Avatar: The Way of Water star Stephen Lang recently explained exactly how his dead villain, Colonel Miles Quaritch, returns in the upcoming sequel.
Lang discussed Quaritch’s resurrection in an interview with Empire. “[Quaritch’s] a genetically-engineered autonomous avatar,” he said. “He has been downloaded with the mind, the emotions, and even more interestingly, possibly the spirit of Quaritch. Now, that’s all pretty esoteric stuff. He comes with a full memory bank up until the time he actually undergoes the DNA transfer. So there are certain things that he doesn’t have any memory of at all. He has no memory of his death.”
“It’s fair to say [Quaritch is the same person in Avatar 2], but I think it’s incomplete,” Lang continued. “If you think about it, in the original film, Quaritch was really a function. He was a colorful function — a personality-filled function, but he really was there to provide conflict. Now, he still has that function but I also think, just because of the depths of what [director] Jim [Cameron] is exploring here, he’s quite a bit more than that. We’re seeing parts of him that we have not seen hitherto. That only makes sense because we don’t want to be massaging the same territory over and over again. We need to go to new places and indeed he does.”
James Cameron Talks Avatar 2’s Inspiration
Lang’s comments regarding Avatar: The Way of Water breaking new ground tracks with recent remarks by Cameron to that effect. Specifically, the Oscar-winning filmmaker noted that the key theme of the Avatar sequel is “the family is the fortress,” an idea not touched on in the original film. Cameron added that he drew on his own experiences as a father while co-writing Avatar: The Way of Water’s script, including times when he’s been “the asshole dad.”
The second Avatar installment’s focus on family also serves as a rebuttal of the superhero blockbusters currently dominating the box office. “I was consciously thinking to myself, ‘Okay, all these superheroes, they never have kids. They never really have to deal with the real things that hold you down and give you feet of clay in the real world,'” he said. Despite this, Cameron is also quick to point out that Avatar: The Way of Water takes its cues from darker family-oriented properties like The Sopranos, rather than traditional Disney fare.
Avatar: The Way of Water arrives in theaters on Dec. 16.
Source: Empire
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