Stephen Lang reveals how his character returns from the dead in Avatar: The Way of Water

With Avatar: The Way of Water set to hit theatres worldwide this month and one of the biggest questions on everyone's mind is how the movie's main antagonist is the same as the original.

Considering Colonel Miles Quaritch played to perfection by actor Stephen Lang was killed by Neytiri at the end of the first movie.

There were many fan theories floating around the most prominent one being that it would be a clone of Quartich that would be appearing in the sequel. However, when the trailer came out we saw that the character was a Navi avatar.

And is in fact member of the Recombinants, a group of dead soldiers who have been rescued into new Navi avatar bodies with the sole pur[ose of hunting down and killing the Navi.

In a recent interview with Empire, actor Stephen Lang spoke about his return from the dead and how this new version of Quartich is exactly the same person but without the memories of his death during the climactic battle with the Navi in 2009s Avatar.

James Cameron has already confirmed that Quartich would be the main villain of The Way of Water and its three planned sequels.

in the interview, the actor said "He's a genetically-engineered autonomous avatar. He has been downloaded with the mind, the emotions, and even more interestingly, possibly the spirit of Quaritch."

Lang went on to add "Now, that's all pretty esoteric stuff. He comes with a full memory bank up until the time he actually undergoes the DNA transfer. So there are certain things that he doesn't have any memory of at all. He has no memory of his death."

If this is true then Quaritch and his fellow Recombinants have no memory of their time battling the Navi, so this could be a fresh take on the character and opens many possibilities.

Such as the return of Michelle Rodriguez's character Captain Trudy Chacon, who chooses to help Jake and the Navi fight the humas and died during the final battle.

In the sequel, Jake Sully and his tribe are attacked by the humans and forced to flee their home and seek shelter with another tribe of Navi while coming up with a way to stop the second invasion of Pandora.

Avatar: The Way of Water will hit the big screen on December 16th.