If you haven’t seen Avatar, but have been tracking its coverage over the past year or so, you already know all you need to know about the film’s success. Actually seeing it is, at best, superfluous to understanding why this one never had any chance but doing anything but packin’ em in and stuffing ‘em with popcorn and soda.

This weekend, I did what the advertisements told me to and went to see Avatar in IMAX 3D. Truth be told, it was kind of a disappointment. The problem isn’t the uncanny valley — the alien Na’vi look real enough — but the roteness of it all. At that, it is a good thing for society that James Cameron made it. Why? Because the film poured so much money into technological innovation, and that innovation will carry over to movies and projects to come.