I think most of the people that dislike the plot has a lot more to do with them not being used to scifi concepts more than anything else.

+1 to what laserath said.

I echo Frosstbyte's thoughts about the quality of the story/writing < the quality of everything else. It's insane but admirable to think about the lengths that Cameron went in the creation of this movie. We've established how amazing the technology and special effects are, but consider everything else: he hired a linguist professor to create the language, consulted with a botany specialist to create and classify the plantlife, consulted with a music professor to create a "tripartite scale structure for the alien music." He hires a friggin expert in astrophysics to calculate the world's atmospheric density!
I just feel that the writing is not up to the standard that he set for everything else. For the first 60 minutes I loved this movie, but it just didn't hold my interest once I knew where it was going.

It has nothing to do with not being fimilar with sci-fi concepts, it's that the movie had the most generic paint by numbers plot possible so that anyone could see it and "get it".

What's wrong with that?

Slumdog Millionaire: a boy plays Millionaire. How he knows the answers is the plot.

No Country For Old Men: a man finds a lot of money in a briefcase and runs from the guy who is looking for it.

Titanic: two people find love and try to survive on the Titanic.

Braveheart: the leader tries to free his people

Juno: a teenage girl gets pregnant and we see how she deals with it

These movies are considered masterpieces and they all have painfully simplistic plots.

It's not just the basics of the plot it's about the content within said plot. There was absolutely nothing I didn't see coming in Avatar.

With this much effort (and cash) invested in a movie, taking a risk with the plot as opposed to using elements people are familiar with and have enjoyed immensely in the past would be at least a little bit foolhardy. I'm sure Cameron was aware of what the plot is. He was also aware (sometimes painfully, I'm sure) of the weight of the stakeholders in this film.

spoilers
I think you're over exaggerating a bit. There was no hint as to sigourney weaver's character dieing (I figured the transfer thing would work,) I wasn't certain if they'd destroy their tree, or if they'd fight a pitched battle around it, I wasn't convinced their'd be a happy ending, etc. It wasn't a "OMFG WHAT A TWIST!" Kind of movie, but not every movie needs a twist to be good. In fact, usually for me, the movies with the "twists" are the easiest ones to see what's coming.

This wasn't my favorite movie ever or anything, but I am just not seeing this supposedly bad plot some of you are.

Its OK to dislike a movie just cause, you don't have to blame the plot.

amazing.

Spoilers
How about the fact that the military acted like complete morons? Tell me that ground battle wasn't tacked on to have a big fight scene since there was no reason to have ground troops deployed.
What about that no one, in a society where everyone flies, thought "Hey maybe trying to fly above the big flying thingy" before him?
How about the "oh no he's running out of air, but his girlfriend saves him at the last possible second!"

The plot is my only reason for disliking this movie. The characters were, if a bit cliched, well done and the visuals were better than anything I've seen but the plot was horrible.

I thought the same thing, I saw it in IMAX 3D in the large IMAX not the fake shitty converted theater IMAX, and then I d/l a very good quality torrent. The video quality was very good, but it was very different.

Not the same experience at all. Even just the computer screens and HUDs were just incredible to look at in 3D.

Who is "blaming" anything? The movie bored me. When I find a movie boring, the usual culprit is the plot and the characters.

There's a difference between a familiar, engaging plot and a familiar, boring plot. I didn't need Avatar's plot to be revolutionary. I agree that with $500M riding on this movie between production costs, doing something crazy and avant garde would be an unnecessary risk. Remaking Pocahontas+Dances with Wolves+Ferngully was, in my opinion, trite, lazy and boring.

I am familiar with a lot of great science fiction literature and movies, so I haven't the first idea what you mean when you say I'd get it if only I knew something about the genre. As I've said, Avatar is a visual spectacle that ought to be enjoyed on the biggest and most expensive screen you can find. I didn't find the story interesting or compelling. Obviously, some people did, which is fine. I don't understand what there is to like about the plot, but the plot is adamantly what I did not like about the movie.

