Moments after James Cameron unveiled over 20 minutes of footage from his new film, missives of praise flooded social networking sites, ripe with otherwise-overused blurb-speak like “Stunning!”, “Dazzling!”, “Mind-blowing!”, you name it. In absolute agreement with what seems to have been a unanimously positive assessment of the footage, I found myself with jaw agape (figuratively) and eyes wide open in awe (literally) as Cameron’s fantasy planet Pandora unfolded in front of me (and thanks to incredible advances in 3-D, seemingly around me), and excited as hell to see the film when it opens December 18th.

In a panel hosted by Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana, and Stephen Lang to name a few, the basic plot was outlined: sometime in the future, Weaver’s Dr. Augustine has developed technology that allows for trained soldiers to cocoon themselves safely in a sort of control pod, then patch themselves into an “Avatar,” a clone that will go out and do the fighting for them. It is unclear whether, in Matrix-style, the soldier dies if the Avatar dies, though surely some ethical issues will be addressed as Cameron’s presentation - and the footage itself - promised some deeper explorations than the heavy special effects and action would suggest.

Sam Worthington plays Jake, a heavily-trained yet paralyzed soldier, who volunteers to patch into an Avatar that must travel to Pandora, a distant planet that is home to the Na’vi, ten-foot-tall creatures that seem to exist in a Native American-esque tribal fashion, with a respect for nature and an abhorrence for the human race. As such, Jake’s Avatar is fashioned to resemble a Na’vi, with the intent being to infiltrate the indigenous people of Pandora in search for something (unclear in the footage) that Earth needs.

While the plot isn’t completely original, Cameron’s famously meticulous attention to detail, from striking visuals to the subtleties of character development and interpersonal dynamics, is on full display, and promise an experience that will transcend the film’s standing as a mere effects movie.  …and seriously, what incredible effects they are. The fact that the Na’vi, like Lord of the Rings’ Gollum, are completely “performance capture” characters - a feat unto itself - is almost incidental to the look and sounds of Pandora itself. A lush tropical landscape freckled with fluorescent spots and fantastic insects that resemble tiny flying jellyfish that land on humans with strange intent (and seemingly worshiped by the Na’vi), Pandora makes the world of Ridley Scott’s Legend look like a dilapidated miniature golf course. During the panel that followed the footage, one attendant asked Cameron, “Did you shoot your film in Stoner-scope?” A stupid question, to be sure, though no doubt a prescient observation - this is a film that will be seen while under the effect of any number of opiates across the globe, all the more so thanks to the added benefit of 3-D. The footage was intensely beautiful to the senses, though no doubt - as suggested by the sequence of events in the footage, and the panelists themselves - very violent and very sad things will go down in the battle that will undoubtedly follow as Jake and the Na’vi grow closer, and Jake must choose between his humanity and his new-found devotion to the peaceful Na’vi.

It’s hard to tell this early if Avatar will be a commercial hit for Cameron - the subject matter may not be quite as captivating to the masses as “killer robot” or “scary aliens” or “3-hour Leonardo DiCaprio-fest” - but no doubt it will be a fantastic and groundbreaking film, hopefully ushering in a continued embrace for blending quality film-making with 3-D technology.