Deleted footage: did Tsu’Tey’s Path change it for the better or not?
So here I am again, talking about a detail from Tsu‘Tey‘s Path comic book published by Dark Horse. I don‘t find it appropriate to spoil the entire comic, but, in my opinion, this particular moment intertwines with the scene from the original script and a bit with the episode from the extended cut. A very important moment which would add so much depth to the relations between the characters, I should admit. Yet we didn‘t get it in the final cut nor as one of the deleted scenes. And I don‘t get why, honestly.
First of all, the scene did remain the unedited one, no doubt in that, you guys can check it on Youtube. Still, if we followed the script, we‘d notice straight away that the moment when Grace meets Neytiri is skipped.
Here‘s an extract from the original script to Avatar. The meeting scene was completely left out: Grace‘s chat with kids is then cut to Jake and Neytiri being out in the forest.
Though the scene of Grace telling Jake about what actually happened in school did make it in the extended cut, the connection between Dr. Augustine and Neytiri didn‘t go beyond her image in the photographs Grace keeps on the fridge door.
Grace with Neytiri, Sylwanin (presumably), and other kids from the tribe.
The audience just weren‘t given any real life interaction between the two (except for when Grace faints in her avatar body and Neytiri rushes to her). The script literally tells us that it was supposed to be 'an awkward moment between them', and I can totally understand why. Along with her elder sister, Sylwanin, Neytiri was the best student Grace has ever had. She must have come to her school at a very young age, which I may prove by one of the pictures on the door, featuring Grace showing 'ears' gesture to her students.
The girl, copying the gesture, seems to wear a yellow flower-like headband, pretty similar to which Neytiri is used to wearing on special occasions. We could spot her wearing it during making out with Jake under the Tree of Voices and while being present at the ceremony of Jake’s consciousness transfer. I may suggest, it’s one of the early pictures of Neytiri taken in the process of learning. I haven‘t figured out yet who the boy on the table in the picture below is, however, it might be a younger version of Tsu‘Tey (I motivate my guess only by the alike hairstyle).
So how would it feel to meet the person you had spent years together, sharing knowledge, culture, and warm memories, who had suddenly disappeared from your life and had never come back until now? One would hardly find the right words to say, rather, it would be this uncomfortable moment of silence. I‘m not surprised that Neytiri and Grace just greet each other in formal way and that‘s it. Both would go through very powerful flashbacks. Neytiri may recall Sylwanin, falling dead in the doorway right before her eyes. Grace would feel guilty for letting all that happen, for not having checked on Sylwanin to reason her out of the idea of setting bulldozers on fire. Just a couple of seconds that would possibly make one of the most dramatic scenes of the entire movie.
Tsu‘Tey‘s Path is meant to tell the story from Tsu‘Tey‘s perspective. Not to spoil anything, the comic provides the opportunity to follow the character’s background and also gives a unique chance to observe some deleted footage. Let‘s see if it managed to make up for the lost.
So, what we can see in two pages down below (not gonna spoil which issue it is), is Grace meeting Tsu‘Tey instead of Neytiri. The reasonable question is if it’s good or bad for the narration. Well, hard to tell, since the comic story focuses on Tsu‘Tey‘s point of view, after all. Personally, I would answer in the following way: the short episode of Grace meeting Neytiri would be much more essential for the Neytiri’s character arc in the actual movie (and I‘m still unhappy about it having been cut out), while the comic does an incredible job in expanding the relations between Grace and the tribe of Omaticaya. Thanks to the comic, we know for sure that Tsu‘Tey matters to Dr. Augustine just as much as Neytiri and Sylwanin.
Grace is astonished at the fact that Tsu‘Tey still remembers everything she taught him in school, which suggests he may not have been the most hard-working student of all. Yet, since Tsu‘Tey calls Grace sa‘nok ('mother' in English), it‘s clear that he attended the same school as Neytiri and Sylwanin and so formed a strong spiritual bond with Grace. His command of English seems to be pretty good, as he‘s able to communicate with Jake throughout the movie and later translate Jake‘s speech at the Tree of Souls.
The only significant difference is in that Grace is wearing her casual outfit instead of the researcher’s one from the movie. She‘s also holding a baby na'vi, which doesn‘t appear in the extended scene, making us wonder if her encounter with Tsu‘Tey took place on another day.
The moment of holding Sylwanin‘s dead body recurrs in Tsu’Tey’s mind when Jake returns to Omaticaya as Toruk Makto. Tsu‘Tey seems to be a couple of years younger than his adult self in the movie, which again proves him witnessing the attack on kid rebels happen and being one of other students Grace managed to get out of school. Tsu‘Tey‘s latent fear of the Sky Person’s mightiness inside of Jake‘s avatar is way more comprehensible now, cause Jake, appearing on Toruk as a symbol of power, reminds him of how cruel and merciless humans can be. Hence he is sceptical about Grace coming back to the tribe, but his attitude changes as Grace calls his name.
To sum up, I believe, Tsu’Tey’s Path did succeed in reviving a rather important scene, which got unfairly edited out from the extended cut. It would certainly be ten times better if we were given the opportunity to watch Grace finally meet Neytiri after a while and their reaction to the encounter. Still, I also consider it a breakthrough that in just a couple of lines we were told the sad story of Tsu’Tey, having breathed so much life into his character.