Jon Landau, a longtime collaborator with James Cameron, recently spoke about the progress of Avatar 2 and Avatar 3, but now we have an idea of what the fourth film will be.  From Cameron himself comes word that Avatar 4 will likely be a prequel that explores the colonization process of Pandora before the events of Avatar. While the creative team is still working on the scripts for the two sequels, Cameron admits he has not yet put pen to paper for the prequel, but seems to have the kernel of an idea in mind.  Hit the jump to hear what he had to say.

In a recent interview with MTV, Cameron revealed that Avatar 4 would be a prequel, saying:

"Because when we drop in, even in the first film in 'Avatar 1,' as it will be known in the future, we're dropping into a process that's 35 years in to a whole colonization.  That will complete an arc and if that leads into more, we'll start, not imitating 'Star Wars,' but it's a logical thing to do because we'll have completed the thematic arc by the end of three. The only thing left to do is go back to see what it was like on those first expeditions and create some new characters that then become legacy characters in later films. It's a plan."

You can hear what Cameron had to say in the video interview below or continue reading for more of the director's choice quotes:

Cameron further expanded on what exactly the prequel would center on:

"I have an idea for a fourth. I haven't really put pen to paper on it, but basically it goes back to the early expeditions of Pandora, and kind of what went wrong with the humans and the Na'vi and what that was like to be an explorer and living in that world."

All well and good, but before we can see a fourth film, Cameron will have to shoot two and three. Â He comments on the progress of the sequels as follows:

"We've spent two years refining the whole pipeline. It was a hideously complex process to make that film and a lot has been said about that, but we don't want it to be done in the same prototypical way as the first one, we want it to be a much smoother workflow just for creativity reasons."

And speaking of creativity, Cameron jokingly compares his writing process to that of Peter Jackson, saying:

"You know, Peter Jackson had it easy, he already had the books. Â He had the books. Now if I had a time machine I could go forward and watch the movies and then come back, but I don't!"