This 3D crap really needs to stop.

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3d is just a stopgap until they develop glasses-free 3d which is quasi-holographic. holographic movies would be the bee's knees.

Yeah, alright. The whole "Dances With Smurfs" critique has some validity-- but it's getting to be a bit of a cliché in its own right, because everyone who talks about Avatar unfavorably inevitably resorts to it. Fine. The whole "going native" concept has been done already. We get it.

Maybe I'm a bit biased myself, because I actually did see the 3D version in the theater (and as an aside to auntblabby, it was not an easy task even though I did live in a big city, because the theaters were packed in a way I'd never seen before). Say what you will about the plot being recycled-- Avatar was a movie that lent itself extemely well to the 3D technology. With a whole other world to explore, the 3D greatly added to the immersive experience. I will agree, though, that Hollywood is abusing it. But that's par for the course. Hollywood always does that. They find something new that makes money, and they do everything they can to exploit it until they've sucked that particular vein dry. I mean, Jesus, they're still over-reliant on CGI to fix everything like some kind of magic wand, even though it really doesn't do a thing to help the story. With a few notable exceptions, Hollywood's not really in the business of stories anymore-- they're in the business of pimping their new toys. Remember when The Matrix came out, and suddenly every other action movie was ripping off bullet-time and reality-bending? It looks so dated now, so early 2000s-- but back then, it was the big new thing, and to some extent, it will always exist now in the lexicon of movie effects. This is what Hollywood does whenever it gets a new technology it still doesn't know how to use properly (and by properly, I mean, with mediation).

I never made the Dances with Smurfs complaint. I honestly don’t give a crap about the fact that the plot is just Dances with Wolves (or FernGully, take your pick) with blue aliens. My complaint is that the acting and writing are awful. Avatar is James Cameron's Phantom Menace. It's gorgeous to look at and... well, hey, ain't it pretty?

Since I didn't see it in 3D, I can't comment on how good the 3D was or wasn't. What I can say is that a movie is a failure if you strip the 3D away and there's suddenly no reason to watch it anymore. I think this is the biggest problem with 3D movies. It's not that the 3D looks bad (although, as I said, I haven't seen any movies in 3D, so I can't comment on the quality of it) but rather that filmmakers keep using it as a gimmick to distract from the lousy acting, writing, and directing. If you need to see a movie in 3D for it to be entertaining, then you need to stick that thing back in the oven, because it's not done yet.