Fire and Ash, Promises It’ll ‘Get Your Blood Up’

James Cameron has risen from the depths of post-production on his Avatar franchise to give an update on the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash.

“We’ve got some really clever action set-pieces,” he told Empire. “You can get your blood up in this movie. But what excites me as an artist who recently turned 70 and has kind of done all that stuff is not only the opportunity to get to do it again, but to get to a level of character and intrigue you haven’t seen before in an Avatar movie.”

He continued. “We’re just starting to riff on it and twist it and turn it,” Cameron promised. “It’s a tricky thing … if you’re not making brave choices, you’re wasting everybody’s time and money. That alone is not sufficient to create success, but it’s necessary. You’ve got to break the [mold] every fricking time.” And that’s got us all in to continue to watch the master bring us another visually stunning chapter from the world of Avatar to life.

Game of Thrones‘ Oona Chaplin is featured as a new antagonistic force as the head of the Ash Clan, and Cameron spoke about the character elsewhere in his chat with Empire. “Varang is the leader of a people who have gone through an incredible hardship. She’s hardened by that,” he said. “She will do anything for them, even things that we would consider to be evil,”

“We’re trying to evolve beyond the ‘all humans are bad, all Na’vi are good’ paradigm,” Cameron said. He praised Chaplin’s take on the character, which he hopes brings more of dynamic look to the conflicts within the world of Pandora. “She’s an enemy, an adversarial character,” he said, adding that Chaplin’s performance makes her feel “so real and alive.”

The new look exclusively presented through the magazine showcased the film’s vibe and gave a sense of what Cameron is going for with the return of the Windtraders. “They’re nomadic traders, equivalent to the camel caravans of the Spice Road back in the Middle Ages,” he described. “And you know, they’re just fun. Like all Na’vi, they live in a symbiosis with their creatures.” He also teased, “If you’ve got any nautical blood in your veins, you’ll want to be on [their] ship.”

Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters December 19.

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