Star Zoe Saldana has confirmed that a “sex scene” was cut from box office juggernaut Avatar, probably to ensure a PG-13 rating. She described the scene recently and it sounds just like the scenario in which the Návi pacify by the flying banshee creatures by melding the tentacles from their tails. (Those scenes, to quote a review I can’t find again, were somewhat “rapey”.) Director James Cameron recently put the entire script online, and you can read the deleted scene. (In an image below.) It’s not that racy and sounds less worthy of an R rating than any of the violent scenes. It’s a shame that some simulated alien sex using tails as genitals is considered more offensive than people killing each other and blowing things up. Here’s Saldana’s explanation of the way the Návi do the deed:

Zoe Saldana: If you sync to your banshee and you’re syncing to a tree, why not sync into a person? I almost feel like you’ll have the most amazing orgasm, I guess. It was a very funny scene to shoot because there were so many technical things that sometimes you have to keep in mind that paying attention to all those might disrupt the fluidity of how a scene is supposed to take place.

And because Jim was shooting for a PG-13 rating, we couldn’t move in certain directions. The motion would look a little too past the PG-13 rating standards. So it was really funny for Sam and me. We had a lot of giggles there.

We had it in and we cut it out. So that will be something for the special edition DVD, if you want to see how they have sex.

[From i09.com]

The scene reads kind of cheesy in the screenplay (below) but they surely made it fit well with the rest of the film. As moving and amazing as Avatar was there was that undercurrent of schmaltz. Cameron skirted a fine line between laying it on too thick and creating a compelling story that transported you to another world. He succeeded brilliantly, in my opinion. After finally seeing Avatar yesterday I have to say that I’d easily go see it a couple more times in the theater and I never do that. Many people agree with me. Avatar has surpassed box office records to quickly become the top grossing film of last year and the second highest worldwide grossing film of all time.

Photos via Nerve and Allmoviephoto