As James Cameron prepared his sequels to his mega-success Avatar, one of the more intriguing aspects of the production was that Stephen Lang, who played the first film’s villain, Colonel Miles Quaritch, would be returning for Avatar: The Way of Water and the rest of the franchise. This was particularly notable since Colonel Quaritch seemingly died, shot through the chest with an arrow by Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña). Cameron has said of Quaritch that “His character will evolve into really unexpected places across the arc of our new three-film saga.” You know, like from dead to alive and so forth.
In a recent interview, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff spoke to Lang about his Avatar character and how much of a turnaround we might expect from Colonel Quaritch over the course of Cameron’s Avatar sequels. In Avatar: The Way of Water, Quaritch’s battle against the Na’vi and specifically Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), has only just begun, as the memories of Quaritch have been implanted into an avatar body. When asked if Lang thought this new version of Quaritch is redeemable, and if he could become a better person now that he’s an avatar, Lang replied:
“I think one should always remain open to the possibilities. Who can say? I mean, this is a mysterious world. AWOW works in strange ways and willy nilly, he is part of that world now. What he has learned is that he cannot shape that world according to his desires, the way he wants to do things. He needs to adapt to it. And so I think under those circumstances, anything is possible. Do I think personally that he’s redeemable? Yeah, sure. Will he be redeemed? Can’t say.”
While Colonel Quaritch has already undergone a significant physical change, The Way of Water does at least hint at the possibility that he is capable of evolving based on his new circumstances. While the Quaritch of Avatar was of a singular focus—extracting the Na’vi to obtain Pandora’s unobtanium resources—the Quaritch of The Way of Water has a bit more depth, now that he’s forced to live as the people he once hated. It’s also safe to say that Lang knows the answer to whether or not Quaritch can be redeemed, considering that much of the Avatar sequels have already been filmed, and the scripts for all four sequels have already been written.
While Lang believes it’s possible that the new Na’vi version of Quaritch was redeemable, he’s not as sure about the original human Quaritch. When asked if the original Quaritch could have also been redeemable, Lang stated:
“It’s a different situation. It’s a tough question, but I mean, the OG colonel, he had cauterized away so much of his emotion and feeling. He was in a tough spot, just spiritually, it seems to me, at that point.”
While we will have to wait a while to find out if Colonel Quaritch is actually redeemable in the Avatar sequels, it’s clear that Cameron and his team are trying to flesh out this character a bit more in The Way of Water, and with Lang set to appear in the next three sequels as well, we haven’t seen the last of Quaritch—in whatever form he might appear in.
Avatar: The Way of Water comes to theaters on December 16. Watch our full interview with James Cameron below: