I thought the movie stole plot from "Dances With Wolves". Army man is immersed into native culture, befriends natives, is recognized as one, becomes emotionally involved with native female and ends up living life after as native leaving behind former life.

Lots of parallels, I don't hear too many people comment about.

Strange article. It asks the question "Is Avatar really the biggest movie ever?", spends almost the entire article trying to answer this question, then basically suggests that this question is only important to bean counters and journalists - thereby invalidating the article. Very poor writing.

If you don't give a damn, then why write about it?

Thanks for giving us access to inflation adjusted ticket sales for movies (boxofficemojo.com). A 10 dollar ticket to Avatar probably would have bought 40 tickets to Gone with the Wind, back in the 25 cents per ticket days.
All movie comparisons should count tickets sold, not dollars collected. That will be an absoluted guage of the number of movie goers. Could Avatar become the most popular movie? Perhaps, but just count tickets sold, not dollars collected.

Who cares you can't compare this movie to Gone With The Wind in any way, shape or form. This movie is all fluff (typical Cameron) GWTW has so much more of a story at a time when you saw the movie and that was it, no designer food, kickback seats, IMAX..give me a break. GWTW was a cinema classic, this will be forgotten in 2-3 years.

honestly, i dont think it is the greatest movie. but dont get me wrong, i thought it was the most amazing movie i've seen in a long time... its just all those high priced 3-D tickets that got it to this level.

oh my god this movie rocks,i have watch it two times in the cinema,first time 3D,the other time was just that boring style.im 12,and i feel like watching it over and over again.but truly ,it rocks and it has a special lesson in it,that lesson can make a better world for us.i hope Osama BinLaden could watch it.i want to advice James Cameron that he better make a Part 2 of it,cause im dying to watch that part,AAAAAHHHHHH!

2009 was the 70th anniversary of GONE WITH THE WIND. It is still watched, stll discovered by new generations. Will AVATAR have this kind of status, longevity? I seriously doubt it.

If the right wing nuts keep analyzing this movie and sounding..., well right wing-nutish with a dash of empty headed religious fanaticism, this movie will break all records!!! I wonder if they have a CLUE why this movie is so popular (besides the special effect factor) well, HMMMM a military beholding to BIG CORPORATIONS, the will & health of the people & planet ignored for profit... Well it's scfi.

My wife and I walked out of the film "Avatar" one hour into the film. I felt it was a bummer. Who needs imperialism in space?

I've worn 3D glasses to watch a movie ages ago. I'm 77-years-old so this was no big deal.

I'm a historian and a science devotee. I have never been enamored with science fiction or fantasy. Too much of it is either bad literature or poor science. I never saw a Harry Potter film or The Lord of the Rings. I don't feel I missed a thing.

Cameron did underline one thing I've known for a long time. Greed and territorialism will still be human no matter where we go in the universe.

personally i thought the movie was good, not great, a little cheesy at times. It took ideas from other movies and put them together, and the plot was so obvious. as far as cgi it was incredible, everything looked so real but that doesn't have to do with how good a movie is.

no, its just the one thats made the most money. It doesn't mean its the best.

So you ask a question in the headline and use the last line to say you dont care... well, I dont either, Thanks for wasting my time.

What a completely pointless article!! You pose a question, come up with both tangible and intangible ways to answer it, and then say 'who cares?' before suggesting an answer?!?! The author is certainly not the James Cameron/Mel Gibson/Peter Jackson of journalism. More like Uwe Boll.

Overpriced tickets & 3 storms on East & West Coast gave it a boost during Holidays & when kids were out of School/college.

Most adults are not phazed by 3D movies and will wait for prices to come down from nosebleed level before they evn venture into theaters. This feature even priced higher then Star Wars Trilogy and in recessionary times.

Expect this to peter out by Valentines Day.. they will have hit all of their target audience by that time.. Adults won't care it will be out on DVD by summer.

This is a terrible opinion article. First you build us up by mentioning all of Avatar's accomplishments, and how it is the first original movie to surpass 1b dollars. Then you bring in figures adjusted for inflation to possibly show a counter argument. And just when I think we get an opinion on whether Avatar is the biggest movie ever. You tell us you actually don't care. Mr. Hunt, if you didn't care in the first place what is the point of writing this article except to maybe see your work in the annals of the internets.

