When "Avatar" returns to IMAX theaters on Friday for a limited run aimed at adding to its $2.7 billion box-office bonanza, viewers will get to see yet another cinematic breakthrough: Na'vi sex.
Director James Cameron has added nine minutes of footage to his blockbuster, some of which extends the love scene between hero Jake Sully's avatar and Neytiri, his 9-foot-tall blue lover. Beneath the sacred Tree of Souls, they mingle their anemone-like braids in alien union.
"The tendrils move with a life of their own, straining to be joined," reads a leaked page of the script that describes the scene. "JAKE rocks with the direct contact between his nervous system and hers. The ultimate intimacy."
20th Century Fox
IN THE NA'VI: The 9-foot-tall lovers of "Avatar" get it on -- with sexy extra footage added by James Cameron for the IMAX re-release.
Despite the conjugal nature of the scene, Cameron told The Post that the film's PG-13 rating was never in jeopardy.
"We do see a little bit more between Jake and Neytiri on their night of romance, though it's absolutely nothing that changes the rating," Cameron said. "To be honest, there wasn't much more to show -- we're pretty much putting in every frame, and it's only an additional 20 seconds."
The other eight minutes and 40 seconds opens a Pandora's box of other moments:
* More shots of a schoolhouse run by Sigourney Weaver's Dr. Grace Augustine. "That's a very interesting set piece, about two minutes long, a rich scene with big action-adventure stuff and a hunt featuring these herd animals called Sturmbeests," Cameron said.
* Extra footage of the death of Na'vi clansman Tsu'tey, Jake's romantic rival. "You see him after the battle," Cameron said. "Jake and Neytiri come to him, and it's this incredibly powerful scene. In fact, I was practically booed out of the room when I told everybody I was going to take it out of the movie in the first place."
* A scene Cameron calls "the drums of war," which he hopes will clarify why the humans choose to wipe out the Na'vi. He compared it to America's decision to invade Iraq. "We had to provoke Saddam to do something stupid, and it's like that with the humans invading Pandora," he said. "I felt when I was writing it that the Na'vi had to counter-react and do something that is called an atrocity that gave [humans] the moral right to go in and destroy and displace them. The additional footage is pretty short, but it fulfills that purpose."
The new cut of the movie will be even longer when it arrives on DVD during the holiday season. Cameron is adding another seven minutes of goodies that film geeks will treasure as if it's unobtainium.
"It's for those that don't mind a movie that's pushed to 257 minutes," he said with a grin. "That's getting up into 'Titanic' territory, so it's strictly for hyperfans."
The special edition will feature a bonus -- lots of blue aliens, but no blue language.
"We've mixed a family version of the audio," Cameron said. "As a parent, I get into trouble with my wife because I let my 5-year-old and my 9-year-old watch a movie, and for the next week we have to stop them from saying, 'a - -hole, goddamn it and s- -t!' "
What fans are really waiting for, however, is the sequel. And they'll be waiting until at least 2014. Cameron said he's only in the "tons of notes" stage.
"Right now, the thinking is that [Parts] Two and Three are going to be done together," he said. "They'll be released separately, probably a year apart or maybe even two, but they'll be done in a bunch. I'm mapping out the story line right now, so there's a proper arc that plays out over two films but buttons nicely at the end of Two, so you don't get this horrible second-act/end-of-'The Matrix' feeling. You know, 'I've just sat through a three-hour movie and f- -k-all happened at the end!' "
