Rethinking Avatar 2, the way of my treatment.
A short open letter to James Cameron and Jon Landau.
Hi Jim and Jon,
When I watched the first Avatar in the cinema over ten years ago, I loved every bit of whatever it went out to achieve. I later had an under 30 minutes 3D experience of it at friend’s home cinema. The science of 3D films became ever interesting to me.
I have been part of every global anticipation to the second Avatar. I tried as much as possible to have blank expectation to the plot, for it is James Cameron, he has it figured out already.
I watched Avatar 2 on a regular ticket in a Ghanaian cinema. I came out thinking about the total experience of it. Visuals were good at bare minimum. Sound design was expansive. I didn’t have a problem with the story but felt the beats around the thematic areas of the story could have been better.
I could wait for the third Avatar to get a full critical perspective of Avatar 2 but wish to fork the project from your hard work hard drive and commit something different in tech parlance.
I have written a shallow treatment of what Avatar 2 could have been out of a personal thought experiment of the film series, and not of strict film criticism. I have not chased perfection, so you will realize it is a little pot holed (or plot holed). I wrote this off my head void of a lot of analysis.
For your experience in film development, the write up may be how not to write a treatment., pardon my play speed, pictures were jumping in my head at 1.5x.
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So Mr. Selfridge, head of RDA operation, returns to earth and reports to the political alliance that be about the failure of the project. He pleads the operation is still winnable if given another chance and higher budget and that the operation has learnt from its mistakes.
He is given a week to come up with a plan or not be given a government contract again. He takes time off to analyse the best strategy possible by talking to the best in military and corporate world but a plan is not coming together. He goes to the beach, not for inspiration.
He observes a family having fun and a mother shouting to one of the kids not to go deep into the water. The kid asks why. The mother tells him there are lots of dangerous things that happen at sea. He looks at his feet as the waves hit him. Seems to have an eureka moment and takes his phone and makes a call to secured line. He asks to be connected to a mainframe operator after verifying.
He asks whether a particular file under a code is still valid for access from the RDA program. He is told yes. He cuts the call. He wears his shades and looks at the bright sun and utters some words to mean, he is figured it out and going to Pandora again.
Far away from the beach, far from earth, Jake as a Na’vi is having a nice time. He is immersing more into the culture, discovering more of Pandora’s ecosystem and raising a family. A life of no (military) weapons, he is connecting more to Eywa and Tree of Souls to see Grace again. He fails all the time and Neytiri encourages.
One day, during their communal worship, woodsprites emerge and there is a shout from one of the Na’vi. One is a different colour from the white and floats itself away from the rest. Jake is told to chase after it by their spiritual leader and it is bad omen, not happened in their last 200 years. He chases the single woodsprite alone.
It floats long distance to where Quaritch had the epic fight with Jake and Neytiri. The non-white woodsprite goes to rest on the skull of Quaritch. He doesn’t get this because he knows the battle is over. Not too long, something arrives from sky on silent engine. He hides.
The sky object unfolds with tyres, camera and a robot arm. Something looking more like an unmanned space rover. He observes as it is been controlled from orbit. It drives to Quaritch’s suit to extract something from skeletal remains after hitting away the non-white woodsprite. Jake calculates move and gets close to the rover cameras to give them a surprise. It works, human controllers are thinking what to do.
A video of Selfridge projects from a part of the machine to the former avatar air link. Selfridge gives a direct warning to Jake to tell the Na’vi they are coming again. Unknown to Jake, Selfridge is buying time as the rover like machine is making some DNA analysis to upload results to spaceship. He keeps chat with Jake.
Analysis complete and data uploaded, video cuts to no signal. Jake hurries back. He tells Neytiri and upper clan members of what happened. He is given the floor like from the first Avatar movie to sound the message again, ‘the sky people have sent us a message’ but in a non-defiant tone. There is fear once again.
The RDA operation before had a hidden program. The link units that connected humans to avatars kept all experience records in large data sets. The program was hoping to make hybrid avatars work with unmanned link units with just a fibre link to recorded data sets.
Quaritch had training with an avatar before but due to aggressive nature, was changed for a program that brought in Jake in previous film. Selfridge wants to go forward with program with Quaritch’s data set, AI powered mapping of Pandora combined with his DNA analysis.
Jake is spending a night with Neytiri and holding their kids together whiles looking into the night sky. Neytiri asks what is that, Jake is quiet and looks back at her and holds their children tighter. It is a meteor.
