Spoilers Alert!
Before starting the story of “Avatar: The Way of Water”, let us see a recap of the first film of the Avatar series. In the year 2154, the earth is slowly ending, so humans come to a planet named Pandora to understand this planet and get some minerals so that the earth can be saved. The people of Pandora are called Na'vi, who are much taller, faster and stronger than humans. The colour of their body is blue. Everything on this planet is connected to Mother Eva and she is the main source of all the energy on this planet. In the first film, a paralyzed man named Jake Sully arrives on Pandora as part of the main research team. A scientist named Grace is already doing research on Pandora and she succeeds in making cloned bodies or Avatar of Na'vi people. To control these bodies, humans are put to sleep in a hi-tech chamber and their consciousness is transferred into Na'vi clone’s bodies. For her research, Grace had created avatars of many people and Jake is one of those people. During research, Jake meets Na'vi people and starts liking the Na'vi people more than humans. Navi people call humans as sky people. At the end of the first part, Jake battles Colonel Miles and his human army to save the Na'vi people and defeats them with the help of mother Eva. Then, with the help of the Na'vi people and Mother Eva, Jake transfers his consciousness from his human body to his Na'vi Avatar forever. He also became the leader of the Na'vi people and married his Na'vi girlfriend Neytiri. At the end of the film, we also saw that Scientist Grace was injured and could not be saved.
Now the story goes ahead 10 years and the movie "Avatar: The Way of Water" begins. In the beginning of the movie we see that Jake has become the leader of the forest clan Omatikaya and now has 2 sons and a daughter. The elder son is Neteyam, the younger son is Lo'ak and the youngest daughter is Tuktirey. We also learn that Scientist Grace didn’t actually die at the end of the previous film. With the help of Mother Eva, her consciousness was transferred to her Na'vi Avatar. But she has remained in a coma since then. But somehow she has a daughter named Kiri. Jake has adopted her as his daughter. Here, it is not known how Grace became pregnant and who is the father of Kiri. There is also a human boy, Spider, who is actually the son of Colonel Miles. He wasn't able to return to Earth when the humans were leaving Pandora at the end of the last film. He grew up with the Na'vi people and considers himself a Na'vi.
In the first film, humans came to Pandora only to understand this planet and take some minerals. But this time these people come here to settle down because now it is impossible to save the Earth. This mission is under General Ardmore’s command. This time their ships are bigger and due to their bigger size, they killed a lot of Na’vi people, animals and trees when they landed on Pandora. This makes Jake and his clan very sad.
Then we see that Colonel Miles has been rescued, but is now in a Na'vi body. According to the film, the brains of the people who came on the mission are uploaded to the computer and their backup is made and with the help of the same backup and cloning technology, the Consciousness of Colonel Miles has been inserted into his Na’vi Avatar. As Colonel Miles is back now, he seeks revenge.
Then the next scene comes a year later, in which humans are extracting minerals from the planet, but Jake, with the help of his two sons, is engaged in stopping their supply chains. They repeatedly attack and stop humans and capture their machines and weapons. But in the next scene, both of Jake's sons deviate from their mission and land on a human base and are injured by their attack. Then Jake comes and saves them, and also scolds them for their actions.
Then we come to know that humans have a theory that whenever a human lands on Pandora's surface, Eva alerts everyone on Pandora, but if they send Na'vi clones, this will not happen as she will consider them as native people. To test this theory, Colonel Miles travels to the surface of Pandora and chooses the same spot where he died in the previous film. But unfortunately Kiri, Lo'ak, Tuktirey and Spider are also there without informing anyone. They secretly start watching the colonel. When the colonel arrives there, he sees his skeletonized body and remembers how Neytiri killed him in the previous film. Enraged, he smashes the head of his skeleton. Seeing this, Lo'ak informs Jake about him. Upon hearing this, Jake, Netiri and their eldest son Neteyam set out to rescue them. But before they can reach, the colonel catches those kids. After capturing, the colonel learns that Kiri is Grace's daughter and that the other two Na'vi kids are Jake and Neytiri's children. He also recognizes his son, Spider. Then Jake arrives with everyone, they fight with the Colonel and manage to save everyone except for Spider.
