Quaritch: Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar

Stephen Lang plays the RDA colonel who hunts Jake Sully across the Avatar saga. The credits give him as Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water, and simply as Quaritch in Avatar: Fire and Ash, so all three names point to one character. Lang is billed fourth in each of the three films.

Avatar (2009), directed by James Cameron, begins in 2154, when the RDA mines a valuable mineral on the moon Pandora, home to the blue Na'vi people. The colonel is the military face of that operation. When jake sully, a paralyzed former Marine, joins the avatar program in place of his late twin brother, the colonel offers a bargain: gather intelligence on the Omaticaya clan and the location of Hometree, and Jake's legs will be restored.

That bargain is the hinge of the first film. It explains why a wounded soldier agrees to live among the Na'vi in the first place, and it sets the colonel against the people Jake slowly comes to respect. If you are new to the saga, the full list is on the avatar characters page, and the films are laid out in avatar movies in order.

In the sequels he is no longer simply a colonel in a human body. He comes back in a Na'vi body, learns he has a son and ends up helping to arm a Na'vi clan for war.

The colonel's most important relationship is with Jake, and the most surprising one is with Spider. In The Way of Water, he learns that Spider, the human boy who grew up on Pandora and is close to the Sully children, is his son. That discovery changes how he treats the boy and, arguably, how the film treats him.

Why is Quaritch obsessed with Jake? A chain of events ties them together: Jake took the intelligence deal, turned against the RDA and stood at the center of the battle in which the colonel was killed. The recombinant then hunts Jake in the sequel, and in Fire and Ash he captures him. The saga never spells out a deeper motive, so anything beyond that chain is interpretation.

With Spider, the relationship is more complicated. The boy teaches his father about Na'vi culture while a captive, saves him from drowning at the end of The Way of Water, and yet refuses to stay with him. In Fire and Ash, the colonel captures Spider again and RDA scientists test the boy. When Spider collapses, Kiri uses mycelia to let him breathe Pandoran air, and the Mangkwan then take the colonel, Jake and the children.

With Varang, the leader of the Ash People, the relationship is a political and personal alliance. He teaches her to use guns, arms the clan with firearms and flamethrowers, and begins a relationship with her. His other significant ties are to the Sully family, including lo'ak, and to the Metkayina leader tonowari, whose reef village he attacks.

So, is Quaritch a good guy? No: he orders or carries out destruction and killing in every film. That being said, the sequels give him a family stake, which makes him more than a one note villain.

The best scenes for this character are the ones where he is allowed to be patient or practical rather than simply loud. This list is my opinion, hedged where the films leave room.

First, the legs offer in Avatar (2009). It is a quiet bargain, and it explains the whole film. Perhaps the most effective part is that it makes Jake's betrayal of the Omaticaya a choice, not an accident.

Second, the attack on Hometree and the later moment when he exposes Jake to the toxic atmosphere at the Tree of Souls. They show a soldier who treats Pandora as a problem to clear, which is what the first film needs from him.

Third, the scenes with Spider in The Way of Water, where the boy teaches him about Na'vi culture. It could be argued that this is the first time the saga asks the audience to see the villain as a person, and it does so without excusing the burning of Na'vi dwellings or the tulkun hunt that follow.

Fourth, the arming of the Ash People in Fire and Ash. Teaching Varang to use guns and handing the Mangkwan firearms and flamethrowers is a very characteristic solution: he does not fight Pandora's people with soldiers, he turns some of them into an army. It is also the clearest case where the recombinant has become more than a copy of the original man.

Finally, the ending of Fire and Ash, where he and Jake must cooperate to save Spider before he throws himself off the floating rock. It is the one moment where the two enemies want the same thing, and in my opinion it is the best scene they share. If you want to compare it with the other films, avatar movies ranked has the full order.