I disagree. The ocean is much more mysterious than near space; it's far less understood. The moon is boring as hell. There's nothing there. I don't know what's in the Mariana Trench, but I'd like to find out. If Cameron's not going to make a movie with people in it (and he never has), at least he could explore something real for a change.

what would be REALLY impressive . cameron decides not to make anything else to do with avatar period.. no sequels . no more director's cuts...no video games..no cartoons.no documentaries...no nothing..and then he goes on to film make tolstoy's war and peace.
..all 3d cgi natch.......

I wouldn't say "there's NOTHING there" on the moon, Fnarf. For one thing, there's enough Helium 3 to provide for all of earth's energy needs for the next few thousand years - assuming someone can get a good working fusion reactor up and running in the next couple of decades. Plus, the dark side provides an ideal location from which to observe the universe unimpeded by terrestrial and solar interference.

But that being said, taking a deep-dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench WOULD be a pretty cool undertaking, and far less expensive to boot.

Cool that he has the resources to do this, because I'm curious what's down there. It's hard to imagine how this will help The Abyssatar be a better movie though.

@3 - The moon rotates, but it's in synchronous orbit with the Earth. So, the same side always faces us, and the "dark side of the moon" is only dark during a full moon on Earth.

Still, @4, ~15 days of sun-free telescope time a month (a 30-earth-day lunar day), and no atmospheric effects to contend with.

My understanding is that the "dark" that's interesting to telescopers isn't from light pollution but radio pollution from earth transmissions, which are always shielded on the far side of the moon.

Make a pretty dull movie, though, a telescope.

No duller than any other Cameron flick, though. What he really should do is just give the money to Richard Attenborough and let him take it down the trench, if he's up for it (he's soon 85).

@6 Radio pollution is light pollution, it's just not visible light pollution.

The best/worst thing is that I'm sure Cameron hasn't started thinking about a script yet. First he must plan film locations and special effects.

@7, you mean his brother, I trust.

@10, oh, for chrissakes. Yes, of course. Though Richard had a hand in a number of good pictures back in the 50s and 60s at least -- Whistle Down the Wind, I'm All Right Jack, The L-Shaped Room. But David is the one I want to go down the Mariana Trench.

If you watch Cameron's Aliens of the Deep - a beautiful documentary of deep-sea exploration - you see a lot of creatures that are clearly direct inspiration for the critters in Avatar. I'm glad he's making another, deeper, expedition happen.

2: War and Peace... IN SPAAAAAAAACE!

Aliens of the Deep was a complete bust, though. It was about how their equipment had problems and they didn't actually see anything.

It's one whole hell of a lot harder to go to the bottom of the sea than it is to go to the moon, and we know a lot less about it. There are any number of undiscovered species in the depths of the oceans. There are not any number of undiscovered species on the moon.

@4:

Of course! The finale of The Abyssatar will totally show that the Abyssaliens are in fact the parent species of The Avatar aliens, who, after using up nearly all the resources on Pandora tens of thousands of years ago, left the planet taking all their advanced technology with them, and leaving their progeny to restore their homeworld to its pre-technological state, only to suffer the irony of having the inhabitants of the planet they moved to venture to Pandora in an attempt to exploit the planet's resources in the same way they had done previously!

Damn, this movie practically writes itself!