I may be a lone voice in a crowd, but Avatar isn't all that...

I know someone (34, male) who fell asleep watching it. An hour into it, my son, 33, looked at his cell phone and asked himself 'and we have 2 more hours to go!?!'

It's nothing more than cowboys & Indians for the space age...and I thought I heard some words that resemble Tewa and Navajo... So much for the made-up language.

Waaaay too long, some scenes inanely so (how about the end scene with Natiya killing the soldier in the clone with 3 arrows? And all the blue people, from all over the planet, going to battle on the magical horses shouting war cries and hoops?

Some of the battles reminded me of the battle with the Ewoks...and how long ago was that?!

Oh sure, the walk through the psychedelic forest was nice, all the colors and the magical things flying around...was Cameron on acid or mescaline?

Save your money, see it when it comes to the dollar theater or on DVD... And for that we paid 10 bucks and then they wanted the glasses back so they could recycle and resell...?!

Good for him, sucks to be us, giving our money away for a 3-hr long cartoon... Oh well...

It's an interesting thing to ponder from an academic standpoint.

Still, at the end of the day, the best, biggest, brightest, whatever movie of all time has been and will always be, purely a matter of personal perspective

And that's the way it ought to be.

Quote:

For whatever its shortcomings – and there are several – "Avatar" possesses a streak of originality that can only be admired.

Sure, it’s a mashed-up rag bag of everything from James Lovelock’s one-world Gaia theory to "Aliens" but, unlike fellow billion scorers, it’s not based on an existing franchise or historical event.

-–

While I thought Avatar was a fun, action filled movie, original was hardly the word that came to mind. When he first visits the Tribe's home with Neytiri, the first thought that crossed my mind was, this movie is Pocahontas in space.

And if you'd like to be really specific, a fellow has taken a summary of Disney's Pocahontas movie and made a few "comparisons." :)

http://i.imgur.com/JmRmb.jpg

I saw Avatar over the weekend in 3-D. It was an interesting experience visually but frankly neither I nor the friends I went to the theatre with found the story very compelling. We all felt the story had a very predictable ending. We also felt that using a US military force as the "bad guys" was not all that advisable, since many are drawing parallels between the invasion of middle eastern countries for their oil and the invasion of the faraway planet for its resources. I really wanted to enjoy it more than I did, but I found the film lacking. Sorry, James. I think that GWTW was far more compelling as stories go, and every bit as revolutionary in its visual scope and technology for its time, than Avatar. I don't think that people will continue watching Avatar 10, 20, 30 or 70 years from now, the way they continue to watch GWTW.

You mentioned Cameron putting "the world’s biggest maritime disaster on screen". If you're referring to "Titanic", it was far from the biggest maritime disaster. The record is traditionally given to the German liner, Wilhelm Gustloff, which was torpedoed in the closing days of WW2 by a Soviet submarine. Death estimates are generally close to 10,000, as opposed to Titanic's 1500+. Several other vessels also were lost at sea with death tolls in the thousands, such as a Soviet hospital ship sunk by the Germans. Even in America, the explosion and burning of the steamboat Sultana (April, 1865), while loaded with recently-released Civil War prisoners, far exceeded Titanic's human loss.

Don't understand it myself, saw the film and compare it to an old cowboys and indians movie with some special effects thrown in or a chick flick. ya know same ol'story evil white man taking all the indigenous peoples resources...blah blah blah

I loved this movie. It is engrossing, enchanting, enlightening, ennobling and a entirely different. The 3D effects are spectacular and Mr. Cameron fully deserves the accolades. Mr. Cameron, thank you for making this movie!

Interesting to consider how much inflation has occurred over the decades....

I seriously doubt ANYONE who is cashing checks like this even cares about "inflation". Get a life.

""Avatar" possesses a streak of originality that can only be admired."

LOL. I didnt know a rip off of Pocahontas was considered original!

Overrated. There are bigger and better movies than Avatar. Visually, Avatar is expectacular, but the plot is completely obvious. After 20 minutes of movie, everyone know what will happen in the end.

