HUNTSVILLE — Faithful readers may recall that when “Avatar,” James Cameron’s mega-blockbuster sci-fi flick that quickly became the highest-grossing film ever, hit theaters last year, I avoided the bandwagon and gave it a moderate review.

I did not do this because I have no interest in bandwagons. I did this because, for all its ambition, technical prowess and sheer scope, “Avatar” remains in my eyes a very mediocre film, particularly when you consider the past body of work of its creator, a canon that includes genre-defining films like “Aliens” and “Titanic.”

When awards season came around, and it became clear that the main contenders for the major hunks of gold would be “Avatar” and Kathryn Bigelow’s war film “The Hurt Locker,” I began a personal campaign to take the big blue alien movie down in favor of the tighter, heavier and in my opinion, much better film made by Ms. Bigelow.

Again, I did not do this because I have some personal vendetta against James Cameron, super blockbusters or blue aliens. I did this because “The Hurt Locker” is a better film than “Avatar.”

In spite of my own lukewarm response to the film, “Avatar” went on to earn throngs of fans the world over and make 20th Century Fox roughly $3 billion, and that’s not counting DVD sales, toys, video games and whatever else they can manage to market. That’s just movie tickets, folks.

And that’s OK. I’m not bitter. All those billions of dollars simply mean that other people saw something I didn’t see and loved the flick. It’s good to love movies. I encourage loving movies, even bad ones.

With that in mind, I’m not here to tell you it’s wrong to like “Avatar,” or tell you you’re stupid because you like it or that James Cameron has become a self-important preacher with a camera and every dollar you give him only serves to further provoke him. James Cameron is a brilliant filmmaker, one of those guys who does things no one else ever dared to do. He’s a game-changer, and he’s proved that more than once.

But I have to be honest; this “Avatar” thing has just gone too far.

Last Friday 20th Century Fox re-released the film in 3D and IMAX 3D theatres across the United States, and other countries are slated to re-open the film on their own 3D screens over the next few weeks. The re-released film includes nine minutes of previously unseen footage, including a few more seconds of that oh-so-captivating alien sex scene.

According to an interview Cameron gave on the project, each of those nine minutes cost at least $1 million to finalize for the new release. That’s $9 million added to a film that already had a budget of at least $300 million.

I don’t know who to put the blame on for all of this, and I don’t even know how much I care (enough to write a column about it, obviously, but let’s move on), but I’m forced to ask a simple question: Why?

The movie made a gajillion dollars, and Cameron is already at work on two sequels, each of which will probably make even more than a gajillion dollars each. Oh, and did I mention he’s going to convert “Titanic” to 3D for a 2012 release? Yeah, this after lambasting other filmmakers for pulling the 3D post-conversion on films that he deemed not worthy.

Like I said, we’re talking about a brilliant man, someone with a greater impact on American culture than I could ever hope to have, but it’s honestly enough to make me cringe, especially when all these bells and whistles are being added seemingly in the name of spreading some kind of message. Don’t get me wrong, “Avatar” has a message, but it’s a message I’d much rather get watching “Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest.”

And as for the 3D thing ... People have been asking me about the 3D thing for a year now, and I can say with a certain amount of pride that I have never yet dropped cash for a 3D movie ticket. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, it’s just a special feature that I don’t need muddling my movie experience, that’s all. Also, it gives me a headache.

The point of all this, I think, is that movies are becoming less like movies and way too much like theme park rides for my taste. I don’t care how much technology you throw at me. If I can predict your story, snicker at your dialogue and mock your plot twists, you didn’t make a great movie. I don’t care if I can feel like a fist is coming out of the screen. If I don’t care about the body that fist is attached to, you didn’t make a great movie. I love event cinema, really I do, but things like this that make me worried for its future.

If you really can’t pry yourself away from those blue aliens and their freaky ponytails, go ahead and pay out more money for the return of “Avatar,” but the rest of us will wait for something new. This is already stale.