There were a lot of underwhelmed murmurs circulating in the blogosphere when the first Avatar teaser hit. There had been so much hype regarding the money spent and technology invented to make the movie that expectations had sky-rocketed to an unreasonable level. It seemed people had forgotten that, at the end of the day, Avatar is a movie meant to entertain and excite audiences, and not a piece of art-miracle that would make angels sing and blind men see.

James Cameron may have promised as much, but while I think Avatar may certainly change the way we MAKE movies, it won’t be the catalyst in a monumental shift in how we WATCH movies. The notoriously ambitious director may have misspoke in that regard, because it’s practically impossible for one movie to do all that; if anything, these kinds of shifts happen over several years and through contributions from several filmmakers. Maybe ten years down the line we will be able to pinpoint Avatar as the “game-changer” it was heralded to be, but presently I doubt anyone, even a director of Cameron’s ability, could single-handedly spark such a dramatic paradigm shift within the art form with ONE movie, much less for two minutes of footage – which was only meant to tease, anyway – to live up to those aspirations.

Well, Cameron and the marketing folks over at Fox have come around this time with a full-length trailer (clocking in at just over 3 and a half minutes) that seeks to do nothing but reinforce what we should’ve been anticipating all this time: an immersive, action-packed, thrill-ride of a movie. Not something that may necessarily change the cinematic landscape, but something that looks like a DAMN good time at the theaters. The trailer is much more thorough in setting up the world and characters, and we get looks at some breathtaking set and action pieces that I’m sure will blow minds and burn retinas at theaters in December. I’m actually excited to see the movie this time around, and not just holding my breath waiting for some vague enlightenment that never comes.

Check it out after the jump (Yahoo has it in HD here):

Avatar hits theaters on December 18, 2009.

Tags: Avatar, James Cameron, Michelle Rodriguez, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Trailer, Zoe Saldana