{"id":358181,"date":"2025-12-20T18:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T18:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/358181\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T18:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T18:54:07","slug":"fire-and-ash-tent-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/358181\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire And Ash’ Tent Scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt\u2019s the Avatar: Fire and Ash<\/a> scene critics and fans keep talking about: A sensual, druggy, S&M-tinged meeting between the film\u2019s two big villains: Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and Ash People witch-queen Varang (Oona Chaplin<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe sequence is not only eyebrow-raising by the family-friendly Avatar franchise<\/a> standards, but also arguably the film\u2019s most interesting and unpredictable exchange \u2014 and might even be director James Cameron<\/a>\u2018s favorite.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the scene, Quaritch meets with Varang in her tent to try and convince the volatile Ash People leader to enter into an alliance. But Varang turns the tables on Quaritch, making him consume a hallucinogen and seductively cutting his chest with a knife.<\/p>\n

\n\tCameron broke down the scene\u2019s appeal during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter: \u201cYou have no idea what\u2019s going to happen next, and they\u2019re both fascinating characters and she\u2019s mesmerizing in that scene. \u2018Mesmerizing\u2019 is the word that always comes to mind for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tContinued Cameron: \u201cI didn\u2019t quite realize exactly what I\u2019d written for that scene until I [saw the actors perform it]. Then I realized it\u2019s a double seduction. He\u2019s there to get her to do what he wants her to do, then it seems like she\u2019s got him under her thumb, and yet the whole time he\u2019s had a plan and it actually works. So from a writing standpoint, I\u2019m happy with the psychological dynamics of the scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fact, Cameron was so pleased, he firmly pushed back on an effort by his editing team to trim the scene in half when the movie was being cut down to its current runtime of 3 hours and 15 minutes. \u201cI said: \u2018Guys, you\u2019re about to become unemployed \u2014 put it back, every line,’\u201d Cameron recalls. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe scene was also the one that landed Chaplin the role during her audition. As previously reported<\/a>, the Game of Thrones actress beat out three well-known movie stars for the part. \u201cThere\u2019s a sexuality, there\u2019s a dominating psychology, and there\u2019s a lot of fury,\u201d Cameron said of Chaplin\u2019s audition. \u201cThere are a lot of layers to what she\u2019s doing there and the forces that are driving her, and Oona was able to move fluidly back and forth between those in a way that I wasn\u2019t seeing with the others. I\u2019m sure, in retrospect, I could have cast any of them. But my instinct is to always go with the actor that understands the character the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChaplin recalls that after shooting the scene for the film, she worried for months that her performance wasn\u2019t good enough and she was working up the courage to ask Cameron if she could reshoot it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was like, \u2018I got to call Jim, ask him to reshoot it,’\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s such an important scene, her whole origin story is in there. I really wanted to honor her trauma and the resilience of this character in a way that did that story justice. And then I was like, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m just gonna ask him\u2019 and he was like, \u2018I have something to show you.\u2019 He took me to his cinema, and he showed me that scene. He was like, \u2018It\u2019s my favorite.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor more from James Cameron\u2019s wide-ranging and deep-dive interview with THR, read this week\u2019s cover story: James Cameron Is Ready to Move Beyond Avatar: \u201cI\u2019ve Got Other Stories to Tell.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tAvatar: Fire and Ash is currently in theaters. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the Avatar: Fire and Ash scene critics and fans keep talking about: A sensual, druggy, S&M-tinged meeting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5960,49,48,75,5961,86852],"class_list":{"0":"post-358181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-avatar-fire-and-ash","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-james-cameron","13":"tag-oona-chaplin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}