The wait is finally over.

The sequel to Avatar, “Avatar: The Way of the Water”, is released today. And the hype surrounding this much-anticipated movie is absolutely insane. 

“I have been looking forward to this sequel since it has been announced,” Cal High junior Rishabh Menon said. “I have always been a big Avatar fan.”

The film’s pending release has caused many fans to wonder if the sequel could ever live up to the expectations or stature of the original. 

In the original “Avatar”, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a paralyzed former Marine who  attaches himself to an avatar, travels the moon, and falls in love with a native named Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña). He then fights to protect the native people of the island called the Na’vi. 

From the sequel’s trailer, it is clear that while the first movie was about connecting one with the ground and air, this movie is connecting someone with water. 

It appears that director James Cameron has once again given viewers mind-blowing graphics. “Avatar”, released on Dec. 18, 2009, was universally known to behold unfathomable graphics and it looks like it has been carried onto the sequel. 

The original was nominated for Best Picture and broke box office records and is still currently the highest grossing film making about $2.78 billion worldwide. 

“My family and I have been really excited for this movie ever since the trailer came out,” Dougherty Valley junior Akash Danda said. “We are mostly looking forward for the graphics and the new story that awaits.”

It’s taken a while for fans to finally get a glimpse of the sequel, which clocks in at three hours and 10 minutes, about 30 minutes longer than the original film. The planned release date for the sequel was originally set in 2018. But because of editing setbacks from delays and the COVID-19 pandemic, the release date was finally pushed to this month.

When watching the sequel’s trailer, it is clear that fans will be reunited with a few of the beloved characters from the original. Fans also will be introduced to a couple new characters. Jake and Neytiri have started a family together as we can see that she is clearly pregnant in her first appearance in the trailer. 

In fact, the first thing fans see in the trailer is a human leading a couple young Na’vi. 

“This is actually Jack Champion as Javier, a teenager born in the human base of Pandora,” Erik Voss, a popular movie fanatic on YouTube, said on his video. “[He was] rescued and adopted by Jake and Neytiri.”

When fans first take a look at Javier in the trailer, they see he is wearing an oxygen mask, which viewers learned from the original film helps normal humans breathe on the island. 

Although it is questionable whether or not Avatar’s sequel will ever live up to the expectations or the box office records of the original “Avatar”, there’s no doubt that it will still rack up money and attention. And the good news for fans is Cameron has stated in previous interviews that shooting for the third and fourth films are already completed, and a fifth is in the making. Cameron has also stated that he would be down for a sixth and seventh film.

In this new world of water, it will be interesting to see how Sully, Neytiri, and their children will adapt and bond with the environment that they once did on their Pandorian moon.