Avatar is a biggest rubbish ever. People will remember and watch Bergman, Kubrick, Coppolla, Pasolini, Antonioni, Fellini, and others for years and years to come. Who will remember Avatar in 5 years? Well, if Hollywood is only after money – then, congrats!

It is the biggest money maker, but I hear that the story is actually thin. Even though I have not seen the movie, I have talked with people that have. I am told that it is beautiful. It is colorful and the effects are amazing. Is it a Cleopatra or Ben Hurr? No.

"Gone with the Wind" is the biggest ever. "Avatar" may have the biggest gross, but that is because ticket prices are so much higher these days. The real measure is not money raked in, or even ticket sales – but how long it lasts. If 20, 30, 50 years from now DVDs (or whatever) of "Avatar" are gathering dust in bargain bins while GWTW is still selling – that will show which movie is truly the bigger one.

Great job!!! Present an interesting question, search google, figure out that there is no web site to give you the answer to said question, present irrelevant stats, and finally dismiss the question you posed. My hats off to you sir. If you can get CNN to pay you for garbage like this, then more luck to ya.

I really enjoyed "Avatar" and was wondering about this very question so thank you for the summary and the analysis. But 70 years after "Gone with the Wind" was released, you can still quote lines from it and everyone knows exactly what you're talking about and where the quote came from. Seventy years from now, do you think anyone will be quoting or even mentioning Avatar?

I seen it but how can the author say that it was original it was anything but. This story has been told over and over again and resembled a lot of older sci fi books. It was okay but NOTHING compared to the originality of District 9 now that was AMAZING.

Avatar took the place of my all time favorite – Star Wars – as my new All Time Favorite movie!! This will be a multiple see as was Star Wars. No other movies have pulled me back to the theater for another experience prior to or since Star Wars...except Avatar! Super Intertaining!!

Completely useless article.

Biggest. Movie. Ever. Deal with it, haters. GO AVATAR!

Enough already with all this hype. we got it. avatar is the best movie ever made (after Titanic of course). It is even bigger than Mr.Cameron's ego (ok joking this is not possible)

Now can we please move on to something less 3D?

For all its small nation GNP budget, this film still takes
the easy way out when it comes to aliens, add big ears,
Walter Keane eyes. This is how Star Trek kept matters in
budget. This does not inspire me, but I'm a geezer who
once enjoyed William Castle flicks. I am sure that this
one s a masterpiece, because the critics tell me so.

you're one of the biggest dumb asses ever. if you really think that gone with the wind is better then avatar then you must be high on crack. not saying that gone with the wind is a bad movie but just look at the success of james cameron. my main point is that he has grossed over a billion on 2 films out of 5 films ever to gross that much.

So which is it? I wanna know...

twilight was so much better, team jacob all the way. werewolves rock my socks.

Avatar is a visual treat nothing more...if it is not 3-D I wouldnt even care to watch it. Even when I watched it I paid as les attention to the story as I can. I was mostly watching the 3-D effects.

Also its an insult to "Gone with the wind" to even compare it with "Avatar". Its old school with story, narration etc etc this is a modern age puppet show. The less we talk about the story in Avatar the better.

If it is not 3-D it would have been a sure bomb

i think this movie is a waste of sperm and eggs

Avatar is the best one!
I really think, that we should put in consideration these factors.
Avatar is the most seem movie ever. I am angola living in France And I have people from My country inploring me to send them a DVD! And I can't , in fact it have been watched worldwide.
in few weeks it made billions
its shows for the first time to many people what 3d is, And people around the world wants to know the future of cinema.
for common man it means what the cinema will looklike in future. and people liked it!
dispite the vision of the human gens in movie ...which is really and sad.In an word ... Go, go James go ! and thanks a lot
And excuse for my broken english!!!!

Wow, someone didn't like Avatar.

If the writer does not care to argue about Avatar then why is he? Come on Nick you can do better than that.

Probably has something to do with the cost of a movie being $10-12 per ticket. In the early 80s you could with a family of 4 to the movies for $12. I wish they would go by # of tickets purchased instead of dollar figures to more accurately represent how popular a movie is

I would rather that this measure of how popular a film is would be based on the NUMBER of tickets SOLD.
The highest grossing film should be measured in current year currency values. Then you can add in domestic (U.S.) and international.
It's time to compare apples to apples, not apples to bananas.

