James Cameron’s colossal Avatar is an interesting page of cinematic history. It was the movie to go see when it came out in 2009, and everyone was talking about how its stunning and then groundbreaking visual effects brought to life the alien world of Pandora. It was in motion capture pretty much in its entirety, and it was available in 3D—and designed to be seen in 3D—something that started a trend of movies relying on 3D as a selling point during promotions.
It became (and still is, actually, even though Avengers: Endgame definitely tried getting its spot) the highest-grossing film of all time, with a total earning of almost $3 billion. And yet, even though James Cameron announced plans to produce multiple sequels, the first of which is finally set to release this Christmas season, after several delays, the hype hasn’t really picked up.
There are several factors that might explain the general lack of excitement. It’s been well over a decade since the first Avatar hit the screens. Could it be that we got collectively used to the kind of visual effects used in the film? An almost-completely CGI movie felt kind of unique back in 2009, but Marvel movies (as well as many others) have grown concisely more and more dependent on their VFX departments. Or did we realize that the story in Avatar was not as well-executed as it could have been? There was something there that could have evolved into a gripping tale about anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism. But many feel that it was another version of a white savior narrative. Others, that the story was filled with ableism.
Additionally, regardless of whether you loved the first film, or not, Avatar 2 is set for a December release—and it’s hard to get excited when no promotional material has appeared yet. After 13 years, how well do we even remember the first film? How old were the main characters? How much time has passed between the first and second films in-universe? Here’s what we know.
Jake Sully
To start, we’ll recap who the two leads are. First, there’s Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington. Jake is an ex-Marine with a physical disability, who gets recruited into the Avatar program when his twin brother, one of the initiative’s top scientists, is killed. Since he shares the same DNA, Jake can drive his twin’s avatar, a body that’s created to look like the Na’vi—the population native to the moon Pandora. The avatar is genetically linked to a specific human to allow scientists to explore the moon freely (since the air combination is toxic to humans).
Sam Worthington was in his thirties during the production of Avatar, but his character, Jake, is around twenty-two when he leaves Earth. This means that, technically, he’s twenty-eight when he arrives on Pandora—even though his body hasn’t aged (since he was kept in cryosleep for the whole six-year-long journey from Earth to the Alpha Centauri A solar system). His Avatar body, however, is that of a seventeen-year-old Na’vi male. Biologically, it’s actually around six years old as it was grown on the spaceship that brought Jake from Earth to Pandora. Got all that?
So, once he arrives on Pandora, Jake quickly becomes enraptured by the world of the Na’vi, his relationships with them, and with living through his avatar. Over the course of the movie, he will eventually go on to take up the mantle of a legendary Na’vi warrior.
Neytiri
Then there’s Neytiri, the movie’s female lead, played by Zoe Saldana. Neytiri is the daughter of the two leaders of the Omaticaya Na’vi clan, the one closest to the humans’ base on Pandora. She’s a skilled huntress, a fierce fighter, and the future spiritual guide of her people. She initially mistrusts Jake, because her older sister Sylwanin was murdered by humans. But when Jake gets accepted into the Omaticaya clan, she is saddled with teaching him the ways of her people, and ends up falling in love with him, going against her parents’ wishes and expectations.
Neytiri is stated to be around the equivalent of eighteen human years, as she is the youngest daughter of the two clan leaders. We also know that she’s considered a full adult in the eyes of the clan since she underwent the ceremony to become a hunter—and gained access to one of the ikrans, the flying creatures Na’vi use to move around the forest and go on hunts.
How old will Jake and Neytiri be in Avatar 2?
That depends on how much time passes in-universe between the first and second movie. We’re most likely looking at a time skip of a few years. However, given that their bodies are motion-captured, there’s more leeway to play with age, as it doesn’t matter how much the actors have aged.
We don’t know much of the plot of the second movie, but there is some base information which offers some useful insight. The cast of Avatar 2 includes some young actors and actresses, including the three who play the three children of Neytiri and Jake—Neteyam, Lo’ak, and Tuktirey, their final child and only daughter.
Sources like Digital Spy report that Tuktirey, played by actress Trinity Bliss, will be eight years old during the movie—which means that Neytiri will, most likely, be somewhere in her late-twenties to mid-thirties, while Jake will be in his forties mentally and around the same age as Neytiri physically (since he permanently transferred his consciousness into his Avatar body at the end of the first movie).
(via: Avatar Wiki; image: 20th Century Fox)
