Avatar was the best Dances with Wolves ripoff ever filmed in a cubicle. 

Wow, coming from a Star Wars fan I'm surprised you are showing some respect and defence towards Avatar. I applaud you and agree 150% on what you have stated. My thoughts exactly and I've been trying to explain this to so many others. It seems the hardcore INTERNET crowd is hating on Avatar and they are using this medium to spread lies about it because THEY didn't enjoy it or for god knows what other reasons. Avatar is a great film and is NOT hated worldwide like most over the internet assume it is.

BRAVO!!

I don't "hate" Avatar. It was a decent movie. I'd give it a solid 7/10. Nothing wrong with that.

I just don't think you can replicate that level of box office because things have changed from 2009.

I assure you that Star Wars has ripped something off. Fortunately for you, most people are not aware of this. Sure is easy to say it is a Dances with Wolves ripoff when so many other films have also used this motif. I'd say The Last Samurai is a more ripoff of that film because it has the main lead narrate almost exactly like the guy from Dances. Heck, some of the lines like an "amazing people" were exact copies. Avatar can be seen more of an influence, but not ripoff. The entire concept on a whole overshadows the dances inspiration. There's much more originality going for it, like the mechs, world, avatars, etc etc. 

I see why you MAY think that but I strongly disagree. I think the novelty wore off for "some" people, sure, but not the majority. I'll even go further to say that perhaps the novelty wore off moreso in the US because they have such a hate on anything "green" lol. I cannot wait until Avatar 2 comes out so that you are proven wrong. In fact, I'm counting the days and I so badly hope it blows everyone away.

yes, it does.  I also don't buy the poor argument that "there just wasn't that much entertainment back then."  BS.  There were plenty of things to do.  You had clubs/bars.  Dance/Concert halls.  Vaudeville shows.  Plays.  And circuses and carnivals were MUCH more popular/larger then.  And more importantly, there were WAY fewer people living in the US.  So for Gone with the Wind to gross 1.7B, adjusted for inflation, is damn impressive.  Same goes for Sound of Music with 1.2B, which saw no rereleases AND came out after TVs were in everyone's homes.

I just don't see a really compelling narrative that Cameron can come up with. The characters weren't that strong or memorable. The world was OK but it's not beloved in the way Star Wars or Tolkien or even Harry Potter is IMO in terms of its mythology. 

It reminds me a bit of the Matrix, which genuinely to me was a really amazing, mind bending movie for its time, but at the end of it, I remember thinking "well ... Neo's the one ... so where can they really go with the sequels?".

And that was kind of the problem, the story that needed to be told was already told in the first movie. And I feel the same about Avatar. There's nothing about that story that makes me go "WOW! I need to see what happens to character X/Y/Z!". Cameron will eventually strike out too IMO. I like him as a director too, but every streak eventually runs out. 

There needs to be a really killer idea for make A2 work, if it's just more of what A1 was but this time the human a-holes come back and the Navii have an even bigger battle or whatever ... to me that's not going to be good enough to impress audiences today. Every blockbuster is in 3D these days, that's not special anymore. 

Also I find the high frame rate thing that Cameron is pushing for really does not look very good for movies. It makes movies look like a video news broadcast, which to me is just very ugly. If that's supposed to be the "big hook" for Avatar 2, then it's in trouble, because that's going to be nowhere close to the 3D of the first one. 

Sound of Music beat it.  And that's without a rerelease, like Titanic had.

The Last Samurai was inspired by the events in the life of Jules Brunet, a French Officer.  So yeah, can't really say that ripped anything off, other than Brunet's life (And clearly not historically accurate, since Cruise played an American). Mechs aren't original, a different world isn't original.  Highly, highly disagree that the concept overshadows Dances inspiration.  Considering it's a pretty dark chapter of American history that was very well told.  Avatar?  Not so much.  However, for Non-American's I can see Dances not hitting as close to home.  

For those wondering, just as Avatar was a rip off of Pochohantas (if I spelt that right), Star wars was a rip off of Hidden Fortress, an Akira Kurosawa film.

https://youtu.be/4g8r0LhpMzk

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress

George Lucas even has a room with an Akira Kurosawa theme at Sky Walker Ranch.

The key difference between Avatar and SW is merchandising. Start wars had it, still has it and it has grown tremendously over the decades. Avatar had very little other than the whole 3D thing going for it.

The second key thing is SFX. Similar to Matrix, the SFX were key to making Avatar and SW successful. However, I can't see Avatar being able to do the same. SW has grown beyond just SFX and the latest entry has managed to recreate the "wow" factor some how although it hasn't created anything new in terms of SFX.