Every watch Disney's Pochontas? Change the names and characters to ailens and you've got the same story line

"The billion-dollar club didn’t exist till 12 years ago, when Cameron’s period epic berthed at screens worldwide and became the first movie to score eight digits."

There are 10 digits in a number in the single billions. Eight digits corresponds to tens of millions, which is not much of a feat for a movie's box office, neither today nor in 1997.

Thats awesome

OK, I went and saw Avatar. It was incredible! Yea, many critics are saying that the story is lame, a rip-off from other movies, blah, blah. Who says that each story has to be deep and ultra original? ( which this movie is deep, and the entire content is absolutely original!) The story here is fine! It is what it is. It's the movie as a whole that needs to be considered. Are we entertained? Did we laugh? Did we cry? All I know is that I was taken into this alien world and never once looked at my watch to see how long it is. Obviously you critics are entitled to your opinion, but to Mr. Cameron I say " Thank you for letting us in to your dreams!"

What pencil-necked, limp wristed, Chardonnay sipping, technology impared, ugly little pantywaist of a hack "journalist" put together this bit of nonsense?

Sorry, was that a bit of a stereotype? Was that insulting? Too bad.

Perhaps when CNN can write an article that includes some reference to technology that doesn't include the derisive and insulting term of "geek" to describe technologists, I will stop thinking of CNN "journalists" that way.

And you just might want to think that insulting the most likely group of readers to the article may not be good business. It sure isn't original, and it sure isn't smart.

from my summation and cnn s details on films on sales and analysis ,i think avatar is really the biggest

THANK YOU!!! I've been saying this for years, although the "adjusted for inflation" argument does not apply. Butts in the seats is the only way to measure ultimate popularity in terms of financial cinematic success... but there's another problem: "Gone with the Wind" was released in 1939, and for some 40 years following its opening, the ONLY way to return to see the film was to attend theaters. There was no home video, or DVD, or Blu-Ray. You couldn't purchase the film and watch it at your leisure. You HAD to return to cinemas once that picture was re-released. Those ticket sales, and thus those grosses, were then lumped into the overall total that the film had already accrued. Films like "Titanic," "The Dark Knight," and "Avatar" have only enjoyed ONE theatrical run. Therefore I would submit that the only way to accurately measure a film's real popularity is to compare the number of tickets sold in its FIRST THEATRICAL RUN to those movies around it. If research shows that "Gone with the Wind" sold 1,000,000 tickets in its initial release, and "Titanic" only sold 900,000, then I'll buy the "adjusted for inflation" idea. But if "Star Wars" is allowed to climb above "Jurassic Park" and "E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial" on the all-time box office list merely because it was re-released in 1997, only to garner another $130 million in grosses, then I believe it's fair to consider "Titanic" and "Avatar" larger financial successes. However, I still believe that actual number of tickets sold is the only truly accurate comparative factor.

Here come the Avatards defending Avatar everything Avatar and slamming anybody who didn't like the movie. Avatar fans remind of Scientologists.

The movies story line was really lame. (5th grade level). But the animation was awesome.

"The billion-dollar club didn’t exist till 12 years ago, when Cameron’s period epic berthed at screens worldwide and became the first movie to score eight digits."

Eight digits? That's ten million (10,000,000).

Ten digits would be a billion (1,000,000,000).

One other addendum to my previous comment... "Avatar" will likely not belong in this conversation in the end. With the $3 3D surcharge attached to most tickets sold for this film, the grosses surely look much fatter than they actually are...

How tall are they? I have heard everything from 7 to 12 feet now. hmm.

While Avatar was a pretty good film, I think the hype and spectacle are the key to its' success. Using high-quality 3-D also demands that you see it in theaters (at a higher ticket price), one of the few films in recent memory that begs to be seen on a big screen. But the film succeeds because the amazing spectacle overcomes the painfully mediocre script. When I finished watching Titanic I was stunned on the well-written characters, the unique perspective on the tragedy I'd never seen before. Avatar offers little of that, mostly brilliant eye candy, forgettable as I walk back to my car. IMO, this film won't hold up well over time.

