Looking at Sarah Connor, Cameron knows exactly how to make great, layered, complex characters. He didn't put a Sarah Connor in Avatar because it would take away from the overall experience, you idiot. And the overall experience is supposed to be like watching The Wizard of Oz. NOT Taxi Driver.
Get off your soapbox while I play you a tune on the tiniest violin.

I just finished Avatar tonight. I only put it in my queue 'cause of the new land in Disney's Animal Kingdom (opening 2017? '18?). I see why people like AVatar or hate it. Since I just mentioned an amusement park, I think it will be the basis of my argument.
I am not a youngster anymore, but I remember defining experiences and things in my environment by the system: hate that, love this. Love that, Like this, hate this. I don't remember what my motive was. influence? Most people learn either by the parents or by the rude stares of peers NOT to say, "How can you eat that crap?" or "Uh, mustard is so nasty" WE and you understand individual preferences. Apparently so does James Cameron. He chose not to thrill one group in order that he amuse another less discerning group. Disney did it. chefs do it. People who create coasters do it. Some people love predictable turn, others want a surprise. Cameron's focus was not layered, complex characters. Failure is aiming for something and uh, failing to achieve it. I don't think he aimed for that at all. and let's not forget that even J. Cameron didn't finance the movie all himself (or did he? how rich is he?) You know the producers and investors are going to demand a likeable hero, an almost happy ending, and a plot simple enough so they can dub it into 20 languages.

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curious to know what you think makes someone an "educated moviegoer"

• someone who has seen a lot of movies
• someone who has advanced (college) education
• someone educated in the cinematic arts
  I'm a Gunslinger. I deal in hard calibers.

Why do most "educated moviegoers" dislike this film. Well, the script is beep the characters are laughable, the dialogues are ridiculous, the direction is awful and most actors are bad. Even great special effects cannot save it from being the most overrated movie in cinema history (initially at least, now most viewers have come to their senses and see it for what it is, something ranging from a stinking piece of garbage to a somewhat average piece of entertainment).

And the characters are paper thin, I felt nothing when Neytiri's father and Tsu Tey died because they're cardboard cutouts.

Because the story is pretty flat.

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yet you think "The Core" is a great movie. yeah ok
I'm a Gunslinger. I deal in hard calibers.

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Just ok?
Avatar is fcking revolutionary.
Get off your soapbox while I play you a tune on the tiniest violin.

I watched Avatar yesterday for the first time in 5 years, and the movie is ok but I can't believe that Cameron is planning on making 6-7 more movies. Personally, I think that one movie is enough.

Because the story is almost identical to at least a dozen other movies with the same idea just change the race or alien or tribe or people, change the item being stolen, and change the locations. It is all the same as so many that have been done before. Just add some modern CGI to draw some ridiculous looking aliens that's the only difference.

When I first watched Avatar I was 13 years old, I hadn't seen Dances with Wolves nor The last Samurai nor any of the other films you have mentioned. Now that I have watched them, and many more and have some cinema knoledge, I can agree the story is very predictable and unoriginal.
What I personally find a bit funny here on imdb is that many of the posters who complain at Avatar for being unoriginal truly believe that DWW/TLS/Pocahontas etc were original when they are every bit as derivative as Avatar.
It's like the posters believe that the Go Native/Monomyth started in the 90s just because they themselves grew up with movies from that decade and therefore first experienced this type of story in those movies.
To me it's all about execution and adding slight variations/twists and creating interesting visuals/characters/movie magic etc since this type of story has been around for eons. Whether DWW or Avatar succeeded with this is more interesting to discuss than them being original or not. Goes for movies about mobsters, or romcoms, or any other genre too. Just my two cents.

