portraying a story which has been told in the past--and will be told far into the future--is absolutely fine, and movies have been doing so for ages. all you have to do is look at any movie or television series or book that deals with these familiar themes (person discovering another culture and growing to admire what it has to offer, basic love story framework, man versus nature, and so on and so forth) to realize that people are perfectly capable of enjoying these themes in spite of the fact that they're so well-tread; a large part of this is because when they're done right, they're executed with such precision and originality that they seem new. hell, i've often watched a movie and never even drawn the connections between what it was supposedly "ripping off."
you're right in that execution is king. unfortunately, that's exactly where this film fails. in the tradition of socratic method, i'll admit up front that for the most part it's a very visually interesting film, and there are moments when it is almost breathtaking how great the planet looks. cameron does a spectacular job of creating a very dense and realistic environment, and that's helped along by the 3d, which gives it layer upon layer of absolutely gorgeous flora. i will also note--as many have--that zoe saldana actually takes what could have been a completely unspectacular character and gave her some personality.
considering how obviously pathetic the writing was in this script, this is quite a feat, and she should be commended accordingly.
everyone else fights with the terribly written dialogue (even sigourney weaver, who is immensely talented, cannot overcome how completely shitty it is). it reminds me of dialogue you write when you do a first draft as a writer: you are incapable in that moment of realizing how wooden and unnatural it really is. people state completely obvious things, or say things that need to be said in unnatural wooden ways. six months down the road, you go back to edit it and wonder what the hell you were thinking. AVATAR's writing is exactly like this, and often reminded me of the way people spoke in the star wars prequels. i walked out feeling like sam worthington was an overhyped waste of time (i wanted to shoot myself each time another monologue--even those presented under the pretense of being "recorded in the name of science!" :lol --popped up), but then again, considering there are people in the film who were similarly terrible
everything feels rushed, despite the fact that it's ludicrously long, and feels even longer. if there's something that worked in this movie, i have trouble noticing it because the rest is such a mess.
so, there's a nonprofessional opinion for you, opiate. i think people would have been just as impressed with it if it were a fifteen minute sequence in 3d displaying what cameron were capable of with this new technology. as a film, i think it's completely disposable, and i think someone looking for something interesting from a storytelling standpoint will walk out wanting their ten bucks back.
