Avatar a Heavenly Vision in 3D

AVATAR in 3D is worth the $15.50 per ticket that Seattle theatres are charging, and the 3D process is very smooth and advanced. During the screening I caught, when the credits first appear it looks like the name is suspended in the center of the theatre, and the audience oohed and aahhhhed and many held up their hands as if to touch the suspended title, like a heavenly vision. Plot wise, AVATAR borrows heavily from Dances With Wolves and others where a stranger is immersed in another culture to learn about it and then change or destroy it, but ends up going "native" and stays to help that culture survive the advances of the "white man." This time the setting is in outer space, and the creatures of this beautiful and mysterious planet are in tune with nature, friendly and intelligent, and as usual it's the United States military machine that is the stubborn, willful aggressor that wants to mine a valuable mineral out of the soil that the creatures live on top of. Director James Cameron knows how to tell an effective and exciting story (Terminator 1 and 2, Titanic), the music is smooth and subtle, the actors are appropriate and the action is edited tightly. The special effects are seamless. So when you figure that this is the best 3D film technique ever, and it places you in a completely unique world, and it is totally engrossing, then that $15.50 can be justified. I'd rather pay a lot to see something of quality than $10.50 to see a POS (piece of s***).
My dvd library rental this week was a curious telling of H.Rider Haggard's novel, KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1936) with Roland Young, Cedric Hardwicke, and the great Paul Robeson, who in spite of his subservient role, actually gets to belt out about 4 spiritual-like hymns, and ends up king of a lost tribe. He has a great, rich baritone/bass voice and manages to steal the movie from his co stars. It's your basic adventure story of the quest for the lost and forbidden treasures of King Solomon's mine---a story that has been used again and again, notably in most of the INDIANA JONES movies, with obviously better special effects. Apparently the filming was on South African locales, and there's a cast of thousands of actual Zulu warriors. It's not bad and very watchable for an older film.