Avatar

I'm sure James Cameron is bummed out that his movie Avatar didn't win an Oscar last night, but he's probably more annoyed at the steady stream of people who want to sue him for allegedly stealing their ideas for the script.

I suppose the sheer number of such allegations is proof that the plot is far from original and possibly one of the reasons it didn't grab the big prize, although it did get some recognition with wins for technical categories at the Academy Awards.

The latest person to sue Cameron is a Vancouver restaurateur who sent his script to several movie studios, including Cameron's.

Someone in China also took Cameron to court for the same reason, but the court overturned the lawsuit. I'm sure we'll see even more suits as the movie continues to rake in the dough.

As for the Avatar sequel, don't call it Avatar 2, says Cameron. For reasons that are obvious to anyone who has seen the movie, the word avatar no longer makes sense in a follow-up story.

Cameron's next project is to find a director for a remake he's written of the classic 60s film, Fantastic Voyage. It will be cool if that one is filmed in 3-D.

Even if neither Avatar or District 9 win the Academy Award for best picture, the one thing their nomination has done is to elevate the profile of science fiction among mainstream movie-goers.

That's got to be a good thing as it means even more science fiction movies will get made. The hope is that they will be as high quality as Avatar and District 9. Don't be worried that Hollywood is unleashing a Space Invaders movie on us soon. They'll always be crap like that.

It's possible that more mainstream movie directors might give their hand at helming science fiction films in coming months and years. Of course, that's nothing new. There have been other examples of big-name directors who have made sci-fi, although their success has been mixed.

As Oscar night approaches, it seems less likely that Avatar will win the big prize as there has been a torrent of backlash against the film. This article is a prime example. Considering the weird voting mechanism for this year's movie, there's a chance that a dark horse like District 9 could end up winning it, despite the steep odds.

And if you were wondering why the Na'Vi women have boobs, James Cameron explained it to a journalist who asked. It's because the audience for the movie is human. Duh.

The Hurt Locker keeps racking up best-picture awards at the expense of science fiction film Avatar. The latest was this weekend's BAFTA. If I was a betting man, I'd say that the odds of Avatar taking this year's Oscar as best picture seem pretty remote.

A best picture award that Avatar is more likely to win is the Saturn, which is the award handed out by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. It's among this year's nominees, although it has been curiously slotted under the best fantasy film against such contenders as  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Lovely Bones, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Watchmen and Where the Wild Things. It is not running in the best science fiction film category that has nominees like Moon and Star Trek.

Maybe director James Cameron can shoot for the Nebula Award when he publishes the book prequel that he's planning. This year's nominees were recently announced and I can't say that I'm surprised to see no media tie-in novels on the list.

Canadian-born director James Cameron has hinted that he won't necessarily direct the sequel to his hit film Avatar, but he has said he wants to do a prequel. The thing is, it won't be a movie. He wants to write an Avatar novel.

Cameron is proud of his film and says that one of the side-effects of the film is that it is raising environmental awareness for some of the viewers in the audience. Right-wingers have criticized the film's pro-environment, anti-American message, but Cameron is ready to debate them any time. Still other critics believe that message or no message, the film isn't really all that good.

Palestinian protesters have latched on to its success and have drawn parallels from the film with their own conflict with Israel. They even dressed up as Na'vi to prove their point.

Cameron will cash in this Christmas when they plan to release the 3-D DVD version of the movie where it will, no doubt, break all sorts of sale records.

You can bank on there being a sequel for Avatar, but don't bet on James Cameron directing it. He's said that he always intended the movie to be the first in a franchise, but has other projects he'd like to do before going back to the Avatar universe.

Maybe he'll start helping imperilled natives here on Earth. An Indian tribe has approached the director to aid their cause as they believe their plight resembles that of the aliens in Avatar.

Somehow I doubt he's going to be going that route, but he has been making public pronouncements about the U.S. space program. The recent NASA cuts and the move to encourage more participation in space transport with private companies are the right direction, he believes.

Meanwhile, Avatards have been busily using Photoshop to paint people blue.

You've no doubt read reports quoting director James Cameron saying there will be a sequel to his highly successful movie Avatar. News Corp. is working on making that a reality. While Cameron may have the idea for another movie, they're the folks with the money and they are negotiating with him to make it happen, although News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch says to not hold your breath about a second movie coming any time soon since Cameron likes to take his time when making movies.

