'Avatar: The Way of Water' trailer released
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), left, Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowar (Cliff Curtis) i in "Avatar: The Way of Water."
Credit: 20th Century Studios
Following a teaser trailer in April, filmmaker James Cameron and 20th Century Studios on Wednesday released the first full trailer for the first of the long-anticipated four "Avatar" sequels, "Avatar: The Way of Water." The movie hits theaters on Dec. 16.
The title figures into a line of dialogue, with one character saying in voice-over, "The Way of Water connects all things." The trailer heavily features the oceanic clan the Metkayina; its people's plesiosaur-like mounts, the ilu; and the sentient, whale-like creatures known as tulkun.
Set more than a decade after the events of the 2009 hit "Avatar" — which has earned $2.92 billion worldwide, including rereleases, to stand as the highest-grossing movie ever — the trailer opens with some of the five biological and adopted children of human-in-avatar-form Jake Scully (voice of Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (voice of Zoe Saldaña), of the moon Pandora's Na'vi natives.
Their adopted daughter Kiri (voice of Sigourney Weaver, whose character Dr. Grace Augustine appeared to die in the first film) tells Jake, "Dad, I know you think I'm crazy, but I feel her. I feel her heartbeat. She's so close." Whether this might be the consciousness of Augustine or perhaps Kiri's connection to Eywa, the guiding spirit of Pandora, the teen calls the heartbeat "Mighty."
Next, a Metkayina hunting party appears riding ilu, followed by a scene that could be from the dystopian future of Cameron's "Terminator" movies, as human soldiers, one in a robotic exo-suit, charge through fiery terrain. Two characters in a forest watch as a distant landscape burns. At a gathering on some beach, Metkayina leader Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) tells Neytiri and her clan, "We cannot let you bring your war here."
Scenes of combat against Earth's avaricious and ruthless Resources Development Administration (RDA) fill much of the remainder, but for an anguished moment between Jake and a terrified and angry Neytiri, who yells to him, "This is our home!"
"I need you with me," Jake responds. "And I need you to be strong." He then asks her to have what she said he possessed in the first film: "Strong heart."
Stephen Lang and Giovanni Ribisi reprise their "Avatar" roles in the sequel. Joining the movie are Kate Winslet, Michelle Yeoh, Edie Falco, Oona Chaplin, Jermaine Clement and others.
