James Cameron introduced a wide variety of underwater species in his blockbuster sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, most notably the tulkun, massive, sentient, whale-like creatures who have a spiritual relationship with the Metkayina reef clan.
IGN can exclusively debut a clip from the film’s March 28th digital release that breaks down how Cameron and his creative team designed the tulkun, specifically the character of Payakan, an adolescent outcast who befriends Jake Sully and Neytiri’s son Lo’ak.
In our exclusive clip from the bonus featurette entitled “The Undersea World of Pandora” – which can be viewed via the player above or the embed below – Cameron, co-production designer Dylan Cole, and creature designer Constantine Sekeris explain how they conceived Pandora’s marine life.
“The design of the tulkun has been one of the biggest challenges on this project. We knew we needed not only a creature, but also a character and an intelligent species,” Cole explained. “We knew the analogy was a whale, but the challenge was how alien do you get?”
One particular challenge for Cole and the team was how to have Lo’ak be able to ride alongside Payakan so that they could communicate via a form of sign language.
“We needed Lo’ak to be able to ride on a fin and look Payakan in the eye, and that was a challenge because having a fin that close to the eye is kind of weird,” Cole said. “So we ended up making a smaller cephalic fin that is almost kind of right behind the jaw. And so this spacial relationship was a challenge to get.”
For more on James Cameron’s Avatar saga, check out our Avatar: The Way of Water review, learn how the second film’s villain sets up future sequels, and find out why Jake Sully won’t be the narrator of Avatar 3.
