Articles
Avatar: Fire and Ash Star Addresss the Most Awkward Scene of the Entire Sequel, and Why It Wasn’t Weird on Set
James Cameron’s goal with the Avatar movies is to bring people together. At the center of the franchise is a story that anyone can get behind: the residents of Pandora, otherwise known as Na’vi, want nothing more than to live in peace, but the Sky People, aka humans, get in the way of that because they want to take the planet’s resources. Well, at least that’s how it is at the start. Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar: Fire and Ash complicate matters by handing the spotlight over to Spider, a human raised on Pandora by the Sully family because his birth parents are gone.
Spider sticks out like a sore thumb, but he embraces all of the Na’vi traditions and wants nothing more than to be welcomed by all of his blue allies. Of course, that kind of acceptance doesn’t happen overnight, so Spider bides his time by making friends with another outcast, Kiri, a Na’vi born from an Avatar body. The Sully family takes her in as well, and she and Spider bond over being different than everyone else. They get so close, in fact, that they start a romantic relationship, which works fine from a story standpoint.
But things get awkward when the curtain is pulled back and reveals a character played by 76-year-old Sigourney Weaver sharing a kiss with a character played by 21-year-old Jack Champion, who was much younger when he originally filmed his scenes for Fire and Ash. Weaver has shut down the idea of any funny business happening on set, though, revealing to The Hollywood Reporter that the production found a solution to their problem.
“That scene where I say, ‘You’re perfect just as you are,’ we had to be very delicate about that scene because it included a kiss,” she said. “Obviously, I wasn’t going to kiss Jack, who was 14 or 15, in real life. We asked Jack to pick someone I could kiss, and he did. Then I imagine when I wasn’t there, they picked someone appropriate for Jack. That concern about all of that, which is quite legitimate, was going on. And I’m glad the scene survived, because when I saw it, I believed it. It’s so genuine between the two of them, and any concern about Jack’s real age and my real age, I think there’s no room for it there.”
Avatar 4‘s Time Jump Will Help the Audience Buy Spider and Kiri’s Relationship
Cameron surely knew that he was playing with fire by bringing Spider and Kiri together. However, he’s playing the long game, as he’s already confirmed that Avatar 4 will feature a significant time jump that ages all of the children up. Seeing Spider take on a more leadership role will surely make his emotional moments with Kiri go more smoothly. The only potential roadblock in this plan is that Cameron continues to push the idea that a fourth installment isn’t a foregone conclusion. That’s a conversation for after Fire and Ash leaves theaters, though.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
The post Avatar: Fire and Ash Star Addresss the Most Awkward Scene of the Entire Sequel, and Why It Wasn’t Weird on Set appeared first on ComicBook.com.
