George Lucas and James Cameron

YAY! SPACE OPERA! *rants about all the wonders of Star Wars*
I'm going to spare you the extended version of my Star Wars rant because there's nothing really constructive about it... unless me just stating over and over everything that is so awesome about Star Wars is considered constructive (let's be clear: I'm referring to strictly the original trilogy- NOT the plot holed, poorly directed, and badly acted prequels of the 2000's). I WILL however state my favorite part of the trilogy and why. BY FAR my favorite movie of the three is The Empire Strikes Back, and in my opinion, the most interesting scene cinematography wise, story wise, and acting wise is the scene where Han Solo is frozen. Fun Fact: did you know that when Leia says, "I love you," and Han responds back,  "I know," Harrison Ford was improving?!?!?!
Anyway, If you haven't seen it already, please enjoy this well-made parody about how Star Wars was imagined.

*Insert clever transition here*
Now let's talk about the movie Avatar (NOT to be confused with the amazing animated series with the same title). I think that this movie is Space Opera and here's why:
I'll start by saying that the Space Opera genre is a genre full of regular stories that just so happen to take place in space, and Avatar is basically Pocahontas in space. I want to focus on one particular scene of Avatar for this discussion, though. In Pocahontas, the English are digging for gold- destroying the Indians' homeland. In Avatar, the Americans are drilling for oil- destroying the Na'vi's homeland. Despite all of the story problems in Avatar, this aspect of the plot is extremely believable. Assuming that we still use oil in 2154 or whatever year Avatar was set (somewhere in the 2100's), the first thing we would do when landing on a new planet would be to try to strike oil.