As I've said, they weren't military, they were mercenaries. Mercenaries are usually the scum of the ex-military and tend to act like morons, or at least that is the popular conception. The charges were to destroy the tree for shock and awe, not to destroy all the na'vi. The ground troops were to mop up and kill the actual na'vi. Umm, they didn't try because they didn't want to die? Why bother? He released it at the end, it was one of those desperate measures things. They had never been threatened so badly before. And we don't know why or the circumstances surrounding the previous 5 who had done it. Ok, so you named 1 moment in a 3 hour movie that was predictable. I can do that with every single movie.

Don't forget to add a dash of Dune in there for the Unobtainium, aka The Spice.

Spoiler: Oh and as far as Weaver's character dying goes, you really didn't see that coming? They kinda told you over and over again how it probably wouldn't work.

The film Pocahontas (1995) was based on a real historic figure, while Dances with Wolves (1990) and FernGully (1992) were based on books of the same titles (published in 1986 and 1991, respectively). None of those films had original plots. A question: why are these films the only creations that should be able to tell these stories? Do we have to keep going back 15 to 20 years and watch a Kevin Costner film and two animated productions to get these stories? Should we read the books?

Even Shakespeare overtly retold stories in his plays by rehashing them. It is well known that medieval audiences were keen on hearing stories they were familiar with told in new ways.

You might not like it; you might prefer novelty or something derivative beyond recognition. Fine. But obviously there are many who do like it.

I'll put this in movie terms with the hope that it makes some better sense, because apparently what I have been describing has not worked. Movies (and plots) don't need to be revolutionary to be good and engaging, and they don't have to be familiar to be engaging. You're right that no plot is truly revolutionary, nor were the plots of the movies I listed.

With the exception of FernGully, though, which is mostly in the list as a joke, both Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves worked as engaging movies for their respective target audiences. Pocahontas isn't a Disney masterpiece, but it's certainly a fun animated movie, and Dances with Wolves (whatever else Costner did afterwards) is a pretty fantastic movie. Avatar bothers me because Avatar's plot is similar to Dances with Wolves, but feels like it was written by the people who wrote FernGully. It has an immense, obvious agenda that it spends the whole movie pounding into your face. The characters are all exaggerated archetypes. There's no nuance. There's no tongue in cheek. No texture.

I don't think people are getting lost in the story of Avatar; I think they're getting lost in the world. And, for all the money and time James Cameron spent making this movie, I think he could've done a better job making the story as compelling as the world is. Maybe he'll be able to pull off a second act as good as the Empire Strikes Back to redeem Avatar's shortcomings the way Empire redeemed many of A New Hope's, but standing alone, it's pretty bare.

Avatar might be the first movie in many, many years that has me willing to go to the theater to see it.

I'm trying hard to pry hubby away from all the football playoffs this weekend to go along with me!

Luckily, I've avoided reading too many reviews although I'm going to see Avatar with low expectations...

What is the running time of James Cameron's Avatar? I have heard many different things from many different sources, and I could really use some help. Ive heard people say it's everywhere from 100 minutes, too 190 minutes. It looks like an amazing movie, but I don't wanna get over excited for a movie that's only an hour and a half long. Please help me out.

IMDB: Avatar says 162 minutes.

I bash but I still want people to watch it. The Chinese Govt doesn't even want anyone to see it.

Full story over at the GuardianUK.

I think James Cameron may have been thinking about a lot of things when he made this movie, but I feel pretty safe in saying that the plight of Chinese vulnerable to displacement by predator property developers was nowhere on his list. Awesome.

Saw it last weekend at the IMAX.

I went knowing practically nothing about the film having kept my ears shut about it since I didn't want to get caught up in the hype.

Wow - fantastic movie, well worth seeing.

Question:

Did any of the other Canadians catch James Cameron's little tip of the hat to Canada and specifically the Niagara Region where he grew up? (My mother's family is all from the Niagara Region, so I caught it whilst watching the movie.)