I understand perfectly your point and I respect it. However, I feel compelled to explain why I just loved Avatar:
When I first watched Avatar I was 13 years old, I hadn't seen Dances with Wolves nor The last Samurai nor any of the other films you have mentioned. Now that I have watched them, and many more and have some cinema knoledge, I can agree the story is very predictable and unoriginal. But at the time, I didn't realize it, and I'm sure there are many others like me.
About the CGI, you replied to another comment saying it prevented you from immersing yourself in the movie and another poster said you were prejudiced against it. I feel like LukeLovesFilm28 is right. I just lost myself in the film's universe, I wanted to be there, I wanted to run, jump, swim, fly, ride I wanted to be in contact with that pristine uncorrupted connected nature. And I believed every single ''CGI lie'' they told me. I wasn't thinking about a green screen and I don't think any viewer should. What would be the point of CGI, then?
About the one dimensional characters I don't think it's necessarily bad. It's simple and understandable, and it doesn't screw with your head. Take
The Deer Hunter
for example. Yes, characters are full of nuances and are very realistic. But when the movie is over you're left confused because, being so realistic characters, they're completely irrational and their decisions and actions make no sense unless you're in their head. And you have lots of doubts no one will ever be able to give a definite answer to because every viewer has its own interpretation of it. And I don't like the feeling of having lots of questions and no real answers, just hypothetical interpretations. Of course, it may be just me who doesn't understand irrational multidimensional characters, (I might even have some Asperger's, who knows?). And I can understand how someone can like having lots of questions they can try to answer themselves. But it's not the kind of thing I like. So, in that aspect, even though I agree Avatar doesn't make a great film, I can accept it.
Probably, if I hadn't watched Avatar when I was a kid with no ''cinema knowledge'' whatsoever and I watched it today that I'm more experienced and know many great films to compare it too, I wouldn't like it. Maybe I would even despise it. But, I don't know, it just has a certain magic to it that is refreshing and optimistic and I can't bring myself to watch it as the lame blockbuster many say it is (I have a weakness for the genre after all).
However, I will try again to watch it in the most objective way I can (though with some VR glasses) and update the comment if I change my mind.
Anyways, just my humble opinion, which I couldn't help but share.

A well written and thought out post that explains why this film is forgettable.
I enjoyed it immensely in the theater, but that's because the novel 3D effects and well-directed action scenes compensated for the lack of interesting narrative or characters. Once you get back home and watch it on the bluray, you realize that effects alone aren't going to hold a film up, especially when the design of it all is so reminiscent of images we've seen before.
It is like most 3D "award-winning" blockbusters such as Gravity or Life of Pi. Once you rewatch them on the small screen, you notice the lack of interesting story.
~ I'm a 21st century man and I don't wanna be here.

