Avatar is ready

Let me know when it gets under $40.

how much is it selling on ebay? is the one on Amazon legit and is that fair price? Should we wait for the official public release if it will ever come out and how much do you think that will be?

That's just a "Fulfilled by Amazon", not Amazon itself. It's the resale of Panasonic one or something similar. In other words, the same one that's been on there for years now.

Lame.

I bought mine for $115, including a Panny 110 BD player.

so I guess it's not worth it for its price. thanks. I'll just wait for official public release.

I got mine with a Panasonic 3d blu-ray player... and then promptly returned the player. :P

Yeah me too. Included with the blu ray player plus the 3D glasses kit. Kept one copy, sold the other.

Very good movie and 3D effects.

I'm recently new to 3D. So what's the deal with Avatar 3D. Why is it so hard to find? Why is it selling for so much? If it is that good and this popular, why don't they release more at a regular price?

Fox and Panasonic agreed to only sell it as a bundle with Panasonic TVs and 3D Blu-ray players. It's their way of gouging the early adopters and diehard fans.

As with all 3D exclusives, it will eventually expire. I think it's ending this year?

I've read a lot about the lack of consumer interest in 3D. This is one of the reasons. I was one of those skeptics about the format until recently giving it a try, now we love it. I think the studios and electronics companies like Panosonic are shooting themselves in the foot when they do stuff like this to the consumers. Releasing a movie like Avatar in 3D and getting a lot of raving review from fans about the 3D format is what is needed to kick the format into high gear.

Agreed. When I saw my first 3d demo at a best buy, I was less than impressed. I recently upgraded my projector and decided to go 3d. What a difference from the bb experience.

The 3D displays in places like Best Buy and Frys are the worst. I was in a Frys last week and the 3D display for Samsung didn't have the glasses turned on or the battery was dead. Ether way, not a good way to introduce the format to a new perspective buyer.

At this point I'll only get it if the 3D extended version comes out. Other wise I don't care anymore.

I have to agree. Most shops don't have it ready for potential consumers. Those that do have grubby, unhygienic glasses. It's like they don't care if we buy it or not. Maybe it's a recession thing. No one is buying anything.

My experience at Frys and Best Buy both sound just like this. The salesmen even told me I didn't need 3d.

There are several reasons I can think of for why we haven't seen this released in retail form yet.

Real-d, which Cameron is on the board of directors of, was going to partner with samsung on a tv that would've given us the best of both worlds: active polarization full-resolution 3d panels that use passive glasses. The deal fell through late last year and there's been no word since. Panasonic's active sets were probably considered "good enough" by Cameron to get the exclusive, but I'm sure he's waiting for 3dtv tech to catch up before he releases Avatar into the wild.

This recent announcement that the bd3d of Titanic will be spread across two discs has me wondering if the same thing will be done for Avatar. The theatrical cut, at 162 minutes, fit on a single disc and got rave reviews. The longest version is 178 minutes, not as long as Titanic's 191, but still pretty long. Considering AVC encoding tends to be more bit-intensive, they might not be able to fit it on a single disc. Add to that the fact that many people already have this movie on standard 2d blu-ray (some of them twice) and you can see why Fox might want to wait a while. Titanic has the advantage of not having been on blu-ray at all until the same day as the bd3d release. Avatar doesn't have that advantage.

As for Panasonic's exclusivity deal having expired, well, Fox was never going to make an announcement the very day after, so no surprises there. I am kinda shocked that we're getting the official announcement of the post-converted Titanic before the natively-shot Avatar, though.

That would be sweet. I have the collectors edition of Avatar (BD 2D version) and it's neat but having that in 3D would be epic. I tried the 2D-3D conversion but it's not that great.

Avatar was an OK movie, not great. Why they have to have this song and dance I don't know.

Fox could be waiting for a sequel tie-in. It'll be a long wait, but the general public have managed to survive this far without having a retail release of Avatar 3D.

I was thinking the same thing as Fang regarding the eventual retail encode, given what they've done with Titanic; if the Avatar 3D release branches all three versions (as per the 2D Collector's Edition) then that'll be closer to Titanic's running time in terms of the additional scenes and the duplicated footage needed to 'top and tail' those scenes. If Titanic 3D has been split purely for quality reasons, then Avatar 3D may well end up going the same way.

I paid about $90 for my copy over a year ago (I think) and I have enjoyed it MANY times with different groups of people. The movie is OK at best, but the 3D is truly spectacular at home and given the lack of titles that approach it's WOW factor, I have no regrets.

To this day, it is what I show people, and it floors them. Inspires them to get a 3D TV, even...

That being said, it's worth it if you can afford it, will enjoy it, and don't mind the ridiculous premium.

I, for one, am happy to own it and have got my money's worth out of it over the course of time.

I agree with you, it's awesome to watch. I, in fact, actually like the movie itself and truly enjoy the 3D effects. The movie looks crazy on a big screen plasma tv.

Heck I saw it 6 times in the theater with different people and all of them loved the movie. Seeing it on my 51" plasma is cool, but seeing it in the XD 3D theater with thundering bass is unbeatable. Too bad there was no Imax around.