17 Side-by-Side Pictures That Show What Avatar Movies Look Like Without Special Effects

Sam Worthington's character Jake encounters Thanatos while exploring Pandora's forests. The vicious animal stands on six legs and has a massive mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. Its characteristics are somewhat reminiscent of those of a panther in the wild: carnivorous, powerful, and aggressive, yet also swift and agile.

Jake fights the Thanatos, but prior to the addition of CGI, the cast and crew employed a long pole with a red ball as a stand-in for the monster. To allow Worthington to respond appropriately, the crewmember who was holding the pole would lunge at him. We have a whole newfound respect for the actors in the "Avatar" films after seeing Worthington seem so afraid when confronted with a stick with a red ball on it.

Neytiri takes Jake deep into the forest to demonstrate how the Na'vi interact with their surroundings as she teaches Jake about the Na'vi culture. She shows him that the Na'vi live in harmony with nature by taking a moment to drink water from a big purple leaf. Even while drinking water from a leaf seems straightforward, doing so on the make-believe continent of Pandora is significantly trickier.

Saldaa used a gray device to make it happen, which was eventually changed to a CG leaf. She also drank from a duct taped plastic water bottle, which was later removed from the shot. Since the Na'vi are so in tune with nature, they don't utilize products made of disposable plastic. The brief scene demonstrates to Jake that Pandora is much more than just a place to mine for the lucrative mineral unobtanium.

Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the director of the Avatar Program, has spent years researching Pandora. She is a xenobotanist who focuses on studying plant life from other planets, and many of the scientists on the ship respect her for compiling a thorough book about the many plants found on Pandora. But she's not just interested in plants; the Na'vi way of life fascinates her as well. She spends a lot of her time cultivating a harmonious connection with the Omatikaya clan and is sympathetic to their viewpoints. She even built a school where Na'vi and humans are able to interact.

It only makes logical that she has her own avatar given her level of involvement with the Avatar Program. She sports a crimson Stanford tank top, khaki shorts, and occasionally a tan shirt while in her avatar, which is more clothes than the Na'vi generally do. Weaver used motion tracking gear, gloves, helmet, and helmet cam when filming Grace's avatar-based scenes. To aid animators in later translating her facial expressions into CGI, she also got dots on her face. It's amazing to observe how precisely Weaver's facial expressions and bodily movements were transferred from the raw film to the finished output by the animators.

Humans frequently use aircraft that resemble helicopters when conducting missions on Pandora. The Aerospatiale SA-2 Samson is piloted by Trudy Chacón and is capable of carrying a sizable amount of cargo, several passengers, and avatars. As Trudy, Dr. Grace, and anthropologist Norm (Joel David Moore) board the plane, Jake is one of the first people to be connected to his avatar. Before landing and starting the process of gathering plant samples, they fly to one of Pandora's enormous forests, offering everyone a spectacular overhead view of the lush landscape.

The crew used a custom gear to film the scene, which was essentially a metal mesh box with chairs for the performers. In order to simulate flight, crew members outside the rig bounced it around. In order to imitate the breeze, there were also fans blowing on the actors, which must have been a pleasant change of pace for them because they presumably got hot wearing those motion tracking suits.

The "Avatar" movies included a lot of special effects, but it doesn't imply there were any practical effects as well. A specific blend of special and real effects were necessary for the scene where Jake and Neytiri were climbing up floating rocks. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana had to climb a tall structure that was specifically created for the movie while wearing cables for safety. There were plenty of handholds for them to cling onto when climbing the structure, so it resembled scaling a wall at a rock climbing gym in some ways.

The floating rocks in the film were part of the Hallelujah Mountains. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in China's Hunan Province inspired the gorgeous landscape. The Southern Sky Column, in particular, aided Cameron and his colleagues in designing the Hallelujah Mountains. Could these floating mountains really exist on some faraway planet?

Jake learns to ride a direhorse while becoming acquainted with the ways of the Na'vi. They resemble horses in both appearance and temperament, with muscular legs, long necks, and eyes on the sides of their heads, as their name suggests. They have six legs, unlike horses, and are probably the size of elephants. In the wild, they exist in herds, but the Na'vi tame them and ride on them, which is considerably faster than walking. Real horses were brought on set to film Jake and the Na'vi riding direhorses.

