Thanks for your lengthy and thoughtful response. Honestly, I don't really care whether anyone likes, dislikes, hates, or loves Avatar, as art is subjective. My article is a reaction to the fact that Avatar is always singled out and used as a speed bag by so many people, and mostly only because it was so successful. The same "uncreative" charges they levy against it could be said of almost any other major four-quadrant blockbuster film.
Most films operate from a familiar template anyway. Fish out of water. Hero's journey. Storm the castle. Etc. Doesn't Star Wars derive a lot from The Hidden Fortress? Even high concept "originality" is usually structured off of some common human quirk. Eraserhead is about fear of fatherhood, among other things, for example. And even when audiences are presented with something original and out there, they usually reject it anyway. How many Cronenberg or von Trier films have crossed even $50 million at the B.O.? Meanwhile Spiffy Man and Tough Girl Part IV from Marvel, with bad jokes every two minutes, makes $500 mil+ routinely. People WANT familiar. They want a known story model. Cameron knows that and tailors his movies to extract maximum emotion (and dollars) from ticket goers. He knows WTF he's doing, which is why he's made two top all-timers back to back.
While we're on Cameron, almost all of his films are rescue missions with a romance. Artists themselves even have templates. Stephen King--small town with a scary secret. Martin Scorsese--the rise and fall of some criminal mastermind/thug within an ethnic community (usually Italian or Irish). Woody Allen--awkward Jewish guy versus New York life. Michael Bay--explosions and juvenile humor.
However, Cameron consistently does his thing THE BEST. He consistently raises the bar technically and creatively. How many Terminator rip-offs were there in the '80s? How many films tried to mimic Titanic in the '90s? And how many 3D copy cats tried to ape Avatar's style after that came out in 2009?
People are free to hate all they want. But hating on Cameron's films is like hating on David of Michelangelo. Surely there were statues of dudes made before that one, right? It's not "original." Yet it's still a classic. I wonder why.
