Avatar: The Way of Water’s new deleted scene completely changes how we see one character

A new deleted scene found on the collector’s edition of Avatar: The Way of Water completely changes one interaction in the final showdown that sees Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and Quaritch (Stephen Lang) in a tense standoff.

At the movie’s climax, Quaritch takes Neytiri’s daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) hostage on a sinking ship as a final gambit. In turn, Neytiri holds Quaritch’s son Spider (Jake Champion) at knifepoint.

In the original scene (at 2 hours, 43 minutes in the version on Disney Plus, if you want to compare and contrast), Neytiri cuts Spider’s midriff before eventually relenting and releasing the child. In the new scene, which you can see below, she doesn’t back down – even when Quaritch releases her daughter. It has to take Sully (Sam Worthington) to calm her down and, even then, it’s much more touch and go as to whether she was going to go through with killing Spider, going as far as forcefully throwing him to the ground.

We can certainly see why this was left on the cutting room floor. The deleted scene is perhaps a little too strong in portraying Neytiri as a protective mother at all costs. It’s something that could be explored in Avatar 3 – or the fourth or fifth movies – but, here, hints at a slight fracture between Sully and Neytiri that doesn’t feel quite earned on the surface.

Avatar 3 – which won’t be called The Seed Bearer, thank you very much – is set for release on December 19, 2025. Director James Cameron recently revealed in an interview with People that a time jump will be arriving in Avatar 4.

"We see them and then we go away for six years and we come back. And so the part where we come back is the part we haven't shot yet. So we'll start on that after three is released," Cameron said.

For more, check out the upcoming movies coming your way in the next 12 months.