Shouldn't it say 10 digits instead of 8? Isn't 8 tens of millions and not billions?

ahhh, this drives me nuts. Avatar sucked so bad. A predictable, unoriginal and boring piece of plagiarized crap. The CG was good, but come on...not enough to make this the biggest movie ever. Preachy religious bs. *sigh*

Box office gross is, by no means, a valuable way to determine the cultural impact of a film. Unfortunately, it is the tool used to measure success because, SHOCK, movie studios are only concerned with the bottom line. Sure they want awards, like the coveted Oscar, but that is only because it boosts sales of tickets and home videos. I am a proponent of total tickets sold, but it will never be the norm. With the fragmentation of audiences due to the aforementioned split between movies and their competitors – video games, cable, etc. – no film from this point forward will ever sell as many tickets as 'Gone With the Wind' or 'Star Wars'. Just won't happen.
Oh yeah, and this film doesn't deserve any accolades. Maybe some technical awards, but Hollywood will screw the Cameron pooch again and probably give it Best Picture or some garbage like that. Totally undeserving as this is nothing more than a high-tech rehash of Pocahontas. I dare anyone to tell me that 'Titanic' was a better film than 'LA Confidential'...

overrated... dances with [blue] wolves

I'd love to see results posted as "butts in seats" rather than "cash in till" – otherwise "most popular" isn't a true measure. But the industry doesn't want it meaasure that way. If it was, bad years could be really bad years.

Movie sounds too similar to an old story written in 1957 called "Call Me Joe". So I don't think it's too original.

"Gone With The Wind" is still far beyond "Avatar" in worldwide adjusted grosses as well. While Avatar broke $1.85 billion, the inflation-adjusted worldwide gross for David O. Selznick's 1939 epic is $6.1 billion. To put this in perspective, its worldwide gross is about twice that of "Avatar" and "Titanic" combined. Furthermore, "Avatar" actually ranks 26th in all-time, adjusted domestic gross.

The real measure of a film's success over time is actual attendance. For older films, it's extrapolated backward from the ticket prices of the day.

So, as an example, while the unadjusted domestic gross for "Avatar" is $558 million, compared $198.6 million for "Gone With the Wind" in 1939, the latter translates to an estimated U.S. attendance of 202 million tickets (or 1.5 visits for every American alive in 1939). Compare this to "Titanic"s 128 million est. tickets sold, and "Avatar"s 76.4 million. This also shows just how much ticket prices have inflated in the past 13 years alone.

Great movie. To hear the right wing nut jobs talk about it though, you would think it was another Harry Potter, turn our children away from God and disband the military, brainwash propaganda flick. As far as I could tell there was absolutely nothing about religion in the film and yes, the military is the TOOL of the earth raping Capitalist waste machine. If you Republican Neanderthals don't get this movie, then stay home and watch Pat Robertson blame Haiti on the devil worshipping savages. Everytime one of you opens your mouth, you alienate yourselves further and further from the general population.
Your extinction will be made into a movie before the end of this decade.

And, what is the point of this article. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Quite lame actually. Every time somebody has some success folks want to bash it away. Why is that?

My wife and I saw this movie in IMAX 3D and paid $10/ticket to see it. Well worth every penny. Simply great entertainment.

This is a question that can never be answered with any accuracy. If Avatar had been in theaters in 1939, it would have squashed GWTW like a bug at the box office, even though science fiction movies were extremely rare during that era. Filmgoers in 2010 are the most jaded in cinematic history, having been inundated with special effects extravaganzas over the last 15 years. In 1939, going to movies was THE American past-time. Now, a significant percentage of the population frequently chooses to avoid theater crowds, $5 boxes of stale popcorn and expensive parking by waiting for movies to appear on cable or DVD. If cable, DVD and Netflix didn't exist, the box office of Avatar would be even higher.

