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As most of the world knows, "Avatar"--James Cameron's hotly-anticipated and ridiculously expensive directorial follow-up to "Titanic"--opens today. What remains to be seen is how most of the world will respond to Cameron's futuristic, interspecies love story.

Early returns seem to indicate that the film is more like Titanic the boat than "Titanic" the movie. Sure, it's doing well enough critically, with an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but that's hardly what matters. Word of mouth is what Cameron's after, and getting that means capturing one audience: the geeks.

As Nicole LaPorte reports in her blog on the Daily Beast, nerds at the Butt-Numb-a-Thon (an annual gathering of the best and brightest film dorks) in Austin, Texas last week were quite displeased with "Avatar." The applause was described as "half-hearted," the film's storyline "cliche-ridden," and Cameron's opus has even earned the dreaded label "'Dances with Wolves'...in Space." Never mind the fact that "Dances With Wolves" won the Best Picture Oscar--this is terrible news indeed!

But who is really to blame here? Did Cameron overspend and overproduce on a bloated, self-indulgent fluff wreck? Or are the nerds getting too big for their (pocket-protected) britches, the argument being--well, they're nerds, they should be satisfied with anything high-tech and explode-y.

It's hard to say at this point. You'll have to see the movie for yourself to make your own judgment.

Wait, no--that just makes James Cameron more money!