James Cameron and the original Avatar team on its re-release

If you haven’t seen it avatar in a movie theater it “kinda means you haven’t seen the movie,” at least according to writer-director James Cameron. Not that Cameron’s the type to shadow Blu-ray, Disney+, or your 85-inch flat-screen TV — actually, wait, he’s probably that type of guy. Regardless, the filmmaker is now adamant that the best way to experience his 2009 sci-fi fantasy blockbuster is with the newly remastered version of the film, which hits theaters on Friday in 3D with 4K High-Dynamic Range comes.

While Hollywood is hoping the return of Cameron’s 3D classic will help boost a sluggish September box office, the re-release of the Oscar-winning film also serves as an opening act for Avatar: The Way of WaterCameron’s 12-year-in-the-works follow-up, slated for release on December 16th.

For now, though, Cameron wants to talk about the original avatar. “It looks better than ever, even when it was first released,” he said at a recent press conference that reunited the filmmaker with cast members Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang.

The audience gets to see the film “Just like we had in mind,” Cameron added. “The physical experience of the film, we’re really excited to share that with people who have never seen it in a theater.”

Weaver, who about her memories of playing the role of exobiologist Dr. Grace Augustine considered, reinforcing Cameron’s position. “The only way to get into Pandora is to go to the cinema and watch it in 3D — that’s the rocket ship,” she said. When asked how well she understood what the 9-foot, all-blue Avatar version of her character would look like, she admitted that she hadn’t yet constructed her “earthly being” when filming those scenes. “With Jim you step off the cliff knowing that the best people in the world are responsible for each department and you can have confidence that the process will never let you down. I did, even if I didn’t have an answer for everything.”

Saldaña, whose character Neytiri has no humanoid counterpart and who has therefore had to put all her faith in the film’s motion capture technology, echoed the view. “My imagination has never been as endless as it was when I was there. And the last time I remember it was when I was a kid.”

“Zoe had nothing to act but these gray set pieces and sometimes just a gray painted box or a piece of pipe to hold on to,” Cameron recalled while discussing the motion capture film techniques his team shared developed with visual effects company Weta Digital. “I think in the first few minutes [audiences] I just gave up trying to figure out how to do it because we mixed so many techniques it took years to come up with. And so they just surrendered to a sense of being immersed in a world and in a fantasy.

“I just look back at everyone’s work and [am] I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to work with these amazing people,” he added. “And I think that’s why I immediately went out there and wrote another one and another one and another one avatar.”