Yeah and Titanic is a 3 hour chick flick on a boat where everyone knows the ending beforehand. 

Both times Cameron owned Star Wars. 

Episode II and III totally got upstaged by Spider-Man in the 2000s too. I remember summer 2002, Spider-Man was way hotter than Attack of the Clones, wasn't even close what the biggest movie of the summer was. 

Q: Which one of those was a sci-fi film that went head-to-head with Star Wars?

A: Neither.

Titanic and Avatar are better films than any Star Wars movie outside of the OT. Sad, but it's true. 

The Force Awakens is the best one of the bunch outside of the OT (actually I feel TLJ is slightly better than TFA, but for the sake of argument) ... that's a fairly vanilla, dull film. 

Titanic is without question the cultural touchstone movie event of the 90s, I would say Jurassic Park is second, Phantom Menace was all hype. The Matrix was a far better film in the action/sci-fi genre for that year and The Mummy was more fun. 

Avatar was uninspired, rehashed nonsense: its success is a stain on mankind.

TFA is the all-time US box office leader and the best-made SW film, because Lucas littered all of his films with incomprehensible directions.

I'm not sure what Jurassic Park or The Matrix have to do with Titanic or Avatar, because we're not talking about those films. Even so TPM more than doubled The Matrix' take in 1999. TPM is a mess of a film, but it simply outperformed the competition.

TPM was supposed to crush Titanic, it was soooooooooooooooooooooooooo hyped, it wasn't even close though. It wasn't even the most talked about film of that summer, that would be The Sixth Sense. 

Star Wars in general nothing special box office wise if you strip it of pent-up artificial hype (Phantom Menace got like 16 years build up, Force Awakens 10 years). 

Revenge of the Sith for example, which most Star Wars point to as the "good prequel" isn't even in the top 5 for films in the 2000s ... being bested at the box office by The Dark Knight, Shrek 2, Pirates 2, Spider-Man, and even freaking Transformers: Revenge of the Ass Farts. Attack of the Clones isn't even in the top 19, lol. That's horrendous. 

Strip Star Wars from years of pent up hype and it's very easily beaten by many types of film properties. 

Avatar did well because of the hype of the new 3D, plus an emerging China market that was thirsty to watch anything.  If James Cameron and Fox think they have a new Star Wars in this Avatar franchise, they are going to be sorely mistaken when the 2nd one comes out.  No one gives a shit about Avatar.  No one knows the characters.  No one quotes lines from the film.  Avatar toys aren't flying off of shelves.

Titanic, while a pretty good film, was helped pushed by teenage girls in the middle of Leo DiCaprio hysteria.  It still couldn't have become a franchise that reached SW heights, even if the obvious reason of it being based on a true event was removed.  Also, had TPM actually been a great film, who knows how much it could have made.

Like I said, these are event films.  But, they don't have selling power or reach of the SW franchise.  Only MCU recently has risen to take its place, mainly due to mismanagement of the franchise.

Avatar is a legit decent film, even if people don't want to admit it. Cameron is a very clear story teller and very good at grounding his large spectacle films with relatable characters and his direction of action is masterful. Yes he uses traditional motifs, but it works damn well.

My fiance who dislikes fantasy/sci-fi movies watched Avatar from start to finish and was completely into it, she had never seen it before. That was a month ago. In regular ol' 2D running off Blu-Ray at our home. Another friend of mine took his father to see Avatar and his dad sees like 1 movie a decade at the theater and his dad loved it. Cameron knows story structure and character and how to build emotion.

Avatar and Titanic have a BIGGER reach than Star Wars. Just because Star Wars has a nerd community that voraciously backs it doesn't mean its audience is bigger. The box office backs that up too.

And both are better films than any Star Wars film post-1983. I'd say Return of the Jedi and Avatar are about equal, but Avatar is better than any of the subsequent Star Wars movies. And Titanic is a tour de force. I hate that time period, but once you've seen that movie you damn well feel like you've been on that bloody ship, which is an amazing feat. And it wasn't just teenage girls watching it lets be honest, everyone and their grandma (literally) went to see that movie. 

Star Wars has been largely a disappointment from 1999 onwards, not one of the Star Wars films post OT is a legitimate great film. I guess you could even start with 1997 as a lot of those Special Edition changes from Lucas were really crappy and angered fans big time right from there. 

I just watched this movie for the first time and I like the story. However the screenplay could have used more realistic staging.

We get it: YOU hate Star Wars and love James Cameron's outdated ripoff of FernGully.

"Traditional motifs" must be code for "unoriginal:" see "Titanic" and "Avatar."

One is about a historical event, the other is a 3D remake.

Avatar is a rip-off of Dances with Wolves.