The release of James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, transported audiences on a voyage beyond Pandora’s rainforests and deep into the heart of its beautiful oceans. However, the film almost took the characters on a journey outside of Pandora, with an early script featuring a key scene of the Na’vi going into outer space, according to screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver via an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“There was one idea of a space battle with Na’vi,” Jaffa said about the film’s initial script. “That idea got a lot of traction, and we talked a lot about it. We were struggling, though. How would that work with the story that we’re telling? Jim said, ‘Well, give me a few weeks.’ He went off and he wrote an entire script. And, by the way, a brilliant script.”
Despite the intriguing premise, choosing to focus entirely on Pandora’s oceans may have been the right call due to the franchise’s established themes of wildlife and nature preservation. While the idea of Na’vi going into outer space would ultimately end up being scrapped, the premise eventually found its way to the realm of comics with the release of Avatar: The High Ground, a three-volume run from Dark Horse Comics that takes place during the war between the Na’vi and the RDA after the company’s vengeful return to Pandora.