Quaritch has been beamed from orbit to what seems like a meteor to land on an isolated part of Pandora. Jake calls for an all strategy meeting with Na’vi and human scientists. Meaningful plan and logistics are a problem. Quaritch is on Pandora and we are not going to believe what is his first conquest.
Jake goes to pray to Eywa again. Water drips on his shoulders at prayer. As he looks up again, there is shouting, he is announced to that the sky people are coming. Their entry into Pandora is epic, the sky looks like something from Independence Day movie. Huge different pay loads are released in the sky to connect to form a very big RDA station, heading into Pandora sea. A shield of aircrafts protects the assembling.
Jake and the rest of the Na’vi are flying around visibly during the assembly in distance of their fully loaded aircrafts ready to fire. He has a camcorder connected to a network to the scientist on the ground who are studying the footage and telling him to zoom at places. They are picking key details.
There is a surprise shadow on them in the sky and Neytiri looks up. She whispers Toruk and notices a different rider, he shouts at Jake to watch out. Quaritch is riding Toruk, armed with a machine gun. The banshees scatter with the appearance of Toruk. Quaritch releases fire in all direction. Scientists on the ground bewildered by footage.
Quaritch communicates to mission control to fire the new missiles. Selfridge gives the order for fire too. Aircrafts fire new smart missiles. They are programmed to target flying banshees by colour grade but avoid Toruk. Jake and Neytiri are flying away from missiles and Toruk, heading to the floating mountains.
The mini battle for Jake and Neytiri is a combination of speed, smart missile programming, Toruk’s fierceness and Quaritch’s sayings of doom and gloom for the Na’vi. The new RDA assembly settles in the sea, and submerges in beautiful engineering to start drilling the sea bed. The Na’vis fall back.
Jake gets back and they start counting their losses and what is ahead. They start scrutinizing pieces of the video, analysing everything. They are overwhelmed and actually think about the diplomacy to give up or negotiate something. One of Jake’s children is fascinated with computers and devices. Watches quietly and goes to write somethings outside with a stick on a part of the ground, he’s making connections.
Back on the RDA station, Selfbridge sends a video mail back to earth about progress of first phase. They are mining unobtanium from the sea bed this time around. He takes a look at Grace’s new avatar and wonders what to do with her data set. Quaritch suggests he deletes it. He hesitates. Grace is still knowledgeable to the project.
One day, Jake’s son asks his dad if he can give him a chance with talking with the scientists. He gives the idea of communicating with the RDA station with the rover that came for the DNA samples of Quaritch by logic of way communication. They reverse engineer the rover and see the possibility.
They found the machine is powered by linux and Dr Patel knows way around it. They are shocked password ‘pandora123’ connects them back to the network. Dr Patel lists frequently accessed files on the network and see lots of files. The scientists and Jake’s son spend the whole night hacking the station.
Another tactical meeting in the morning, they come up with what they found whiles making a connection to video footage recorded by Jake. They understand the station better, the security force on it, reporting and deadlines and most especially the program that brought Quaritch back. Grace can come back to life and it excites Jake. He is eager for this. The son brings some analysis to bare from the logic he made in his markings and it is built upon by the rest of the scientist and the Na’vi.
The submersible station uplifts a large base above sea level once a week. They come up for all sorts of technical and non-technical reasons like the army having fun amidst high security. Toruk takes this time to connect with Quaritch and they go for a ride together sometimes accompanied by aircraft. Getting in looks like by passing a 1000 gunmen.
Quaritch thinks the Na’vi should be attacked with full force at this time but Selfridge wants some mining metrics achieved and calls for more time. Quaritch explains this gives the Na’vi more time to figure out something. He wants to attack. Selfridge is thinking about business whiles Quaritch is thinking about the art of war. He’s not changed from his former human form. The ethical question comes up of what remains of his consciousness when they are done. Quaritch tells Selfridge he doesn’t want to die.
The Na’vi’s first plan goes against their philosophy, Toruk must die. An elaborate ceremony is held for Jake similar to becoming one of the people to kill Toruk for it is not done to kill an animal you fly with. He straps on the knife used in killing Tsu’tey after the ceremony.
The RDA station elevates to surface on a bright sunny day. Soldiers coming out to play volley and jumping into the waters for some good time. Toruck arrives and Quaritch surfaces. He jumps on Toruk and flies along with some small aircrafts. Quaritch is showboating with Toruk in the skies. Aircrafts admire and showboat along. Soldiers cheer on. Selfbridge is watching on from his glass shielded office. Grace’s avatar very slowly rotating in her tube, she must be turning in her digital grave. Compass doesn’t matter in the fun, they heading to the floating mountains.
