James Cameron’s forthcoming magnum opus Avatar has been a highly guarded secret ever since we first heard of it a whopping 12 1/2 years ago now. It’s been speculated over and endlessly rumored, and no amount of digging could uncover its secrets.

This kind of crush, naturally, leads to extremes in expectations. Especially when we are told that this is a revolution in filmmaking. It goes far above and beyond anything that has ever been done before – taking everything that has been done prior, and moving it to new dimensions.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? If not, it should. It’s what the Wachowskis told us leading up to The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions.

If that doesn’t scare you, nothing will. It’ll be hard to avoid the hype machine leading to very mincing, mewling, and harsh criticism when it does come out.

Now its long-awaited debut – read: a few crumbs thrown – at Comic-Con has the fans all a-frenzy, including yours truly. Watch, and extract what you can.

Anyone else maddened by the fact that it cuts out before the clips start? Why, then, was there a point in obscuring the title and tags? Anyway..

To be a bit skeptical, “throwing it all in a blender” is what has resulted in the endlessly derivative drivel that’s dripped down to us over the past years in film. And ultra-high CGI tweakage doesn’t mean a great film. Jeffrey Wells links to several other Avatar-related clips from the Con, and also Luke Y. Thompson’s descrip which leaves us even more room to take our expectations out of the stratosphere. A comment on Wells’ column sums it up:

Judging by Thompson’s description, it’s gonna be a geek bomb in the vein of Serenity. And it doesn’t help that Rothman likes it, either. I believe Jeff was impressed by it, but then he was also impressed by King Kong, too. And no, I’m not knocking his opinion, since I did like the latter flick on a visual level for a short time. But, like Kong, it probably doesn’t deliver on the action, and it’ll be more about making some sort of over-priced art film than a popcorn movie.

How about the words from the mouth of the man himself? According to E! Online:

“I made this movie,” Cameron told the very amped-up crowd of at least 6,000 fans, “for the 14-year-old boy who lives in the back of my head.”

The only trouble is we’re not 14 anymore, and a little tired of the movies aimed at that demographic. In the past, 14 was about the minimum age that anyone should be to see a Cameron film – they appealed to men and women, young and old. As Cameron’s aged, let’s hope he hasn’t allowed the same strain of viral brain rot that’s crept into George Lucas’ post-1980s work to take over and cause youth to be viewed through foggy, misremembered lenses.