With all the blockbuster movie trailers that debuted last week (they were officially released to be placed ahead of Watchmen), were you surprised not to see one for James Cameron’s Avatar? I wasn’t, but that’s because the to-be-groundbreaking 3-D sci-fi film won’t be released until this fall, and I’m expecting to see very little from it until at least midsummer. Well, it turns out that the main reason we didn’t see a trailer isn’t because it’s so early in the year; rather, it’s (rumored to be) because Cameron apparently can’t decide on how to market the thing. He’s supposedly passed on eight attempts at a trailer and is now at work on his own cut.

Here’s my idea: show as little as possible. You’re James Cameron and you haven’t given us a feature film in 12 years. And this one’s a return to outer-space sci-fi, not another sappy romantic disaster film. You really don’t need to show one second of footage. Because we’ll be there no matter what.

However you do it, though, as a result of this rumor you have to give us something. The geeks are restless:

• “Hate to say this, but now the anticipation and expectation is greater for AVATAR’s trailer than many MOVIES!” claims the rumor’s source, Jim Dorey of MarketSaw.
• Liam at Filmonic agrees that the delay is only building us up more:
  

  Getting to see our first look at Avatar in trailer form has been a desire of mine (and probably lots of other people) for the past year. The cast and crew have been hyping this thing up like crazy, and when the technology is described as 20x more advanced than what we have today I want my retinas to get a glimpse of that ASAP!

• Coming to Cameron’s defense a bit is Ryan Parsons at CanMag: “With the years of hype around Avatar it comes as no surprise that James Cameron wants everything to be perfect.”
• “We can only assume,” writes Mark Graham at Vulture, “that it’s pretty difficult to make this boring plot treatment seem interesting: ‘Follow an ex-marine as he is thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival.’”
• Patrick Goldstein at The Big Picture wonders if there is truth to the “news” or if it even matters: “Is rejecting eight different trailers really such a big deal? I doubt that the studios keep statistics on this sort of thing, but I’m guessing that if there’s a record for most rejected trailers, David Fincher still has Cameron beat by a mile.”
• Rod at The Playlist sarcastically hints that it’s not simply Cameron being a perfectionist so much as the eight trailers sucking so much: “Poor guy, it’s hard to find good help these days.”
• In lieu of a trailer, at least some blogs are handing out descriptions of clips they haven’t yet seen. I won’t bother quoting spoilers, but here’s an interesting bit of info from io9’s Charlie Jane Anders: “MarketSaw’s source says Avatar is ‘like Aliens, but from the POV of the Aliens.’”
• IGN’s Jim Vejvoda gives us more reason not to worry about the trailer, because he passes on word that in about a year from now, we’ll be able to watch Avatar on 3-D Blu-ray!