James Cameron explains how the oceans of Earth are in danger and how the oceans of Pandora are the focus Avatar 2

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

While it’s not necessarily news that James Cameron cares about Earth’s oceans or that the first sequel to AVATAR will be all about Pandora’s ocean ecosystem (which we heard plenty about back in the fall of 2011), Cameron had a few further, impassioned thoughts to share on the subjects and their connection at New York’s Union Square while there supporting the Blu-Ray release of TITANIC.  When asked what left he had to say (in filmic terms) regarding oceanographic exploration considering his documentary films and feature film work (TITANIC, THE ABYSS) which addressed the subject, Cameron had this to say:

“We’re doing ‘Avatar’ films now, so we’re making up an ocean ecosystem for Pandora.  That’s gonna have less to do with the deep exploration that I’ve done than it has to do with my concerns about conservation of Earth’s oceans. The fact that we’re basically overfishing, climate change… a few degrees of temperature rise are gonna basically take out the coral reefs. All those beautiful images of the coral environments we all grew up with won’t exist in 50 years at the rate we’re going in terms of pumping greenhouse gases into the environment. These are the things that concern me.”

Cameron added: “there isn’t a direct map between the deep ocean exploration that I’ve done and the ocean stuff that we’re doing in the ‘Avatar’ films. However, I’m going to continue in the future making documentaries and continuing explorations stuff as well because I’m always fascinated by that. We don’t have to explore the coral reefs at this point because we understand them very well. We also understand that they’re dying and they’re ultimately doomed if we don’t change our profligate ways.

“I hope that explains it, ’cause people have connected the dots directly together. ‘Oh, going to the challenger deep has a direct connection to what we’re going to see in Avatar 2,’ and that’s not the case at all. It’s all the scuba diving I did before I even started the deep ocean stuff that has more of a direct connection to Avatar 2 & 3, which by the way won’t take place completely in or under the water. That’s just part of the environment of Pandora that we’re going to see.”

More on AVATAR 2 and 3 (and 4?) as we hear it.