Avatar had the potential of being transcendent, but falls well short of it. It had the opportunity of really getting inside the mind that is not just in harmony with nature, but co-creative with it. --Of getting an up-close-and-personal sense of a Gaia in all its magnificence. --Of contrasting all that with our relatively impoverished, modern consciousness. What we got instead was the tired old good guys against bad guys drama, dressed up with a lot of effects, special as they were. Even the indigenous culture, supposedly the nature people, partook of the same fight-against-the-other-guy mentality that our culture is trying to outgrow. There were no redeeming solutions offered. Most characters, colorful as they may have been, were just black and white caricatures. I really wish I could praise this one, but I just can't. Such a magnificent effort, and such a pity.