The Colonel takes Spider with him. After this, General Ardmore, Colonel Miles and their team observe Spider's behaviour and learn that Spider believes himself to be a Na'vi. Then they try to find the whereabouts of Jack and his family by scanning Spider's mind, but are unable to do so due to Spider's strong mind.General Ardmore's team wants to do more experiments on him, but Colonel Miles stops them because after all, he is Spider's father and cannot see him suffering.
The Colonel then befriends Spider, and Spider teaches him the Na'vi ways. The colonel also bonds with the flying creatures on Pandora, as taught by Spider. He wants to befriend Spider and find out the whereabouts of Jake's clan from him, but Spider does not do so. He simply teaches them the ways of the Na'vi people so that they can understand them and change themselves. But the colonel is hell bent on taking revenge from Jake and his family.
Jake, on the other hand, knew that the Colonel and his men would be able to find his whereabouts from Spider. So he decides that his family will no longer live in the forest. He was under the impression that if he and his family left the clan, the colonel would stop pursuing him and would not hurt his clan. Neytiri didn't want to leave her clan behind but he persuades her. He also passes his leader position to another Na’avi. Then he sets out towards the sea.
Near the eastern sea of Pandora there are more than 100 islands and many Na’vi clans live there. So far we knew that the Na'vi people live in the forests only, but in this movie it is revealed that water is also an element on Pandora and the Water People are called Metkayina. Their body structure is slightly different. Their tails and hands are unique and strong, which helps them to swim in water.
When Jake's family arrives, they seek shelter from Tonowari and Ronal, the leaders of the water people. But Ronal refuses, saying that she cannot let Jake bring his war to them. According to her, these people are weak and will not be able to fit in her clan. She also calls them half-breeds and demons as they are associated with humans. But Tonowari had heard of Jake's feats and knows that they are good people, so he allows them to stay with his clan.
Then Tonovari and Ronal introduced Jake and Neytiri to the way of their living. Tonowari’s son, Aonung and daughter, Tsireya introduce the Way of the Water to Jake's kids. They told them about the creatures there, their living conditions and how to swim in the water. Meanwhile, Jake's younger son, Lo'ak, befriends the Tonowari’s beautiful daughter, Tsireya, and the two begin to develop a bond. Although the Metkayina people do not like Jake and his family yet, they let them find shelter here and learn to live among them at the behest of their leader.
Because of her special abilities, Kiri easily bonds with the sea. Kiri has such special abilities probably because her mother Grace's body was merged with mother Eva at the end of the first film. Kiri can feel and hear mother Eva. She always wonders who her father is. But no one had the answer because no one knew how Grace became pregnant while in a coma. We can consider it as a miracle of mother Eva for now.
In the next scene, Aonung and his friends make fun of Kiri because she only has 4 fingers and because of this, Jake's younger son Lo'ak starts fighting with them. Then his elder son also joins his brother and a scuffle ensues between them. Later, Jake tells Lo'ak to apologise, but is also happy inside because his sons showed their strength to the people there.
Lo'ak apologies but Aonung and his friends have something else in mind. They take him to a dangerous part of the sea which is an area of sharks like terrifying creatures and leave him there. But he got saved by a Tulkun, a whale-like creature. That Tulkun helped Lo'ak because previously Lo'ak saved it by pulling out a human weapon from his body. After that they became friends and Lo'ak named him Payakan. The Tulkuns are highly intelligent beings that are more intelligent, spiritual, and emotional than humans. They can communicate with Metkayina people in sign language and telepathically. Metkayina people consider them as their spiritual family.
In the next scene, everyone is searching for Lo'ak as his brother Neteyam captures Aonung and finds out the truth from him. Lo'ak reaches there and takes the blame on him to prove his friendship. Here it is revealed that Jake is not happy with Lo’ak as he doesn't listen to him and is always involved in troubles.
But Aonung started respecting Lo'ak for this. In the next scene, when all the kids are together, Lo'ak tells them how that creature saved him. Tsireya then tells him that those creatures are called the Tulkuns and they always live in groups. At present those creatures have gone somewhere far away and have not yet returned. Hearing this, Lo'ak says that this Tulkun did not have a fin. Then she tells him that he is Payakan who was expelled from his group by the Tulkuns because he killed many Tulkuns and Metkayina people in past. But Lo'ak does not believe it because that creature had helped him.