wow you aren't that smart are you?
basically the word unobtainium has been around a long time and used in many real world and science fiction applications. Here you go I did the hard work for you.
In fiction, engineering, and thought experiments, unobtainium is any fictional, extremely rare, costly, or impossible material, or (less commonly) device needed to fulfill a given design for a given application. The properties of any particular unobtainium depend on the intended use. For example, a pulley made of unobtainium might be massless and frictionless; however, if used in a nuclear rocket, unobtainium would be light, strong at high temperatures, and resistant to radiation damage. The concept of unobtainium is often applied flippantly or humorously. For instance, unobtainium is described as being stronger than helium, and lighter than air.
The word unobtainium derives humorously from unobtainable followed by the suffix -ium, the conventional designation for a chemical element. It pre-dates the similar-sounding IUPAC systematic element names, such as ununoctium. An alternative spelling, unobtanium is sometimes used (for example, for the crypto-currency Unobtanium), based on the spelling of metals such as titanium.
Since the late 1950s,[a][1] aerospace engineers have used the term "unobtainium" when referring to unusual or costly materials, or when theoretically considering a material perfect for their needs in all respects, except that it does not exist. By the 1990s, the term was in wide use, even in formal engineering papers such as "Towards unobtainium [new composite materials for space applications]."[2][3] The word unobtainium may well have been coined in the aerospace industry to refer to materials capable of withstanding the extreme temperatures expected in re-entry.[1] Aerospace engineers are frequently tempted to design aircraft which require parts with strength or resilience beyond that of currently available materials.
Later, unobtainium became an engineering term for practical materials that really exist, but are difficult to get.[4] For example, during the development of the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, Lockheed engineers at the "Skunk Works" under Clarence "Kelly" Johnson used unobtainium as a dysphemism for titanium. Titanium allowed a higher strength-to-weight ratio at the high temperatures the Blackbird would reach, but the Soviet Union controlled its supply and was trying to deprive the US armed forces of this valuable resource.
By 2010, the term had diffused beyond engineering, and now can appear in the headlines of mainstream newspapers, especially to describe the commercially useful rare earth elements (particularly terbium, erbium, dysprosium, yttrium, and neodymium). These are essential to the performance of consumer electronics and green technology, but the projected demand for them so outstrips their current supply that they are called "unobtainiums" within the ore industry,[5] and by commentators on the US Congressional hearings into the "supply security" of rare-earths.[6][7]
"Unobtainium" has come to be used as a synonym for "unobtainable" among people who are neither science fiction fans nor engineers to denote an object that actually exists, but which is very hard to obtain either because of high price (sometimes referred to as "unaffordium") or limited availability. It usually refers to a very high-end and desirable product; for instance, in the mountain biking community, "These titanium hubs are unobtainium, man!" Old-car enthusiasts use "unobtainium" to describe parts that are vanishingly rare or no longer available.[8][9]
In maintaining old equipment, unobtainium refers to replacement parts that are no longer made, such as parts for reel-to-reel audio-tape recorders, or rare vacuum tubes that cost more than the equipment they are fitted to (especially true of certain vacuum tubes, such as the 1L6, used almost exclusively in American battery-powered shortwave radios or the WD-11 used in certain early 1920s radios). Similarly, parts for classic & vintage Ferraris are made by a company actually named Unobtainium Supply Co.[10]
There have been repeated attempts to attribute the name to a real material. Because of the long-standing usage of the term "unobtainium" within the space elevator research community to describe a material with the necessary characteristics,[11][12] LiftPort Group President Michael Laine has advocated assigning the term as the generic name for cables woven of carbon nanotube fibers, which seem to satisfy the requirements for this application. Since he claimed that sufficiently long nanotube cables will be prohibitively expensive to develop without inexpensive access to microgravity, these cables would still be close enough to unobtainable to meet the definition. However, this usage does not seem to have become widespread. The eyewear and fashion wear company Oakley, Inc. also frequently denotes the material used for many of their eyeglass nosepieces and ear

"Unobtanium (pronounced un-ub-TAIN-ee-um) is a highly valuable mineral found on the moon Pandora. Humans mined unobtanium to save the Earth from its energy crisis; bluntly put, they need the mineral for their survival. It is extremely valuable to the human race."
Do the same thing next time.

the exoskeleton Cameron ripped of from his own movie, Aliens
maybe the two movies take place in the same universe
and the embarrassing word "unobtainium"
you should look up the word, don't be embarrassed because you don't know the definition
I'm a Gunslinger. I deal in hard calibers.

I saw this movie twice in the theater. I didn't like it much the first time, I went the second time because my mother wanted to see it.
Years later, I remember almost nothing about this movie except the exoskeleton Cameron ripped of from his own movie, Aliens, and the embarrassing word "unobtainium".
Yet the world will get 4 more of these movies.
Jesus.

its the most predictable film i've ever seen . you could work out the entire story from the poster

I don't think that Avatar is one of the worst films ever made, that's ludicrousI just don't see what the hell the fuss is, wellwas, about.
Yes, the CGI and effects were gorgeous. Hell, they still are.
But you can't just throw eye candy in my face for damn near 3 hours with minimal character development and a straight forward, cookie cutter plotline that I've already witnessed in countless other moviesand expect me to hail it as a masterpiece.
Sorry
Avatar is right up there with Prometheus and Batman v Superman as the most disappointing movie of the last 20 years IMO.
I had high hopes for Prometheus for the same damn reason as Avatar. A master of sci-fi in Ridley Scott making his return to the genre after a long hiatus. Hell, much longer than Cameron's. And it was just such a jumbled mess.

Sounds like you're just approaching this CGI masterpiece with prejudice against the tool of CGI itself. That's ON YOU. Avatar is perfectly created to perfectly showcase this technology.
Watching the actors, as humans and Na'vi, I never got the same feeling I got from watching George Lucas's POS prequels. Those actors were doing a sh!t job because they had no idea what the hell they were supposed to be looking at, because every CGI thing we saw was later created by ILM. Lucas had no visuals to show them. He also has no talent whatsoever in directing actors.