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...DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were not yet established stars. The historical event lacked suspense: whatever else happened, that 1912 ocean liner would sink; there would be no Titanic II. Moreover, the scenario Cameron did invent was a love story, and that would scare off the guys. (See more about Avatar on Techland.com...
After Titanic, Cameron got financial carte blanche to spend a bundle on another no-star epic. (The film's distributor, 20th Century Fox, claims that the budget for Avatar was $237 million, less than that of Spider-Man 3 or the last Harry Potter movie.) This time, instead of re-creating a cruise ship, Cameron created a whole new world, using technologies he waited nearly a decade to see come to fruition. The man who built the Titanic became the God of the Old Testament - or at least J.R.R. Tolkien - summoning previously unseen lands from his majestic imagination...
...Avatar's mantra is "I see you," and its final image is of someone's eyes snapping open. Journeying to the year 2154, moviegoers everywhere have embraced the film - surely the most vivid and persuasive creation of a fantasy world ever seen in moving pictures - as a total sensory, sensuous, sensual experience. The planet Pandora is a wonder world of flora and fauna: a rainforest (where it rarely rains) of gigantic trees and phosphorescent plants, of flying steeds, panther dogs and hammerhead dinosaurs. Audiences are just as beguiled by Pandora's humanish tribe, the Na'vi - the lean...
...Avatar wouldn't connect so broadly and deeply with audiences if the central relationship of Jake (Sam Worthington), the crippled Marine, and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), daughter of the Na'vi tribal chief, weren't plausible and inviting. Like Titanic, this is a love story enveloped by catastrophe. That's why Hollywood's anxiety about the movie's supposedly limited appeal to both sexes was needless. Indeed, Avatar's closest kin among current hits may be The Blind Side, the female-skewing sports film. Both tell stories of strong women who find rootless young men and give them a purpose around...
That also makes Avatar a throwback to ancient movie days, when films about men and women seduced the mass audience. And because it works splendidly as spectacle and love story, Cameron's picture is worthy of comparison to the great old epics. The world beater is also a heartbreaker, if you just open your eyes...