Here Is How Old Jake and Neytiri Are in ‘Avatar’

James Cameron’s Avatar was first released in 2009, and to this day, it remains one of the biggest global phenomenons that cinephiles had the chance to watch on the big screen. Although a part of the audience criticized the numerous times seen story, the movie’s main characters, Jake and Neytiri, still grew to become one of the most-known couples in modern cinema. In this article, we’ll tell you how old Jake and Neytiri were during the events of the first movie.

The events of the original Avatar movie begin with the murder of Jake’s brother in 2148, and the movie’s main storyline takes place in 2154. Jake Sully was born in 2126, so he was 22 at the beginning of the movie. Although he was 28 when he arrived on Pandora, he was still biologically 22 because a person doesn’t age during the six years in cryo on the trip to Pandora. Jake’s mate, Neytiri te Tskaha Mo’at’ite, was born in Pandora in 2136, so she was 18 during the events of the first Avatar movie.

The story of the Avatar franchise takes place in a distant future when the resources on planet Earth have been depleted. The first movie was centered on a story about humans who came to the planet of Pandora to mine a valuable mineral known as Unobtainium. In the sequel, set ten years after the events of the movie, the story took it even further because humans were looking for a new home planet because the Earth was dying.

Jake’s timeline in the original Avatar movie

The original Avatar movie was first released in December 2009, and the movie quickly became one of the biggest global phenomenons in modern culture. The extended cut of the movie was released on BluRay a year later, expanding the story even further. While the original cut started with Jake’s trip to Pandora and his character’s background was explained through flashbacks, the extended cut started with Jake while he was still on Earth. The extended cut is a more flowing version of the movie, and if we might add, we’d always recommend it over the original version.

Jake Sully was born on August 21, 2126. By 2148, although he was only 22 at the time, he had already joined the Marines and suffered a severe spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Although he was bound to a wheelchair, his spirit as a soldier and fighter remained. On the other hand, his identical brother Tommy was a Ph.D. who spent three years preparing to be a part of the Avatar program before he was murdered by a thief who tried to steal his wallet in the summer of 2148.

Since Jake and Tommy, as twin brothers, share the same genetic signature, Jake was given a chance to continue Tommy’s mission on Pandora. It takes six years to travel to Pandora, and during that time, all the travelers are in cryo sleep, which prevents them from aging. Jake arrived on Pandora in 2154, when he was 28 years old, although he remained 22 years old biologically because of those six years he spent in cryo.

The main storyline of the original Avatar movie is spread over three months. Based on the video log scenes where the dates are always written on the screen, we can see that Jake arrived on Pandora on May 19, 2154. At 8 AM on May 20, he linked his mind with his Avatar for the first time.

Three months later, on August 18, Jake was officially named a part of The People by Etyukan. Only five days later, on August 23, the main battle against the Sky People occurred, ending with Jake killing Colonel Quaritch. After the battle, the rest of the humans were sent back to Earth, meaning that they’ll arrive there in 2160, and Jake made his last video log on his birthday, August 24, 2154, when his human body died as his consciousness is permanently transferred to his Avatar body.

Neytiri’s timeline in the original Avatar movie

Pandora is a different planet, so it’s safe to say that time works differently there than it does on Earth. Still, no statements can confirm how long days, nights, and years last on Pandora compared to those on Earth, so we can only assume that the time on Pandora is still measured in Earth’s time to make the movie less confusing for the audience.

We do know that Neytiri te Tskaha Mo’at’ite (try to repeat that quickly three times) was born in 2136. She was born and raised on the Pandora planet. Her father, Etyukan, was the leader of the Omaticaya clan, and she also had an older sister, Sylwanin (she was mentioned only in the extended cut). Slywanin was murdered in 2152, two years before the original movie’s events, when Neytiri was only 16.

Two years after Sylwanin’s death, when Neytiri was 18 years old, Jake Sully arrived on Pandora and became an Avatar driver. After he got lost one night in the woods, Neytiri first wanted to kill him before Eywa gave her a sign to spare his life. Although he was sent there on a mission, Jake began falling in love, not only with Neytiri but with the entire nature of Pandora as well. Seeing the bad intentions of Sky People on Pandora, Jake vows to protect Na’vi from his own kind.

The sequel to the original Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, was released in December 2022. The movie grossed $2.3 billion worldwide, which currently makes it the third highest-grossing movie of all time, behind the original Avatar and Avengers: Endgame.