The horses, like the performers, wore dots on their bodies to aid the motion sensor equipment. Furthermore, the horses' tails featured specific attachments. All of this enabled visual effects designers to eventually use CGI to turn them into direhorses, explaining why the creatures resemble horses despite their extraterrestrial appearance.

Neytiri is a fierce, agile warrior who is an expert with a bow. She is also the Omatikaya clan's tsakarem, which means she is undergoing training to take over as the village's spiritual head. Furthermore, she is around nine feet tall and has pointed teeth, so when she shouts out in anger, it is intense, to say the least.

Zoe Saldana wore her motion tracking suit, helmet, and helmet cam while filming the dramatic scenes. To make it easier for animators to track her facial expressions and recreate them using CGI, she had a lot of dots on her face. Saldaa's ability to deliver such an emotive performance while seeming as she does is fairly amazing, but it also speaks to her acting prowess.

Undoubtedly one of the best scenes in "Avatar" is when Jake and Neytiri fly on mountain banshees. In fact, Cameron claimed that it was his favorite scene in the movie in 2019. "We achieved our goals in terms of creating the ultimate alien rainforest and the beauty and all that. But I think the part that I still like the best, and that I had to fight the hardest for, was flying," he said.

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana each rode on a piece of plastic for this scene. To mimic the banshees' flight motion, crew members moved the structures about. The actors were also fastened to wires that gave the impression of flinging them around, giving the impression that learning to ride such a powerful animal would cause one to lose their balance.

The Na'vi have a very unique relationship with nature, coexisting peacefully with it as opposed to using it for their own gain. Because the Omatikaya clan lives in the forest, they have a special respect for trees, and some of them are significant spiritual destinations. After their banshee ride, Jake and Neytiri visit the extremely gorgeous area known as The Tree of Souls. It's a huge tree with dangling long glowing leaves from its branches.

The Tree of Souls is the most sacred location in all of Pandora in the eyes of the Na'vi because it enables people to have strong relationships with their deity Eywa. Later, Jake and Neytiri go to the sacred location known as the Tree of Voices, which resembles the Tree of Souls. To hear the voices of the dead and to pray, they attach their tendrils to the tree.

In the first draft of James Cameron's script, the love scene was longer. Jake and Neytiri kiss, and Neytiri remarks, "Kissing is very good, but we have something better." Their "tendrils intertwine with gentle undulations," as it says in the script, trembling Jake as his nervous system combines with Neytiri's. They kneel on the ground facing each other.

Although the scene is referred to as "the ultimate intimacy," this description was cut from the finished movie, which only shows the couple kissing and leaves the audience to fill in the rest of the details.

Not just the Na'vi require computer-generated imagery. During the conflict between humanity and the Na'vi, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is in charge of security. He is the brash main adversary of the first movie, yet despite his military prowess, he wouldn't stand a chance against the nine-foot-tall Na'vi warriors if he tried to fight them with just a rifle. Instead, he makes use of a sizable mech suit that is extremely effective on both the offensive and defensive sides. It can shoot weapons easily, is durable, and has strong robotic limbs.

Despite the fact that Colonel Quaritch was a human in the previous film and didn't require any CGI, his mech suit was a different story and required both real and special effects. Lang sat in a large mech suit during production that, with a few exceptions, closely resembled the one in the film. Later, a big cannon, digital screens, and CG robotic arms were added to complete the image.

Jake makes the decision to permanently merge his consciousness with his Avatar by the end of the first film, having thoroughly assimilated Na'vi culture. The Tree of Souls hosts a big ceremony to accomplish this. The bodies of both Jake and his avatar are put down next to the tree, and then Mo'at (CCH Pounder), the spiritual head of the Omatikaya clan, performs a ritual dance while a large gathering of Na'vi looks on and sway together. Jake enters the deity Eywa's eye, awakens in his avatar, and then moves through the Na'vi populace, having now fully assimilated into their society.

For this moment, a lot of actors had to learn choreography. They wore motion-tracking garments and sat cross-legged on the ground, rocking back and forth. While doing so, Pounder performed a dance routine while dressed in a flowing white gown that would eventually become Mo'at's ceremonial shawl. Sam Worthington then strolled through the crowd as the actors stood up to make room for him.