In the next scene everyone goes to the sacred Tree of Souls of Metkayina people. There, through that tree, Kiri meets her mother and asks who her father is, but before Grace can tell anything, someone or something sucks away their spirit and Kiri starts having a seizure. As it has never happened before, it is not known why this happened this time. There is some secret here which will probably be revealed in the next movie. Jake calls his human friends to save Kiri, but they too can't do anything. Just then Ronal comes there and uses her magic to bring Kiri back. We also see that Ronal is pregnant now.
As Jake's friends arrive on that part of the planet without informing the colonel, the colonel thinks that Jake must be somewhere there in these islands. He leaves with the Tulkun Hunters. Here we learn that humans are hunting the Tulkuns and extracting a liquid called Emerita from their brains because it has anti-aging properties. We can also call it Amrita because the liquid has similar properties.
In the next scene, the Tulkuns return and Metkayinas go to meet them. Ronal is very close to the Tulkuns’ mother. They are like spiritual sisters. The Tulkuns’ mother gets very happy seeing Ronal pregnant.
In the next scene, the colonel goes to each island, taking people hostage and asking about Jake. He burns down their houses before leaving so that the word reaches Jake. Then with the help of hunters, he kills the Tulkuns’ mother and extracts Amrita from her brain. Then they leave their tracking device on her body so that Jake will know it is the colonel's doing.
When Metkayina people come to know about this Ronal gets angry because according to her all this happened because of Jake and his family. After this the Metkayina people get ready for war. But Jake stops them and says that saving the Tulkuns is more important than the war, so the Tulkuns must be told to leave.
Payakan tells Lo'ak that these Hunters had killed his mother, so he tried to take revenge and because of this he was expelled from his group. But Tonowari warns Lo'ak not to go near Payakan because as per him the Tulkuns were not always peaceful creatures. They used to fight a lot. But later their group decided to stop fighting. But Payakan did not listen to them and because of this he was expelled from the group.
In the next scene, Lo'ak, Tuktirey, Kiri, Tsireya and Aonung go to warn Payakan, but the hunters have already targeted him and placed trackers on him. Lo’ak inform Jake about this. After getting this news, all the Metkayina people reached there for the war, but Lo'ak, Tsireya and Tuktirey got caught before that. After taking them hostage, the colonel asks Jake to come out and Jake has to do so.
Then we see Payakan again goes against the rules of his group and comes to save his friend Lo'ak, because he cannot let his friends die. Payakan arrives and causes havoc there. He also kills the leader of the Hunters brutally. But during the fight, Jake's eldest son Neteyam gets shot and dies. This causes Neytiri to lose her temper but Jake manages to calm her down.
Then Spider compromises the Colonel's mothership from the inside. As the ship was already damaged by Payakan and then got compromised from inside, it started sinking. But Kiri and Tuktirey were still trapped inside.
Then a fight ensues between the Colonel and Jake. During the fight, the Colonel takes Kiri hostage. In response, Neytiri takes Spider hostage and says, “a son for a son”. Hearing this, the colonel gives up and leaves Kiri. But Jake attacks him because he knows the colonel will come after his family again.
Just as the fight is on, the ship starts sinking and Neytiri and Tuktirey get trapped. The Colonel and Jake are also trapped. In the end, Jake chokes the colonel unconscious. After this, Lo'ak comes and saves Jake. Kiri calls other creatures with her special powers and saves everyone. Jake praises Lo'ak as now he has become a responsible person.
Then we also see that Spider saves his father out of pity, but does not go with him. Jake embraces Spider upon seeing him and adopts him as his son saying, “a son for a son”.
In the next scene, Neteyam's body is returned to Mother Eva. Jake then decides to leave with his family, but Tonowari and Ronal stop them as Jake and his family have now become part of the Metakayina clan and have learned the Way of Water.
In the final scene of the film, Jake and Neytiri go to the sacred tree of souls to remember their eldest son. Here Jake decides to fight instead of running away and the film ends.
The film ended but left some questions like how did Grace become pregnant? What is her daughter's connection with all this? Who had sucked their spirits from inside the sacred tree? To get the answers to all these questions, we will have to wait for the next film.
This was a scene by scene recap of the film. But the visuals of this film cannot be described in words, it can only be felt by seeing it. In order to actually feel this movie, you need to watch it in the theatres. If you are not watching this in the theatres, it's your loss, not theirs. This is not a movie but a therapy and I want you to enjoy this therapy for once.
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