More Problems with Avatar...

 A fascinating and, I think, helpful perspective:

www.newstatesman.com/film/2010/03/avatar-reality-love-couple-sex

I essentially agree with these criticisms of Avatar (for this reason, I find the film extremely troubling on many levels, from an integral ethical perspective), and I have many more of my own.  The film felt engaging on a surface-level, but I was immediately disappointed when I left the theater.  I'll try to come back later and give a more integral overview, but for now, here's a laundry list of what I didn't like about it (copy-pasted from a Facebook conversation):

It's massive cliche storm. It's one of the most egregious examples of the racist "noble savage" narrative. It's completely lacking in self-awareness. It's hypocritical, a film that uses more expensive technology than any film previously with an anti-technology message. Shallow characters, a generally uncreative fantasy world (ex. those big flying things are not fascinatingly weird alien creatures, they're cardboard-cutout dragons painted iridescent colors), sci-fi concepts that would've seemed dated ten years ago, some really bad dialogue, and some really lazy writing in general (you called it "Unobtanioum," really?).

Personally, I'm not usually one to be disappointed by a film due to hype, nor am I one to give negative reviews very often. I love film. I get very excited about a lot of films on a regular basis, and I'm usually not disappointed. But Avatar was marketed as an intellectually serious film; as one that was going to "revolutionize filmmaking". It didn't. There's nothing complex or innovative about the story, and the cinematic techniques used were pretty standard. Even in terms of technology, it wasn't revolutionary in any other way than the amount of money that was spent. Pixar has created more detailed digital characters in a lot of ways. For example, one of the reasons the Na'vi all have one big braid is that animating every individual strand of hair is difficult. Pixar has been doing it convincingly since Monsters, Inc. Cameron also doesn't seem to be very good at using 3D, for all his insistence on doing so. One of the main advantages of 3D is that it allows for the appearance of infinite depth of field, meaning everything in an image is in focus as far back as you can see. In Avatar, Cameron relies way too much on shallow depth of field to show you where to focus, which makes the 3D images appear distorted and misshapen.

Overall, it just didn't really feel like there was much there in terms of complexity, intellectually or emotionally.  There were so many films in 2009 that I felt were both much more integral and much better films, including The Box, District 9, Ninja Assassin, Star Trek, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Up, Away We Go, The Men Who Stare At Goats, and Where the Wild Things Are, and the list goes on...