I should make a correction... if we use the figure of $400 million (the worldwide unadjusted gross for "Gone With The Wind") and instead of using a U.S. Dollar inflation calculator, we use a ticket price inflation factor of 31.95 times (23 cents in 1939, $7.35 average in 2010, then the real adjusted worldwide gross of "Gone With The Wind" is closer to $12.8 billion, give or take some because there were more than likely some variations in both ticket prices and currency exchange rates internationally.

Avatar is the best!

I don't understand how they can continue to compare new movies with those made in previous years based on dollar amounts. Sure this movie made more than Titanic or gone with the wind – the cost to see a movie is more than it was when these movies were out. The real comparison should be how many people have seen the movie. Avatar will be eclipsed someday by another movie – because the ticket prices will be much higher.

This movie covers themes ranging from a generic historical account of population dynamics to an extension of poorly understood chemotactic interaction of organisms. The linking of diverse life forms can be seen as pure fantasy (it is entertainment), metaphorical, or as a nod to plays and black and white film that do not threaten to be viewed as reality. That might be more or less apparent, or acceptable, in an immersive 3-D color setting but individuals are not apt to be badly influenced. I didn't think much of glossy screen HDTVs until I felt I was onstage with Sheryl Crow. The impact will always be different with modern versions of Citizen Kane and The Manchurian Candidate. This is only partly due to changes in society and acting. In many ways Avatar shares a lot with Gone with the Wind.

I liked the movie....a lot, but why attack it with all kinds of negative adjectives, can`t these people just accept it as good old american entertainment and not give it some kind of negative tag.

Maybe so but the guy still makes me sick. He is such as ego maniac dumping his wife when he became "king of the world" or so he thought when the won the Oscar for Titanic. Also, get a bloodly haircut Cameron you can certainly afford and really need it. Won't be seeing this movie or any other one you make in the future.

For years I have been saying how much a movie makes is an overrated and overly used way of determining of how successful a movie really is. With ticket prices rising every year, it's no wonder that we see "records" break every year. How many tickets are sold should be the way to determine how big a movie is. In my eyes, as the article mentioned, the movie is only currently 27th all time domestically and will never reach “Gone with the wind”.

Avatar is the best movie it's truth, because the writer James Cameron is honesty. Man has been destroying things in his path
for centuries again and again, but no one has done anything about
it. This movie betrays the real truth behind lyies of this our socity people need to realize that especially the white race.

Imagine the amount of possibility this country has if we all spent money on the greater good and not Hollywood's wallet....

Counting is hard, like when you mis-count the number of zeros in a billion. $1,000,000,000 => 10 digits, not 8.

avatar isthe best thing ever

If this overhyped super-cliched story gets even one oscar nod i'm going to puke.

Not the best movie ever but the best computer generated SI-FI movie ever !

I think it really is the biggest movie ever, and not just because the 3D fact or the technology used, for me what hit me the most about the movie was how humans are portrayed in our most basic and terrible nature which ended up being a sad true.

Well, though I do think Titanic is a Super Effects movie (being in the graphics industry myself) but Cameron do not hit it tight with the story and the romance killed the real event of the film (the tragedy of the ship going down)

On the contrary, we have our James Cameron of Aliens and The Abyss back to us true Sci Fi lovers. The movie is hit on all aspects, imagination, story, effects, acting ; a true Cameron movie. This is proof that even mocked Sci Fi can produce great movies. I wonder in 40 years will it be a Sci Fi classic like Kubrick's 2001 a Space Odyssey ???

Only time will tell.

I paid $5 in our local currency (US$3) to watch the film in 2D. For this price, I even watched it twice and enjoyed it! But if the ticket cost US$15 then its debatible whether its worth it!

Avatar was a great time at the cinema, not just because of the stunning visuals, but also because of the admittedly derivative script. Cameron won't say that his movie was original, and he hasn't. He, like many good authors before him (Dickens, Shakespeare, Moliere, and even Hitchcock) borrowed some elements from literature and also from their previous work. Avatar tells a great story in a new, fresh way, and I had as much fun in the theater as I did watching the original Star Wars or any other popcorn movie. Great entertainment!

This is the most corny, Gringa and awful movie I've seen. It's just cowboys and Indians. I don't find the FX interesting either, just a cartoon. I wonder if the elevated budget included giving money to critics for good reviews.

