Fears about the appearance of bad, powerful, man-made intelligent machines have been reinforced (强化) by many works of fiction—Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Terminator film series, for example.
Fueling the hype is the fact that "Avatar" is Cameron's first film since "Titanic" in 1997 -- the most successful film of modern times -- and a return to sci-fi for the "Aliens" and "Terminator" series director.