff where the Na’vi sort of counterattack after the bulldozers destroy the willowblade, that’s a night attack scene. And the aftermath of that, how the humans react to that and the steps leading to the war. There’s some stuff with Grace in the school in the jungle, there’s a creature called a stingbat which is brought back in [that one was in the video game] as well as the sternbeast, which is the animal that they hunt. We see hundreds of those…There are some little bits that have been put back into the end battle. Little action beats, and a little bit added to the love scene, and some other night stuff. It’s all top-quality stuff, it’s all on par with the rest of the film.

So what do you think? Stingbat and Sternbeast enough to Snarefleece another $15 bucks from your Stingepocket? Cameron has a little bit to say about Avatar 2 & 3, after the cut.

I have an overall narrative arc for 2 and 3, and there are some modifications to that based on my experiences in the last few months from having gone down to the Amazon and actually hung out with various indigenous groups who are actually living this type of story for real…but it’s not changing the overall pattern. I haven’t gotten the script done yet; that’s going to be a ways out.

ok, I’m a little ashamed I made you click to page 2 for nothing more that that. Just trying to get into the spirit of milking this ragged banshee for all its worth.