James Cameronmade movie history in 2009 withAvatar, the highest-grossing film of all time.

The director trades Pandora’s rainforests for an ocean setting.

“The best metaphor is really good episodic TV.

Kiri is one of the unfish-in-water characters.”

The origins of Kiri are complicated: She’s is a naturally conceived Na’vi raised in the rainforest.

“It’s just that she’s born of Grace’s avatar,” Cameron explains.

“It’s a natural birth, but the avatar is brain-dead, but she’s not.

She’s normal.”

“She’s a character who’s a true sensitive,” Cameron adds.

When she jumps into the ocean, she has this transformative experience."

Flight of imagination

What pushes Jake’s family out of their rainforest toward the ocean?

“A bunch of bad s—,” Cameron says.

Now 15 years older, Jake and Neytiri have a different view on life.

“Becoming a parent changes so much of your behavior and your value system,” Cameron says.

“What we saw in the first film were people who were fearless.

Jake would throw himself off his ikran onto a leonopteryx” remember thoseAvatarcreatures?

“but is a father of four going do that?

I’m thinking probably not, because they have a duty to survive.

It doesn’t mean he’s a coward, but it means his priorities change.”

“Is he still a warrior?

Cameron may be speaking from personal experience, especially more recently with his younger children with wife Suzy Amis.

They are marked by tails and fin-like “strakes” that help them propel through the water.

They’d move their hips like they had a tail.

We called it the crocodile swim.”

Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) lead these Na’vi in the Metkayina as chieftans.

(More on the latter shortly).

Their specific tattoos, inspired by Polynesian and Melanesian cultures, signify their authority.

He’s like the secular leader and she’s the spiritual leader.

So there’s a tension between these two guys.

They respect each other, but Jake is asking for something that’s quite dangerous for Tonowari."

“We treat the tulkun as characters,” says Cameron.

“They are slightly transcendent animals that have some degree of consciousness and culture.

They’re intelligent, highly cultured, highly linguistic.

They interact with the ocean Na’vi as equals.”

The tulkun also share the same religion as the Metkayina.

“You’re actually seeing a damaged, scarred tulkun,” Cameron says.

There’s a lot going on in that image."