Does hype alone make a movie?

Rating: 3/10 (20 June 2011)

James Cameron's last movie was the big hit of the decade. The Titanic held the record for highest box office, swept all of the major award ceremonies and is regarded by many as one of the best films ever made. With Cameron being the director of such great sci-fi films as Terminator, T2 and Aliens, his newest project Avatar seemed like a great idea.
So what do you get after waiting almost a decade since Titanic? One of the most unoriginal, overtly preachy and flashy movies ever made. As many before have put, it's very accurate to just call it a 4 hour long Pocahontas in Space. Almost 10 years of development went into a plot that's already been done to death in every shape and form? Of course, on the side you have to add all of the anti-military, anti-capitalist, and environmentalist angles, and mix in some "war for oil" elements. Not to mention the whole "humans suck" schtick, which he already delved a bit into with his previous work, The Abyss. Cameron's anti-capitalist views seem so ironic to me, especially considering that two of his films have grossed the most money of all time, and he's planning on rereleasing them both.
Lame story aside, I even thought the special effects were cheesy. All I can say is that completely CGI characters and worlds will never match up to the animatronics detailed sets of previous movies. When I first heard about the movie, I was quite excited, since I had become a fan of Cameron's previous sci-fi works. When the first trailer came out, I was very disappointed. All of the aliens were too saturated in color, making them stand out like a sore thumb, and the creatures looked like the creatures in the recent star Wars movies, which for the record, means terrible. Even beyond the bland CG, the designs were all rather uninspired. The main aliens are just really tall blue humanoids with cat-like faces. All of the beasts are more or less fusions of two different earth animals.
I think the reason this movie has such a high rating and big following is because of all the hype that surrounded its release. When everyone is so excited about Cameron making a new movie, I'm sure they don't don't notice the horribly unoriginal plot. People wanted this movie to be great, since they had to wait for it so long, and were willing to pass it off as great no matter what. As for me, after having to put up with all of the non-stop hype and discussion about the movie, I wanted it to be bad. And despite watching the movie with an open mind, I wasn't disappointed.