Although Jake’s poncho look emulates Eastwood’s Man with No Name from Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy, he’s far from a wandering loner. However, the sentiment is oddly fitting. In the film, the Metakayina clan know and respect Jake’s status as Toruk Makto. But at this point in “The Way of Water,” he’s still without a home, so he strips himself of the warrior look and trades it in for something looser.
As Scott will tell you, this kind of costuming decision not only allows us to see a new side to Jake, but it also shows who he could be in the in-between stages of donning his fighter getup (via /Film):
“He’s not trying to get out there and be Jake Sully at that point. He’s got his dreads, he’s let his hair go. He doesn’t have the presentation as he does at the point in the movie where he decides to jump back in and defend the clan. When he does that, he puts his cummerbund back on, he shaves the side of his head, which reveals his stronger jaw, gives him a much more warrior-like influence.”
In “Avatar,” Jake is introduced as an aimless, yet good-hearted Marine who learns to be a new kind of warrior for the Na’vi, but Sully’s arc in “The Way of Water” presents Worthington with an opportunity to show a more unfastened side of the character. Jake only dons his battle aesthetic when his family is directly in peril. In those quieter moments, it reveals a more interesting and complicated face to the character that I’ll be interested to see expanded upon in the later installments.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” is now playing in theaters nationwide.