The Metkayina family has a significant impact on "Avatar: The Way of Water." The vindictive Colonel Quaritch sets out on a mission to assassinate Jake when humans return to Pandora, which forces Jake and his family to leave the forest in order to defend the Omatikaya clan. They go a long way to the aquatic habitat where the Metkayina tribe resides, where they attempt to take refuge with them.

The actors all wore motion capture suits that appeared slightly different while filming the scenes for this new clan. To make it easier for animators to distinguish the characters from one another later on, each of the suits has its own distinctive colors and patterns. Even while many of the sequences involved genuine water, the moment in which the tribe is seen standing in shallow water at night was entirely CGI.

Jake and his family must adapt to a completely new way of life after being welcomed into the Metkayina clan, which includes becoming familiar with the water and its inhabitants. A few members of the family must learn to ride ilus, the aquatic direhorses that can move across the water with ease. Ilus resemble plesiosaurs in appearance, with the exception that they have six flippers, four eyes, and antennae.

It took a lot of effort to create the scenes in which Jake's family is riding the ilus. Cameron opted to film the performers in actual water rather than using the conventional technique of suspending them from wires, having them simulate swimming motions in the air, and then adding the water in post-production.

In "Avatar," Neytiri killed Colonel Quaritch, but in "Avatar: The Way of Water," we find out that Quaritch's consciousness has been replicated and implanted in an avatar. He's essentially a better and more developed version of himself because he possesses all the memories of the original Quaritch plus a bigger, stronger body.

The Na'vi-like appearance of Quaritch's Avatar includes blue skin, big yellow eyes, and pointed ears. He does, however, dress in more garments than the majority of the Na'vi. He frequently appears in a tactical vest and slacks, however, occasionally the vest is replaced by a tank top. He has the same eagle tattoo on his left arm from when he was a human, short black hair, and a watch.

Due to all of this, Lang was required to don a motion capture suit while filming the sequel, as opposed to the previous film. To help with tracking his facial movements, he had black dots on his face. According to Lang, the character was significantly impacted by having an avatar body rather than a human body.

Ronal is the spiritual leader of the Metkayina clan as well as Tonowari's partner. She shares a spirit bond with one of the tulkans from the movie, which are enormous, sentient, whale-like creatures who dwell in Pandora's oceans. In a heartwarming scene in the sequel, Roa and her herd make their way back after migration. Roa is the name of the tulkan. When they finally connect, Ronal is overjoyed to hear from her and to reminisce about their recent activities. Both Roa and Ronal are delighted for the other because Roa just gave birth to a calf and Ronal is expecting.

Tragically, humans kill Roa soon after this sweet reunion in order to lure Jake out of hiding. They also take her amrita, a highly valuable chemical made by tulkans that totally reverses human age. And to make matters worse, Roa's calf passes away shortly after. In a heartbreaking scenario, Ronal is horrified when she discovers Roa's body. Winslet did a fantastic job of portraying Ronal's sorrow despite having to wear a motion tracking suit and rely on her imagination to picture the deceased tulkun throughout filming.

The late Dr. Augustine's teenage daughter is Kiri (Sigourney Weaver). She is the adopted child of Jake and Neytiri; her biological father has not been identified. She's a little different from the other Na'vi teenagers, thus she doesn't always fit in, but on the plus side, she has a great bond with Eywa and the natural world. When Kiri visits the Cove of the Ancestors and makes a connection with the revered Spirit Tree, she sees her mother and experiences a seizure in addition to seeing her. She later reveals that she has a mysterious power over the animals and vegetation of Pandora.

Sigourney Weaver, who played Dr. Augustine in the first movie, was able to play Kiri in the follow-up because to advancements in technology. To depict the adolescent persona, she moved in a bouncy, playful manner while using a motion capture outfit. The remarkable thing, according to Weaver, is that technology has enabled her to "bring my 14-year-old self to play this girl." "You're really only 14 the way you act most of the time, so you can do this," [James Cameron] said to me, in my memory.

Avatar: The Way of Water will continue this tradition, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in terms of visual effects. And the next movie will certainly continue to push the envelope and set new standards for what's possible in filmmaking.

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