Avatar: The Way of Waterfeatures the return of many characters from the first film. Among these characters is the villainous Colonel Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang, which is surprising, given the character’s death inAvatar.At the LA premiere of the sequel, Lang discussed how the character is changed when he returns.
Avatar: The Way of Waterhit theaters 13 years after the first movie. James Cameron has explained thatAvatar: The Way of Watertook so longbecause he was busy putting a lot of care into the movie’s production cycle. The final films in theAvatarfranchise are reportedly going to be Cameron’s last, so it’s no surprise he wanted to take his time getting them ready.
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In an interview withDeadlineat the red carpet premiere, Lang discussed what his character would be going through inAvatar: The Way of Water. “I would say that pivot’s a good word, but I’d say evolution is really what it is. Quaritch, in the original Avatar, he served his purpose, and he served it well, and he took his “medicine” at the end. But this is a world of science fiction that Jim Cameron has created here, and it really serves his purpose, and serves the narrative’s purpose very well, to reconstitute this character in a somewhat different form. He’s still Quaritch," Lang said. “You’re gonna recognize this role. If you like him, good, if you hate him, that’s fine too. He’s very much Quaritch, but he’s Quaritch Plus. Because now he really is - he is, I would say, at one with the world because he’s become part of this world. But it’s not his nature to be at one. It’s really - he goes to war, not only with Jake Sully, he goes to war with himself.”
Previously,Lang had explained hisAvatarcharacter’s returnby revealing that Quaritch is now a new type of ‘Avatar’ known as a Recombinant, a hybrid between Na’vi and Human that contains the original Quaritch’s memories. That is presumably what Lang means by Quaritch being “Quaritch Plus” and becoming part of Pandora. Quaritch had previously not used an Avatar in the first film, nor did he much like Pandora itself. Now, it seems that he’s stuck learning to live with a connection to Eywa.
In theAvatar: The Way of Watertrailer, Quaritch can be seen regarding a human skull in his hands, before turning it to dust. Perhaps Quaritch finds his own, original human body in the forest. There are several questions about mortality that can be brought up if Quaritch’s status as a Recombinant is a central focus of the film.
Lang’s return might also shed some light on another mysterious return. Sigourney Weaver will also be inAvatar: The Way of Water. While she played a human in the firstAvatar,her character also died at the end. In this film, Weaver will return to theAvatarfranchise in a motion capture role. She’ll be playing Kiri, Jake and Neytiri’s adopted daughter. Kiri, mysteriously, was born right after the firstAvatarfilm with five fingers, a trait shared with Avatars and Recombinants. Unlike Quaritch, however, she does not seem to have any memories of potential past life.
