Avatar trailer touches down.

By any rational standard, the footage looks absolutely gorgeous. But, to be fair, it does not look that much more photo-real than anything else of this nature that we've seen, but the imagry is dazzling regardless. The action montage in the finale is surprisingly exciting, with the seemingly standard 'action music' proving quite effective. But since the movie's biggest trump card is supposed to be its immersive 3D effects, I'll hold off any serious judgment until tomorrow's preview. Again, by any normal standard, this looks like a visually dazzling and dramatically compelling science-fiction adventure film. I'm still a bit concerned about the plot similarities with The Battle For Terra, but that's my problem since I'm one of twenty people on Earth who saw that movie. So far, so good.

Scott Mendelson