In the sequel to Avatar, Sigourney Weaver is 73 going on 14.
Disney has dropped a new trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water, teasing a visually stunning return to Pandora from director James Cameron. But the footage also provides the best look yet at Weaver's surprising role. After her character died in the first film, she's returning via motion capture as Kiri, the adoptive 14-year-old Na'vi daughter of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña).
The trailer shows Kiri speaking with her father, telling him, "Dad, I know you think I'm crazy. But I feel her. I hear her heart beat. She's so close." In the original Avatar, Weaver played a human, Grace, who dies during an effort to transfer her consciousness into an avatar at the Tree of Souls on Pandora. When Kiri says "I feel her," the trailer cuts to a shot of that tree. So could Kiri be referring to Grace, and could she be a reincarnation of Weaver's original character?
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Speaking with The New York Times, Weaver said it was "incredibly exciting" to let her "inner 14-year-old" loose on the film, and she recalled Cameron pitching her the idea by saying, "You can do this because you're so immature. Nobody knows this but me, but I know that you're just 14 at heart."
Cameron also told Empire, "As an acting challenge, it's big. We're gonna have a 60-something actor playing a character [decades younger than] her actual biological age. Sig thought it was all kinds of fun."
The trailer also teases the film's underwater sequences, which were accomplished using advanced motion capture technology and by actually filming inside giant water tanks. After a massive 13-year wait, the film finally hits theaters in December.
-
September 7 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include stressing about Powerball, and a busy FBI schedule
-
Nvidia: unstoppable force, or powering down?Talking Point Sales of firm's AI-powering chips have surged above market expectations –but China is the elephant in the room
-
5 hard-working cartoons about Labor Day celebrationsCartoons Artists take on creation of AI, spelling mistakes, and more
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposesspeed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
-
New Mexico to investigate death of Gene Hackman, wifespeed read The Oscar-winning actor and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their home with no signs of foul play
