Avatar 3 D23 musings and analysis
Images drop on some BIG screens at D23 seems like!
First off, great new looks and close ups of Varang!
First off it's super dope. Look at her fingers! Looks like she's wearing claws (bone? forbidden metal? body mods). The notches on her belly and legs also look like potential scarifications!
Stuff I want to scream about on a personal level: The tswins... I made my Txepiva (ash Na'vi) fan clan to be warrior like, living in more desertic areas, and cutting queues as part of warfare. I also recently made a sketch to illustrate an idea to a friend that they may wear these queues in a bandolier tied to shoulders and hips as a show-off.
My Txepiva also have bare tail tips, and Varangs fits this too in this art, though I'm sure it's just the light rendering technique. If not, then I should apply for a job on the brainstorming team lmao.
Though I appreciate the idea of warfare and tswin cutting, I want to point out it's also possible that she's not actually wearing the tswin of her enemies, or at least not in the "this is how we kill other Na'vi" way.
The others around her are in obscuring and impractical headdresses, and this looks like a ritual. IMO it's very possible that the tswin she wears are that of ancestors, or old leaders, great warriors, or even enemies, collected and rebraided to create this distinct look. I particularly think it'd make sense for it to be made of the hair of past leaders and worn as a sort of crown, as nobody else is rocking that look in the image.
Next we have her weird not-an-ikran.
Glorious beast with 10 winglets where ikran have 4. It also has mouth frills, jaw frills, and a spike over its head, making it closer to stingbats in that area. Here's a super obvious comparison with an enlarged stingbat picture:
So their mount probaby evolved independantly from ikran. Would be fun if they also have poison.
Another FUN detail : GUNS!! Does it look like guns? Could be recoms then, Lyle, Q , and some new red shirt recoms... or could be Omatikaya wil RDA guns...
But for real, there are only two types of Na'vi with guns: the Omatikaya clan and the recombinants. Given past images in leaks ((remember this?))
It's most likely that the people interacting with Varang are going to be recoms and not Jake's people. BUT who knows where the plot will go. If it's recoms, I'd looove to know if it's 3 moffos because Q+Lyle+Mansk, or if we're getting new recom red shirts or what.
Then we have views of air ships, so we're getting to see the promised Wind Traders, with Neytiri in the forefront, and the Man'o'war inspired floaters being pulled by sky manta ray...
Not much to say about those. I just hope we get some high definition version released online soon.
If this reignites your hype for Avatar, go vote in this poll!
There's 20h left to vote, and I think we could all benefit from an event around december 2024, to pass the time before fire and ash's big dropin 2025.