At this point if Avatar turns out to be a bad film it wouldn't be a disappointment. The word 'disappointment' connotes anticipation, excitement and high expectations. Right-thinking people no longer have any of these things regarding Avatar. Instead we are simply hoping the film will be bad in an entertaining or unimaginable way. To do that it will have to steer clear of cliches. Cliches which the film seems destined to resort to. Here are the things Avatar should NOT do.The all-business general who goes nuts
It seems from the trailer that Sam Worthington's character - we'll call him Zac - starts the film as some kind of space soldier, but finishes the film as one of the blue aliens whose uprising he was originally sent to quell. The colonel character would be his boss at the beginning of the film. He's be a bit of a mercurial presence - not really saying much. But he'd be presented as "a good military man". Once however, Zac has undergone his transformation the colonel is revealed to be a stop-at-nothing maniac hell bent on getting the job done AT ANY COST. He will, at some point, be told that clearing an area of forest will result in the destruction of a thousand civilian homes. "Just do it," he'll growl through clenched teeth, before storming out of the room.
The bluff local tough who eventually warms to the central character
So there are these blue things. And Zac pretends to be a blue thing. And the most of the blue things think he's cool. Apart from one. Inevitably he'll be "the best hunter in the village", or even worse, the older brother of the female love-interest blue thing. He may very well be voiced by an African-American actor, and at some point in the film's first half he'll end up in a physical tussle with Zac. The important thing though is that the bluff local tough is good at heart and basically an honourable person/thing.
I hope the makers of Avatar have avoided this like the plague. What I expect though, is that there'll be a particular scene where all the blue things make it clear they've accepted Zac - after some kind of physical trial - and Zac will smile pleasantly, before suddenly catching sight of the bluff local tough who will sneer/growl and walk off. Crucially the bluff local tough will eventually forgive Zac for something he's done and accept him as "a true blue thing". There is a strong possibility he will do this while lying prostrate, bleeding from his stomach.
See also: Vasquez/Drake in Aliens
The feast of a million cliches
Another staple of the blue things (and all their other counterparts in naff sci fi/fantasy films). The basic premise of the feast of a million cliches is that it should reflect how exotic and downright sensual the weird alien people are. It's the point at the end of the film's first quarter where Zac can really cut loose and look at some aliens belly dance and stuff. The food will be brightly coloured, lit by flaming torches and possibly hallucinogenic. Zac's evening will probably end in a blurry, montage.
NB: This is possibly the scene where the bluff local tough will snarl and walk away from Zac, disappointed that his blue compatriots have been so easily charmed by the intruder. Zac will be mid-way through a raucus, sexy dance with a woman-blue-thing at that point. Zac will momentarily stop and look disappointed when that happens.
See also: The atrocious techno sex rave in the second Matrix film
A big message
If there's one thing you can learn from early James Cameron films it's that the man likes to deliver a message. A big, central tenet which is meant to make the audience think about their own lives. However, the thing about Cameron is that essentially his message has been the same for 20 years. Technology is bad! The future will be awful! But the human spirit will prevail!
Anyhow, what made the Cameron Message tolerable in the past was the confused schizophrenic nature of his moral compass. One moment he'd be lecturing us about the cruel, destructive nature of technology, the next he'd be revelling in a five-minute slow-mo gattling-gun/flamethrower sequence. Also in early Cameron there was a pleasant lack of clever endings. The good characters never beat their nemeses by out-thinking them, or finding a loophole in their logic. They beat them by smashing them up into tiny pieces.
Alarmingly, Avatar looks to continue the trend started by Titanic. An oversimplification of the previously mental Cameron Message. Brace for ham-handed eco-morality. And probably some shite about a "world spirit" or "soul aura".
An elaborate chase
At some point towards the beginning of the film, the director will want to break up the relentless nature-gazing with some action. It's clear from early reports that a lot of Avatar's first hour revolves around James Cameron forcing the audience to look at his 3D world for as long as possible. There will be lingering shots of 3D moss. Long cutaways featuring 3D clouds and tree lines. And of course many, many close ups of almost-realistic-but-not-actually-realistic blue people, flaring their nostrils and doing other things that CGI people couldn't do six months ago.
However, no producer on Earth would let audiences sit through that without any respite. So we can expect one, or even two, early chase scenes to add some contrast. It won't be proper action - that's reserved for the end of the film - but it will feature running, falling and shouting. Maybe some exotic animal is chasing the characters, or maybe the blue people are subjecting Zac to one of their brutal but spiritual initiation rituals.
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