Plot spoiler alert ahead.
Toward the end of the film, there is a huge and seriously long-winded fight scene between Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Quaritch (Stephen Lang). As the sequence played out, I was sucked into believing that there really were lives at stake!
Then, I got home and watched some BTS footage, and now, I know why. … The sequence really was filmed underwater.
As you can see in the underwater featurette video, the stunt doubles play out the fight in what I would say is a massively terrifying situation. Plus, when talking about acting the fight out with Lang, Worthington said that it did have its risks for a few reasons. First of all, when he grabs Lang in a chokehold, he said that the realism “that you’re trying to get across means he could die,” and the communication element goes out of the window because you just can’t talk. Luckily, for the cast, Worthington said that you just have to rely on the safety people and the director watching it on the screens, as well as relying on each other…but the breath hold technique does kind of disappear as trusting it becomes easy. (For someone who can’t hold their breath for longer than a minute, this makes me feel uneasy!)
Hats off to both the actors and stunt people for virtually risking their lives for us to be entertained! It definitely paid off!
