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This coming weekend the cinematic experience is supposed to change forever… that’s because James Cameron plans to drop Avatar his Futuristic sci-fi adventure flick.  Now if you’re as lost about the Avatar plot as I was… allow me to clarify…

Set 150 years in the future, “Avatar” is about a mission by an Earth corporation to secure the distant planet Pandora, which is rich in valuable minerals.  The corporation wants to strip Pandora of its resources a plan which doesn’t sit well of course with the Na’vi, the planet’s native inhabitants.  One of the people on the mission to Pandora is Jake Sully a wheelchair bound marine who’s there as a replacement for his dead twin brother who was a scientist who had been training for the mission.

Jake’s brother had been learning the ropes for the Avatar project which has been growing a Na’vi body in a test-tube, to mind-meld with a human so that they can infiltrate the Na’vi clan and convince them to move away from their base.  The Na’vi’s (who have a connection with their planet is more sophisticated than humans can understand) don’t want to leave…

So on the surface you’ve got a basic invader – native plot…  but if that’s all this was about the movie wouldn’t be getting the acclaim its getting so far…

Let’s not forget after all that this is the brainchild of James Cameron, the man behind Terminator, Terminator 2, Alien and Titanic.  The man that said that he’s the King of the World… has gone for broke with this flick…  it’s his first flick in 12 years and published reports have put the production budget at more than $230 million.

But when you add Cameron’s own stake in the film and his other investors “Avatar” cost its various backers closer to $500 million.  Now, Cameron invented the technology that would allow him to make the film and his fictitious world Pandora, every blade of grass and every strand of hair is completely CGI… the results look pretty crazy from the previews I’ve seen… but to really make his effects POP… Cameron made “Avatar” in digital 3-D.

The one problem that I see though is that movie theatres may not be ready to experience Avatar the way Cameron envisioned.  Not enough U.S. screens have adapted the technology for a full wide release only in 3-D.  And of the thirty nine thousand movie screens in the U.S., about twenty five hundred are capable of showing digital 3-D movies.  Now theater chains have been adding about 90 theatres per month this year, but they’re still short of the 4,000-plus screens that have been used for major event movies.

So do the math people, it costs about 500 million to make… Ticket’s cost 13 bucks a pop.  Damn that’s a lot of popcorn people.

Fuck, spend money…