James Cameron has produced, written, and directed several extraordinary movies, among them Titanic (1997) and the long-awaited Avatar (2009). In both films, fairy standard story lines are enacted in richly detailed settings that make the stories feel real and important. Of course, Titanic does tell a real story, although Cameron adds a pair of fictional lovers to give us someone to identify with. The most important similarity between the two movies, however, is Cameron’s use of technology to recreate, in Titanic, the sinking of a great ship, and to create for the first time, in Avatar, 3-D characters from a far-in-the-future moon who move us every bit as much as-no, more than-the humans in the story.