Unknown to them, a lot of banshees are hiding around the floating mountains. The Na’vis will be attempting to shift the position of one small floating mountain in timing to hit another floating mountain. There is a way round the magnetic field of the floating mountains according to folklore of the Na’vi. Connecting climbing root will be cut with careful tilt to get gravitational pull right to hit target. The Na’vis are grouped to match this maneuver but at the same time hiding expertly. The plan is to crash Toruk between two small floating mountains. For the first time in its life, Toruk is flying into a dangerous trap.
Jake is flying high up looking down their showboating. Precision about this will kill or save Pandora. He says something in Na’vi and jumps from his banshee with two hands holding knife. Showboating gone blind of Jake’s presence exposes Quaritch to Jake’s knife by an inch. Jake doesn’t get Quaritch’s skin but cuts through the right wing of Toruk with force and it screams, banshees all over Pandora are shaken. Jake is caught falling to low ground by his banshee. An aircraft chases after Jake but loses him on a turn. Toruk perches on the side of one of the floating rocks as it is in deep pain, finding it difficult to fly. Quaritch is looking over his shoulders for any attack. Aircrafts are also on alert searching round floating mountains. They can’t see anyone.
Toruk is in a perfect vulnerable position. Some Na’vi axe a connecting root, it drags another group but they match up to holding on well till gravitational forces are bending it right for them. Quaritch watches behind him to observe the funny behaviour of the floating rock. A giant log flies in the air in direction to hit floating rock wanting free. Connecting root is released in time to hit it in a snooker game plan. Log falls, floating mountain goes in the direction of Toruk. Aircrafts try to fire missiles to impending rock to reduce mass on impact. Quaritch disconnects from Toruk and jumps off its back of Toruk as it is trying to change its position on a bleeding wing. Quaritch maneuvers to get on to an aircraft.
Missiles isn’t much for stopping impact though some mass falls from of it. Toruk manages some movement but it is hit on the bleeding wing again. It shouts louder and longer. Banshees and Na’vis are feeling sorry for it. It falls off the floating mountain and luckily falls on another floating rock below it as impact shifted the hit rock a little further though held by a connecting root. Toruk is trying to get up but falls instantly. Quaritch watching on, tells his team to fly back to base, still not able to find a Na’vi or banshee in sight, something out of a ninja movie.
Toruk is lonely now and shouting continuously, bleeding. The floating mountain echoes its shout to the farthest insect in Pandora. Jake descends on the floating rock on which Toruk is on with a machine gun, starts speaking some Na’vi and shooting a few times at it, unstraps knife, shouts and stabs its heart at its weakest moment. Toruk dies. Holding Toruk fondly, he smears its blood on his face and body, beast transferred into Jake.
Back at the RDA station, Selfridge is notified that Quaritch’s AI computer resource usage levels are rising. He is told he is not returning with Toruk according to what they find on the radar too, stranger things. He asks to be taken to surface. Quaritch lands with his team, almost every soldier is surprised his pet is not back with him. Quaritch tells Selfridge to delete Grace’s data sets as soon as possible. Selfridge asks what happened to Toruk. Quaritch tells him it is hurt a little bit and he will go for it soon. Selfbridge gives a hand sign to get down to surface to talk about it.
What flew the giant log to hit the floating mountain was a giant catapult put together by the Na’vi as part of meticulous planning and preparation to be able to throw objects at the station. Carried by some banshees in a net, Toruk body is settled in the bucket of the catapult.
Selfridge presses a button to be elevated down with Quaritch. No sooner than the gates closed when the station got shaken. Something has hit the station. He presses the button again for the gates to open. Toruk thrown, it slid to hit some aircrafts of the station carrier. Selfridge and Quaritch are shocked to see a dead Toruk on station, they get closer to it. Every soldier's attention is caught above the surface for some time, playing time stops.
Quaritch and Selfridge give order for the station to go under water. The disadvantage is this takes about 15 minutes in mechanization. The advantage for the Na’vis is they have rehearsed under 10 minutes about getting faster than the mechanization. Jake is on a banshee and flying solo ahead to the station. Toruk is dead and to Jake, the RDA operation is having blood in its hand. One of the smart missiles is fired when they see him coming. Smart missile target cross lines fall on Jake and its banshee and begins object recognition. Jake makes a casual dip with the banshee, smart missile misses them, he is unamused. Smart missile recalibrates object identification analysis and makes a switch in direction to be able to hit Jake’s banshee again. Smart missile makes a target lock on them and makes an advanced identification analysis. Jake charges forward ever with its banshee. Smart missile makes an overhead pass over Jake to the station to dock on one of its pylons in ‘SpaceX’ reusable rocket fashion. Target mismatch appears on the screen of human controllers.
