I watched the theatrical cut this time, so no.
What was Zoe Saldana’s character’s name? The only name I can remember is Sully.
Also, did all of the humans leave or did the one nerdy guy stay with a group of other decent people?
Lastly, how are the effects holding up?
Neytiri. They named the chocolate cake at Satu’li after her. One day later, I have trouble remembering the names of the other characters, even the ones who make an impression like Sigourney Weaver’s character.
The nerdy guy, the one from “Dodgeball” and the members of the Avatar program/scientists under Sigourney Weaver all stay.
Regarding the visual effects, The filmmaking, one of the reasons for the rewatch, is excellent and really did blaze a path for films as varied as “Gravity” and “Life of Pi” especially in terms of cinematography. Screenwriting, on a functional level, is tight and Cameron deftly introduced so many complicated ideas that build on top of one another. Point being, good filmmaking will hide poor/old visual effects. On the second rewatch, I paid more attention to more technical things like the lighting, environments, animation/mocap and they hold up because they were so well done. A good comparison to “Avatar” in this department would be “Pinocchio”, which I just rewatched as part of a deep dive into the Walt era animated features. Pinocchio’s visual effects and cinematography still kick today despite software making many of the effects easier to create; quality, and artistry, will out. The Avatar sequels will have better visual effects, owed to a mix of technical advancements/increased computing power and Weta Digital’s experience with the Apes films, but “Avatar” was really ahead of its time and Cameron had the time and clout to get it done right.
