Disney took a small amount of footage of Sam Worthington's Jake Sully from 2009's Avatar and reused it as part of the final battle in 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water.
Avatar 2 quickly became a worldwide phenomenon as it blasted its way to the top of the box office charts, although fans have learned about plenty of changes the sequel went through recently.
Some of those changes came after the test screening process for the sequel, after which director James Cameron actually removed part of the final battle in order to not distract fans from the core action in the story.
And as the Avatar 2 team continues to share new deleted material from the mega-blockbuster, fans have also noticed some unique characteristics from the footage that stayed in the sequel.
Avatar 2 Reuses Jake Sully Footage from Avatar 1
First shared on Reddit, fans noticed reused and recycled footage from James Cameron's Avatar that made its way into Avatar: The Way of Water.
While several of the details are changed, such as Jake Sully's facial markings and the beast he's riding, the motion capture footage for Sam Worthington's performance is the same between both films. The shot composition is even carried over from the first Avatar.
Jake Sully is seen diving through the air on the back of a skimwing in Avatar 2, letting out a battle cry. His face is replicated from a shot of him riding the massive orange banshee known as Toruk in the original movie, with this sequel developing a number of new characters to use alongside Jake and his family.
Additionally, Zoe Saldaña's Neytiri also reuses motion capture data from the first Avatar in the sequel too.
She is seen riding her own banshee into battle during Avatar 2's opening scene, holding up her arms while letting out the same battle cry that she did in the final battle from the first movie.
Avatar 2's final battle shows off another look at Jake Sully riding his new skimwing that is taken from another shot from Avatar, which also came during that movie's final battle.
The full video with those comparisons can be seen below:
Will Avatar 2 Footage Be Reused in More Sequels?
Avatar 2 is far from the only movie to recycle material from past outings, as fans saw the same thing happen in Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures' Spider-Man: No Way Home.
And with an extensive runtime of 3 hours and 12 minutes, it's actually an impressive feat to see this little footage from the original movie make its way into the sequel in a new form.
Now, as Avatar 3 moves further along in development, viewers will look to see if Disney uses this same tactic with future stories in this saga.
But considering that Avatar 3 already has a cut that's being slimmed down from nine hours long, there shouldn't be too much from past movies that will have to be used again.
Avatar: The Way of Water is now playing in theaters, and it can also be purchased digitally.