The scientists and Jake’s son jubilate from the sea shore. One Na’vi waves one giant green leaf at the shore. The signal is boosted by another Na’vi who waves another giant green leaf to carry on the signal to another. This is continued to where a battalion of banshees are waiting for the call to set off. Neytiri shouts that Jake has done it so they now have to fly. There is a take off, an energy you will think Eywa has done it again.
The hacking turned out they found some manuals of the smart missiles on the network, as soldiers were undergoing continuous training on how to use it to its best. Smart missiles are connected to a live server to keep synchrony of specification details for targets. The problem is smart missiles were now having target specification detail linked to a portrait picture of a non-winged creature of Pandora. The RDA master mission control room troubleshoot the problem in a matter of seconds, the server will have to be reboot discarding previous changes. This takes three minutes and thirty seconds.
At five minutes into the lowering of the station, it stops. Jake is flying in circles around the station and notices the giant machine stops going down. There is some gunfire towards Jake, but the visible bullet flares gives him the ability to showboat with his banshee. Soldiers begin coming out in their hundreds. They start entering their aircrafts and start engines, start wearing AMP suits and other sophisticated artillery. Jake looks behind him for support and the army of Na’vi are closing in. Server is 50 seconds away from completing booting. Smart missiles start showing fast blinking indicators on its side.
Quaritch is giving positional commands to the soldiers in front of screens giving him video feed. He is ordering fire in all directions. He orders two smart missiles to be fired as quick test. Two fired smart missiles leave the station in unison. The Na’vi rehearsed for this and sacrifices need to be made.
Swarm of flying Na’vi break out into two on seeing incoming missiles, leaving two flying banshees in continuous direction to the station. Smart missiles initially tracks a lot of banshees flying apart but refocuses on two banshees in its line of sight. It speeds to hit them. There are double explosions on Quaritch’s video feed. Soldiers cheer up and continue firing at them. Selfbridge clenches his right fist and cheers. A Na’vi commander looks to Neytiri and nods to her. The nod is positive.
Aircrafts lift off, soldiers are firing from their AMP suits and majority of smart missiles deployed. Quaritch’s giant video feed can best be described as World of Warcraft computer game.
Banshees and Na’vis are been hit. Their arrows are limited as usual. Smart missiles are having successful hits but more banshees with the Na’vi keep coming.
The station has been studied on the ground by the Na’vi and the scientists for best entry to fight to the inside. Crazy as it may sound, they had given hope for the smart missiles to aid them. Selected Na’vis are trained to get the target attention of smart missiles, skillfully fly to key parts of the exterior stations and land in waiting for them to be hit by missiles, non-accidentally. Na’vis will use these missile blasts against the station to get into the interior station and fight to the command centre and possibly get to Grace.
Quaritch and Selfridge feel victory is near. The station trembles a bit. Alert on station damage appears on screen. Second tremble, second alert hits the screen. There is an uncomfortable look on Quaritch’s face. A third alert is about to happen close to them. A Na’vi is targeted by a missile. He looks again at a drawing of the station with an X marking taped to his banshee. He knows where to fly to. He flies to perch on the exact X marking. He lands and wait for the missile to find and hit him, he starts saying some Na’vi as the missile approaches. Quaritch sees this on the live video feed and starts figuring out what this move is up to. He has flash back of when Jake handled a missile by hand and attempted to manually throw it when he tried shooting him. The missile leaving his hand to hit one of the side rotor blades. The blast in the flashback blasts the station. The third alert hits the screens. Air rushing in.
The Na’vis are fighting harder. The beast in Jake is making him fight harder with Neytiri. They have now entered the station and fighting on. Every single Na’vi and banshee coordinating in efforts to fight man, machine and missile.
Selfridge has his oxygen mask on. He knows it’s trouble time. Quaritch is fighting the incoming Na’vi and killing them. One leg of the station is blasted off and tilts the whole station slightly. Chairs and desk slide a little along. Unbreakable live video screen is still showing the cinematic warfare. Nyetiri and Jake enter the command centre. Jake unstraps his knife, Nyetiri picks an arrow, Quaritch loads his pistol and Selfridge reaches for the computer to delete Grace’s data set. Nyetiri releases arrow to hit arm of Selfridge. Quaritch shoots at Grace’s cylinder holding her. Bullet doesn’t hit her body, passes over her head, special liquid in cylinder starts leaking. Nyetiri rolls to get Selfrbidge by the head as in a manner to slay him. Quaritch and Jake are in a fight, fight elevated, it is now Na’vi to Na’vi. Selfridge is bleeding and afraid for his life as Nyetiri’s knife is on his throat and looking on at the feisty fight between Quaritch and Jake. Quaritch overcomes Jake in good technical combating fashion, he now has Jake’s own knife to his neck too. It is Nyetiri against Quaritch, who is going to cut first.
Video feed showing battle outside starts flickering. A sound comes from the video feed ordering them to put their knives down. They look around, however careful but sound is coming from the video feed. The video feed flickers to military generals and some suited people in some kind of situation room synonymous to the one used in the White House. The voice asks again for them to drop their knives. Jake looks at Grace’s leaking cylinder and pleads to Nyetiri to listen. Knives dropped by Quaritch and Nyetiri.
One Army General talks on whiles others seriously look on. The General tells Quaritch his consciousness in his avatar will be ceased and continuing data set saved in the orbit head station, it’s already been saved on a mirror server. Before Quarith says he doesn’t want to die, he falls unconsciously. His AI computer is shut remotely. The General continues to tell Jake how they are disappointed in him and that they still have Grace’s data set, they will make a decision soon on that. Jake pleads for them not to touch her. The General tells Selfridge he has been relieved of all duties related to Pandora. Selfridge looks at his bleeding arm for sympathy. The General tell them the station will detonate in 3 minutes and that they are sorry. Selfridge screams and the video feed cuts to the cutdown from 3 minutes.
Jake shouts at Selfridge this means what. Selfridge is crying. He tells them all moving missiles will land back at the station. The station will explode and spread within a significant radius to land possibly. Selfridge know this is the end of him, he is going to die.
All rockets start missing their target to move autonomously to the station. The Na’vis and the soldiers notice a change, missiles areon rewind. All weapons and aircrafts with screens start showing impending deactivation and general mission abort, something doesn’t make sense. Jake is fast thinking. Jake wipes blood from Selfridge’s face shield visor giving him oxygen and tells he is taking him to Pandora. Selfridge, slowly panting asks him whether he is mad and he should stop. Countdown is at 1 minute 50 seconds now.
Jake carries him on one shoulder and jumps out with Nyetiri, they are caught by their banshees. They fly to the carrier atop now tilting extra slow. They signal everyone to fly to land, soldier or Na’vi, that the whole station is about to explode. The thought process of life and death having to hit the soldiers is unbelievable.
Alive soldiers are divided. Jake shouts out in Na’vi for some soldiers to be picked on banshees. Some soldiers get on to some aircrafts carrying what best they can. Whiles others brave up to sit on banshees, feels like sitting on a camel for first time. Some soldiers decline the help and will rather die, they will stay on the station. Jake shouts the time is now to fly.
Station shakes one more time. The surface carrier tilts significantly and Toruk with some aircrafts slide into the sea. Video feed counts to zero minutes, zero seconds and zero milliseconds.
Banshees and Aircrafts at full speed to land, they hear a loud blast, mushroom smoke forms and quick air blows from behind. Large massive fireball is spreading on the sea towards the land. Toruk is set sinking to the ocean floor whiles a layer of fire passes on top of it. Some late flying banshee and aircraft are caught by the fireball and explode. Scientists and some Na’vi on the shore see incoming fireball and run for cover. The Na’vi and aircraft fly a little high to get out of the fireball radius, nearly caught by the spreading fire. Jake and Neytiri watch down below. He says to himself, Grace I am sorry.
Soldiers begin landing on Pandora. Na’vi are wary of them and also begin to stretch their arrows towards them, ready to shoot. Soldiers have their hands in the air. Scientists are trying to diffuse the situation but tensions are building. Jake lands with Neytiri. Jake lays down Selfridge who needs medical attention. He waves for arrows to be held down.
Jake looks on as giant smoke rises into the sky whiles Neytiri gets close to him and Selfridge panting on whiles receiving medical attention. Dead Toruk lands on the sea bed finally. The giant smoke is visible from space where more space stations watch on, thinking about next move for Pandora.
Nothing to take away from the Avatar team, credit roll on this level of my imagination with them working on it.
I am not totally discarding the way of water vfx direction of Avatar 2. For me, I will try to take a different kind of plot there. Without nothing to take away from your production prowess, it is definitely a good work done in motion capture under water.
I may not write again but the news of James Cameron giving updates on Avatar may lead me to ask where I stopped off in this never going anywhere story.
Jim and Jon, if you are reading this, it’s been my biggest pleasure to get your attention.
Always your fan.
Dziedzorm.
