A couple months ago, James Cameron mentioned that one of the reason why so many years passed between the release of the first Avatar movie and its upcoming sequel Avatar: The Way of Water (which is set to reach theatres on December 16th, two days shy of the thirteenth anniversary of the first Avatar‘s release) is that he lost a year working on a sequel script that didn’t completely work. As Cameron explained, “All films work on different levels. The first is surface, which is character, problem and resolution. The second is thematic. What is the movie trying to say? But Avatar also works on a third level, the subconscious. I wrote an entire script for the sequel, read it and realized that it did not get to level three. Boom. Start over.” Now he has revealed that the scrapped screenplay was called Avatar: The Higher Ground – and it has been reworked into a three issue Dark Horse comic book series called Avatar: The High Ground! The street date for the first issue of Avatar: The High Ground is December 6th, but some retailers have reportedly already put it on their shelves.
Cameron told Total Film magazine, “I was working with a team of writers. We had a lot of ideas. We kept trying to corral it into a box, and it never quite fit. So at a certain point, I said, ‘I’ll just finish it, and see if it’s a movie.’ I did. It came out, I think, at 130 pages. It was like, ‘Man, this is a great story. This is a hell of a read.’ But it was missing one of those critical elements about sequels, which is that it didn’t go enough into the unexpected. It also didn’t play enough by Avatar rules, which is to connect us to the dream world, that which has a spiritual component that we can’t even quite quantify in words. It ticked every other box, but it didn’t tick that one.“
Cameron and his writing team were still able to use some elements from the Avatar: The Higher Ground and distribute them throughout both Avatar: The Way of Water and next year’s Avatar 3. The rest went into the Avatar: The High Ground comic series, which serves as a prequel to Avatar: The Way of Water.
Cameron said, “There’s some great stuff in it. You’ve got the Na’vi fighting with bows and arrows in zero-G. I mean, I’m there! I want to see that movie. But it just didn’t achieve enough of the overall story and thematic goals that I had in mind. So we’re turning it into a Dark Horse graphic novel. You’ll be able to see that interim battle that took place between movie one and movie two.“
The three issues of Avatar: The High Ground have the following synopses:
Issue 1
It has been almost a decade since the humans were forced to leave Pandora – but now they’re returning – with an armada of heavily-armed starships! After years of peace, Jake Sully has settled down with Neytiri and raised a family, so for him, the stakes are even higher than when he first went to war against the corporate might of the RDA.Issue 2
Humans have returned to Pandora with an armada of starships but Jake Sully and the Navi are ready for them! Knowing this day would come, Jake has trained his Navi warriors with a plan that should make it too costly for the humans to try again . . . if the plan works. But, any chain of events is only as strong as the weakest link, and in this case the weak link is human nature. As the plan unravels, Jake and Neytiri must race against time to return to Pandora and save their children before the starships land.Issue 3
Jake Sully’s fears have come crashing to Pandora, gun’s blazing. The Sky People are planet-side, and taking Hell’s Gate by storm. Jake and Neytiri’s children are still on base, surrounded and outgunned. He will have to improvise and risk it all to protect his family, his people, and their home. The battle is underway and every Na’vi is in danger.
And there is more Avatar to come. Avatar: The Way of Water‘s 2022 release will be followed by Avatar 3 on December 20, 2023. If these first two sequels do well enough, we’ll also be getting Avatar 4 on December 18, 2026, and Avatar 5 on December 22, 2028. If they don’t do well enough, Avatar 4 and 5 will be scrapped.
Are you looking forward to reading and watching more stories set in the world of Avatar? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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