Tybout takes Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ to the next several levels

The Notorious B.I.G. once theorized an alarming correlation: With “mo’ money,” he… The Notorious B.I.G. once theorized an alarming correlation: With “mo’ money,” he postulated, comes “mo’ problems.”

Clearly, James Cameron is not a Biggie fan.

After making “Avatar,” the highest-grossing film in history, Cameron announced that he’ll follow his magnum opus with two sequels — both filmed at the helm of new technologies too complex for the layman to comprehend.

To some, this may seem sensible, at least from an economic standpoint — the main reason “Avatar” was successful was because it revolutionized special effects. But who’s to say where Cameron’s obsessions will lead him after “Avatar 3”? What sort of demented gimmicks will he attempt to channel in “Avatar 4?” “Avatar 40?”

Rather than wait to find out, I’ve compiled a list of potential “Avatar” interpretations Cameron might employ if given free reign by movie studios.

“Avatar 4-D”: When audiences don their 4-D glasses, they will attain the ability to experience “Avatar” not only in dimensions of space, but also time. Rather than merely appearing to pop out of the screen, characters will channel back in history to alter previous films in the franchise. Essentially, it’s an overly complex means of creating a flashback. But be warned: should you remove your glasses during the middle of the film, you may become lost in the fabric of space-time.

“Avatar on Ice”: A disastrous endeavor. Lanky blue aliens with cumbersome tails veer uncontrollably about, the dragon-like creatures remain grounded and there’s something less than sinister about a colonel on ice skates. Robbed of an opportunity to present audiences with a flashy new technology, “Avatar on Ice” embodies the campy sadness of Cameron’s “Piranha Part Two: The Spawning,” more than its source material.

“Avatar: The Spoken Word Series”: After losing a considerable sum of money after the “Avatar on Ice” fiasco, Cameron’s production budget is scaled back. Now, “Avatar” is a sparsely attended slam poetry series hosted in coffee shops. The events’ sole attendees are hipsters, and these fans only enjoy the shows ironically.

“Avatar: The VH1 Special”: Everyone loves VH1 specials, even if they’re erratic and feature talking heads nobody has heard of. At least, this is the assumption guiding Cameron’s money-grubbing foray into television, during which pop-culture pundits — including the omnipresent JWoww and Pauly D — count down the best moments of the franchise. The show is a critical bomb, but rakes in enough cash to sustain the franchise for another 250-some installments.

“Avatar 251”: Cameron, sustained cryogenically in a remote moon colony owned by 20th Century Fox, finally musters the finances he needs to achieve his lifelong goal for the franchise: to make a film so technologically omnipotent that it supplants reality itself. Channeling all his life’s earnings into special effects too sophisticated and terrible for the 21st-century mind to comprehend, “Avatar 251” is not a movie so much as it is an intergalactic amusement park: Cameron has, quite literally, created the planet Pandora that appeared in the original “Avatar.” Audiences are invited to experience the “film” by journeying to the environment and bearing witness to its tribe of noble blue aliens and their dramatic fight for survival firsthand.

Critical and commercial reaction, however, is tepid, and “Saw 729” bumps the film into second place at the box office. Despite the bloated production budget, Cameron has succeeded only in making another popcorn-movie experience, with all the canned dialogue, generic narratives and archetypal characters that implies.

Furious and unable to grasp the reasons for this failure, Cameron regresses into a permanent state of depression. A small consolation, however, for fans of the director: against all odds, “Titanic” is still popular.