Jon Landau, an executive producer on James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water, recently dropped some fresh info about the myriad of new sea creatures appearing in the upcoming blockbuster.
In an interview with Empire Magazine, Landau described the largest creature yet seen on "Pandora," the vibrant, alien world on which the movie is set. “There are so many sea creatures that people will fall in love with here. The idea was to create a creature that was on the scale of Pandora. So a tulkun is, like, 300 feet long. They are a sentient species and as intelligent in their own way as the Na’vi are in theirs.” In the trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water, a huge, whale-like tulkun can be seen swimming with a Na'vi, one of the tall, blue aliens native to Pandora.
Landau went on to describe some other key creatures in the movie, including two different types of water-borne mounts used by the Na'vi. One, called the "ilu," appears to be used more for everyday transportation. "The ilu is the water equivalent of a direhorse. They are more playful than skimwings." The skimwings, meanwhile, are specialized mounts for Na'vi military endeavors. Landau said the skimwing is "like a giant flying fish but [it] keeps its tail in the water -- its tail is its propulsion. The Metkayina and all the reef people use them as their military mounts when they're going into combat. They can go 60 miles per hour for endless periods of time."
What We Know About the Return to Avatar's Pandora
Avatar: The Way of Water is set over 10 years after the events of the first film and sees the return of protagonists Jake Sully and Neytiri, played by Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña, respectively. Now with a young son, the couple is displaced from Neytiri's rainforest home and must seek refuge with the "Metkayina" tribe, island-inhabitants of Pandora's vast oceans.
Saldaña recently spoke about her reaction after watching a portion of the completed film. "It's powerful. It's compelling. I can get choked up just talking about it, because I was able to see just 20 minutes of the second installment... and I was speechless. I was moved to tears."
The long-awaited sequel will arrive just before the 2022 holiday season, and the filmmakers are hoping the opportunity to see it in 3D will bring people out to the theaters. The format has lost popularity in recent years, but Landau is hoping Avatar: The Way of Water can inspire a 3D revival. "We believe 3D creates a more immersive experience in our narrative storytelling. We don't play 3D as a world coming out of a window. We play it as a window into the world."
Avatar: The Way of Water arrives in theaters on Dec. 16, 2022.
Source: Empire