13 years have passed since the release of the highest grossing film on the planet. Regarded as one of the most anticipated sequels of all time, we’re invited to dive back into the world of Pandora, as Avatar: The Way of Water soaks up our screens this Friday.
Dripping with technological dexterity and phosphorescent visual flair, the Avatar franchise has been nothing short of cinematic masterpiece, but what if its fiction has roots in something more tangible? From fantasy to legend, it has recently been theorised that Avatar 2 incorporates veins of truth, as the newly (or anciently) submerged Pandora may echo the myth of the Lost City of Atlantis…
Canadian filmmaker James Cameron boasts a plethora of Oscar-winning films, notably as the director and author of Titanic, The Terminator and, of course, the Avatar chronicles. Complementary to his artistic inclination, Cameron’s passions also lie in science and history, epitomised by his 2017 documentary Atlantis Rising, in which he travels the Mediterranean in search of evidence that Atlantis’ ancient civilisation actually existed.
From deploying his revenue in archaeology to scuba-diving into the wreck 12 times whilst filming Titanic, it’s clear that Cameron highly regards the history of such events, so it should come as no surprise that his scientific explorations permeate through to his dramatic work.
“We build worlds. But we base them on things that really happened. So, when I’m doing something like Pandora for the Avatar films, I’m basing that on existing cultures and traditions.”
- Cameron, Toronto Star
So, what were these “existing cultures” of Atlantis? First documented by Plato, the illustrious ancient Greek philosopher, the Lost City of Atlantis tells of a great myth: half-human, half-God beings that shaped a utopian civilization, inhabiting an island abundant in precious metals and exotic wildlife. Ringing any bells yet? What about if we map this onto the synopsis of the upcoming Avatar 2… (don’t worry, I’m not fortunate enough to be aware of any spoilers yet).
As established in the first instalment, Avatar animates the intelligent and sentient Na’vi community on Pandora. By worshipping Eywa, the planet’s guiding life force and energy, the Na’vi people become symbiotically connected to nature and can merge consciousness with other beings on the planet, as the human characters coalesce minds and souls with their Avatars, and Na’vi people bond with mountain banshees and each other using their braids.
Tracing this back to ancient Egypt, the ‘Book of Thoth’, an anthology supposedly amassed by the God of knowledge, attests that the people of Atlantis could transfer consciousness from one body to another. As well as this, archaic Egyptian and Sumerian inscriptions illustrate giants in Atlantis that were huge humans, tall with larger skulls, depicted as part God. And to piece this historical puzzle together, the great city (with a population mirroring Avatar’s Na’vi people) was devastated by a cataclysmic flood, washed away by the Way of Water…
A reflection of past myth or pure imagination. What will be your verdict this Friday?