Avatar sold itself almost entirely as a tech demo first and a narrative experience a distant second, and it sold very well. However, being visually impressive as the entire selling point of a film only works once, and the numerous upcoming sequels are going to have to figure something else out.
Though the first Avatar is the best-selling film ever made, the prospect of a sequel has always been questionable. Director James Cameron's intentions to make half a dozen entries in what would become his longest-running franchise have been considered less than necessary.
Avatar: The Way of Water is coming to the big screen at the end of this year, along with the original film taking up screens in multiplexes in September. This is a very clever move and not just because it's been thirteen years since the film dropped. Given that the most notable cultural impact of the film between the first film's theatrical run and the sequel's trailer was a meme about how forgettable its characters were, some work needed to be done. There's simply nothing particularly memorable about the original film's story. It's a patchwork of existing concepts woven into a deeply unoriginal narrative. The sequel starts from an unusual point, dealing with the weight of positive and negative expectations.
One could reasonably argue that Avatar is closer in presentation to a sci-fi tone poem than it is to traditional cinematic storytelling. At its heart, it's a simple story about a culture of profit-obsessed colonizers crushing the society of nature-connected natives until a single connection changes the two culture's relationships. Comparisons to Pocahontas or Dances with Wolves are common enough to be beyond passé at this point. The somewhat unique elements are buried in its more esoteric narrative details. It gets into weird spiritual digressions around the deific figure that links the planet Pandora together. Many of the ideas are more interesting in premise than in execution. There are questions of identity and the human soul that could come up that simply don't. The idea of a machine that allows a human to take on a new mind could be a stellar body horror premise, but that's not the story Avatar wants to tell.
The first film's narrative is somewhat contained. It doesn't feel like a set-up for a franchise, it feels like one insubstantial story with a solid beginning, middle, and end. Despite the cast being famously forgettable, the main characters of the original film are returning for the sequel. Sam Worthington's Jake Sully is back, as is Zoe Saldana's Neytiri. Stephen Lang's Colonel Quaritch will be returning, despite his apparent death. Sigourney Weaver's character died too, but the actor will be back in the role of Kiri, Jake and Neytiri's daughter. From the limited information currently available, fans know that the sequel will take place over a decade after the original. Since Stephen Lang and other human soldiers are back, it's fair to assume that the conflict will center on humans doing battle with the Na'vi again. The main thing that the marketing seeks to show off is the underwater shooting style, yet another visual gimmick. This does not bode well for the possibility of a solid narrative in The Way of Water.
People don't know much about Jake Sully or Neytiri because there isn't much there to know. The characters are shallow and simple, their motivations are intensely straightforward, and they've both been done elsewhere. Worthington and Saldana fit the roles just fine, but there's just not much there for them to work with. There could've been a lot more to explore in the world of Pandora if James Cameron and company had chosen an entirely new set of characters to follow. As it stands, bringing back a ton of stuff that barely held the audience's attention over a decade ago is unlikely to astound the second time around. The thirteen-year gap could've allowed The Way of Water a fresh start with a new area of the world to explore. Avatar could be an anthology series that explores different adventures across Pandora or even different versions of the central body-swapping trope, but it's sticking to its guns. This decision isn't likely to be to the film's benefit.
Folks like Martin Scorsese have been decrying big-budget blockbusters like the Marvel movies as little more than theme park rides, much to the chagrin of fans of those films. Whether he has a point or not, that complaint is better directed at something like Avatar. Theme park rides don't usually get sequels. Whether the franchise continues beyond its second entry, the thing that Avatar needs is a good solid story to hang all the visual splendor off of. The Way of Water could turn out to be a ton of fun on the big screen, but, if it's a retread, people will be making fun of how forgettable it was a couple of years from now.