Avatar: The Way of Water brought stunning underwater CGI scenes to Pandora, while the original Avatar focused on lush jungle environments above ground. These two films show how visual effects evolved to create different worlds on the same alien moon.
In the first Avatar from 2009, Pandora appeared as a dense forest paradise. Towering trees glowed with bioluminescent plants, floating mountains hovered in the sky, and vines draped everywhere. Wētā FX built these land-based scenes with detailed CGI for Na’vi characters, wildlife like the banshees, and massive battles. The environments felt alive with mist, wind, and glowing flora that lit up at night. Every leaf and creature moved naturally, thanks to advanced motion capture and rendering tools at the time.
Avatar: The Way of Water shifted to Pandora’s oceans and reefs. A big part of the story happens underwater, where Jake Sully and his family dive into glowing seas filled with huge sea creatures. Wētā FX created over 3,200 effects shots here, including realistic water flow, bubbles, and light rays piercing the depths. They built digital oceans, coral reefs, and marine life from scratch in CGI. To make it real, the team invented new tech for performance capture. Actors performed while actually submerged in water tanks, wearing suits with sensors. This let computers blend their real movements into the Na’vi bodies seamlessly.
The underwater CGI stands out for its physics. Water currents push against characters, foam sprays during chases, and light scatters just like in real oceans. Large action scenes mix Na’vi swimming with tulkun whales and shipwrecks, all simulated shot by shot. Compared to the original’s forests, these seas add depth—literally—with blues, greens, and sparkles that pop on screen. The jungle in the first film used more practical sets blended with CGI, but the sequel relied almost fully on digital tools for the wet world.
Both environments share Pandora’s magic: vibrant colors, giant scales, and Na’vi harmony with nature. Yet the underwater scenes push tech further, handling complex lighting so characters stay visible amid waves. Wētā FX set benchmarks for future films, as seen in talks about Avatar: Fire and Ash, where similar motion capture builds on water innovations. For more on the VFX breakdown, check this video from Wētā FX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANmawvbOpCY. Their site has extra details too: https://www.wetafx.co.nz/.
Sources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANmawvbOpCY
https://www.lvpnews.com/20260103/at-the-movies-avatar-fire-and-ash-a-deep-dive/
https://www.wetafx.co.nz/