More intriguing is a rumour that Fox wants to make another remake of The Planet of the Apes. Given that the last "reboot" was a disaster, it's amazing they want to revisit that franchise so soon. I have my doubts that they can succeed, but the reports claim that the movie is a sort of origins story so that might be more interesting than remaking the original film.

Another new science ficiton movie in the works is The Electric Church, based on the Jeff Somers novel of the same name. The book is the first in a trilogy so if the movie succeeds, you can bet there will be two more to follow.

As you probably know by now, two science fiction movies were revealed Tuesday to be among the nominees for an Academy Award for best motion picture. Those films were Avatar and District 9.

They most likely slipped in there since the number of nominees was doubled this year from the usual 5 to 10.  I think a good indicator of the front-runners are the movies which also received nominations for best director. Avatar was the only one of the two that did so you can probably scratch District 9 off your prediction list.

Tellingly, Avatar has no other nominations for any acting awards or screenplay awards, but instead has nominations in the usual technical categories which are the bread and butter of genre movies at the Oscars. Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince are the only other genre movies to get any recognition and they are for technical awards.

I think the lack of acting awards will probably work against Avatar and there just might be a backlash against James "King of the World" Cameron who already cleaned up at the Academy Awards the year he won it all with Titanic. My money is on the Hurt Locker.

Do you think Avatar has what it takes to win the Best Picture Award this year? Do you think any other genre movies were snubbed? What about Moon? It could have received a nod for best adapted screenplay or best actor for Sam Rockwell.

Don't forget to vote in our Oscar poll.

Much noise has been made about Avatar becoming the biggest box-office money maker of all time, but consider the fact that much of its haul comes from premium pricing for 3D and Imax admission, not to mention tickes are more expensive today than they were a decade or more ago. What happens if you actually rank movies by the number of tickets sold? Isn't that a better indicator of a film's success?

If you do that, Avatar doesn't even sit in the top 10. It rests nicely at number 26 and has a long way to go before it catches up the current leader which has been champion since 1939, Gone with the Wind. Star Wars is entrenched at number 2, but Avatar still has time to make its way up the chart.

The previous record holder for biggest money maker was another James Cameron film, Titanic. When that film reached the top, it beat out Star Wars for the honour. When that happened, director George Lucas took out ads in the trade magazines to congraluate Cameron. Star Wars fans would certainly get a kick out of the ad.

Some of Avatar's success is from repeat business from die-hard fans who can't get enough of the movie. The fans are being dubbed by some as Avatards. If Trekkers are annoyed at being called Trekkies, then I think Avatards have even more cause for being upset.

I'll promise I'll stop writing about Avatar once I actually see the darned thing, but there are so many interesting stories being written about it that it's hard to stop. The most recent is a claim from Russian critics that James Cameron has borrowed liberally, if not outright stolen, the story from a popular science fiction series written by the Strugatsky Brothers.

Cameron, predictably, is denying any such claim. I haven't seen the film or read the books, so I can't say one way or the other, but let's give Cameron the benefit of the doubt. Science fiction writers are also borrowing and building upon the ideas of others so it happens all of the time.  Even Boris Strugatsky thinks any similarities are a coincidence.

Meanwhile, SF author China Mieville cites Avatar's CGI effects as being nice to look at, but not necessarily a badge of quality. He believes that slavish devotion to computer effects is rotting science fiction. Instead of crafting good stories, directors are more keen on looking for ways to ladle on bigger and better effects.

Avatar is turning out to be quite the Rorshach test. Everyone seems to read their own meaning into it. In China, moviegoers see it as a story about property ownership, paralleling struggles between private land owners against greedy developers.

Bolivia's president, himself an avowed environmentalist, sees the film's message as pro-environment and anti-capitalist. Some American observers see it as an anti-war film.

Still others are reporting signs of depression that they can't live on a planet as beautiful as Pandora, the one depicted in the film.

Despite it's late 2009 release, many are picking it to be among the most influential science fiction movies of the year and even the decade. Much has been said about the 3D version of the movie, but some wonder whether or not that will really have a lasting impact on the movie industry in the years ahead.

One writer saw the movie in 3D, 2D and Imax to compare the experiences of seeing it in different formats.

Whatever you think of Avatar, you'll be able to visit Pandora again as director James Cameron has said he will film a sequel. It's actually part of a trilogy. Will Jar Jar Binks be in the eventual pre-trilogy?