The film uses the storyline of Fern Guly

There are obviously more moviegoers today than in the past so comparing GWTW and Avatar can not be measured by ticket sales alone. However having said that, I still say that Avatar is the best!!!

The 'plot' was less of a plot, and more of a premise...and an old, worn out, one at that. It made the movie too predictable. The acting was good enough...but not spectacular. The special effects-aside from the blue folk (who looked cartoonish)-were great,and saved the show. Along with the 3D-which was a type of special effect, and looked much better than that of the 1950s/1960s-the other effects made the show very worthwhile. The special effects made this movie what it is. Usually I don't care for those movies which rely primarily upon special effects, but this one pulled it off. I liked it.

yeah, dances with wolves detracters, we should write off AVATAR because it is just another "boy meets girl" movie!

It has all of you talking about it. That means something. Name ONE movie with a COMPLETELY original story. Even if you don't want to admitt it, this movie is an industry changer.
P.S. Gone With The Wind is boring.

I agree that the basic premise is not all that original... nevertheless, the story line is wonderful, no matter how many times it has been done.
One detail in particular is outstanding; The lead character is paraplegic.

For all of its cliches, it is still a masterpiece of our time... and in some ways prophetic.

It is what they say it is... a cinematic event.

And a breath of life for the art of movie-making.

I would have gone to see Avatar, but I'm still recovering from the time I went to see a Terence Davies' film at the Curzon cinema in London. I was trying to get comfortable in my seat and this guy in front of me kept turning around and scowling at me. I could sense him seething and I found the whole experience quite disturbing. I haven't been able to go to the cinema since.

@Craig.

And Dances with Wolves stole the plot from "A man called Horse" but no one is complaining about that. This is a really good movie (regardless of what the haters say) I've never experienced anything like this movie before, it blew me away. I don't know about all time best, but I really enjoyed it; I give it 9/10. Now everyone is entitled to their own opinion don't get me wrong. It's been compaired to Pochontas too, and I only picked on on that for like a second of one scene in the movie then it was gone, and didn't really pick up on the Dances with Wolves storyline. So I have a hard time with people saying the plot to Avatar was "stolen", because you can make a LOT of parallels between other movies as well, but no one says a thing about those. It was screened and the big time movie people said it was original and good to go for production, so blame those guys, not Cameron, if you want to complain. All movies have similarities to some other movie before their time, so the plot stealing argument is frankly moot.

LOVED the movie, its the best for me. It shows how every creature on Pandora is connected and maintaining the beautiful world.
Now, add in the Earthmen factor on Pandora, and what do we see?
A very big bare mining hole left on the ground, digging and digging by all the big mining machine. We are like parasites to Pandora. That's what we are doing to our own Earth! One of simple messages from Avatar.

The movie itself took story from various sources put together. I think its space age Pocahontas and Dance with the wolves mixed together with some other movies.

It's certainly not original but what will make this film to be remembered and what drives the crowd to the theaters is that it is first movie that fully embraces 3D and it pushed the technology of film making to new levels.

Me myself I haven't been to cinema for 12 years but I wanted to see this movie and I went to see it. Twice so far and I might go again. With all the hype that media made it pulls people that usually don't go to cinema to go and see this technology marvel. And I think that's the magic of this movie.

A quick look at Google trends confirms that Avatar is far more popular than Gone With the Wind. By measuring raw revenue (versus tickets) older films are devalued compared with newer and more relevant films. Simply put older films are less relevant to our daily lives. You're much more likely to get traction with Avatar as a conversation starter (whether you loved it or hated it) than you would with Gone With the Wind. If that weren't the case this article would probably be named 'Is 'Gone With the Wind' the biggest movie ever?'

How did it get there? A VAST spending on advertising and so-called 'advertorials'. Simple. Witness CNN's own coverage of 'news' – which is pure advertising for the movie.

How to design Aliens? Take some humans, paint them blue, give them an ugly nose and long ears and voilà! This is creativity?
Is the bow and arrow time of the distant past really a model to solve the problems of our society? Wait until you need a dentist.

The gross of the movie was huge! I have to say its not a Titanic. I will have to admit that James Cameron was creative with Avatar as well!