the Ubisoft explanation takes about 20 minutes and he tells the story of how the thought about this movie but waited for the movie-technology to evolve in order to make the movie possible.

It seem's Earth has discovered a planet in a galaxy far, far away. As as expected, Humans and evil and destructive and plan on taking over the planet. The locals will try to defend it.

The interesting highlights is 1. how Earth is sending people to this planet (instead of space-suits, they're altering the humans genetically so they can inhabit the planet), and 2. everything will be in 3D, which will be awesome for the first 20 minutes and then I'll suffer from a terrible headache.

Sorry, this one has replies.

I think this can be really cool. Full 3D might get tiresome though

Play Mass Effect?

I would but that game is horrible (for me).

I'm waiting for the Kirk Cameron version of Avatar featuring Mel Gibson as the chosen one.

From my understanding, the movie is this:

We try to exploit the natural resources of a planet far away, but the planet proves hostile, and the native peoples, sort of a 8 foot tall blue Native Americans, prove "uncooperative." To get over this we create hybrid alien-human bodies, that are controlled by genetically matched users, as "avatars." We can operate on the planet, and take their stuff.

The main character is an avatar user's twin brother, who has been crippled. He uses his brothers avatar to walk again or something.

This is the gist I get. I may be fuzzy on it.

Hollywood is really big on this idea right now. See, Surrogates, and Gamer.

Sorry about the Avatar hijack. Honestly didn't see it.

Because 3D gives me a throbbing headache after just a few minutes. I'll see a 2D release of a movie, but I won't touch it in 3D.

Ahh. The closest I've come to having that issue is getting a little nauseous after trying out Left 4 Dead with 3D glasses for a few hours in a row.

Still though, every 3D movie that has come out in this area has had showings in both 3D and 2D formats, and I don't even live in a place with a lot of choice for theaters. You probably will be able to find Avatar in 2D somewhere. Or you could wear an eyepatch. It would look cool.

This is the issue in my area. If a movie shows in 3D they show it that way for about 99% of their showings. They did this for Up and Coraline. The only 2D showings I could ever find in their schedules were on Saturday morning while I'm at work. So I never saw either movie in the theater.

This seems like the most over-hyped movie of all time. Yes, it looks like some good science fiction, but James Cameron is claiming it will "redefine the movie experience" or words to that effect and they had a countdown for the teaser trailer?

Did we not learn our lesson about unrealistic expectations with Phantom Menace?

Is it just me or is this basically Dances with Wolves in space? I mean the CGI looks really well done, I can't tell if the beginning lab part is real or CGI it looks so good, but I have almost zero interest in the story.

I am pulling for this movie. The scope of it seems like we could get the next epic, putting it in the league of Stars Wars and Lord of the Rings. If this turns out to be a good movie, it really could be one of those rare cinematic moments that go down in history. If it gets good reviews, I plan on taking a road trip to an IMAX 3-D theater to see it.

Or,

It could be a 500 million dollar flop and shut the door to this type of movie for years to come. If that is the case, a blu-ray rental should suffice.

I don't think Cameron ever actually said anything like that. From what I can remember reading, it's more all other filmmakers who visited the set that were saying that 'Avatar' was going to be a game changer.