I can't get enough Avatar. I am rarely swayed solely by the hype (Inception... what?) or the big price tag (Clash of the Titans...) but something about the fantastic world of Pandora that James Cameron has created has a hold on me. As expected by Avatar fans (and financial experts) everywhere, there's a new edition of 2009's biggest hit just in time for Christmas, and it's bound to make your stocking full to the brim and your DVD/Blu-ray player heating up for hours.

In addition to the original theater release, this collection brings the re-release edition (including extra time) and the direct-to-DVD edition (including a whopping sixteen extra minutes). In a surprising twist, considering the way we're moving toward more offensive and more "did they really just do that?" media, each edition comes with an option for a "family friendly" cut that removes any objectional language. There are an additional forty-five minutes on the second disc that were deleted, but there's plenty of behind-the-scenes stuff, too.

I found the "Capturing Avatar" feature rather interesting, and I'm not a "behind-the-scenes" guy. Watching the actors talk about their auditions (in other languages, with clicks, and beeps) and the maddeningly frustrating process lends a whole new appreciation to what we see on the screen. You can probably imagine the problems that lend themselves to the process when you're battling from live-action into the depiction onscreen. The three-disc version provides you with all the details that you could ask for, and probably even more, but until they break out the 3-D version, this is as deep as you can go.

Recognizing the genius of Cameron and the way that the world of Pandora works, I'm still drawn into the story of the outsider (who begins as an insider, right?) in Jake who finds himself immersed in a world that isn't his own. The battles which follow, the romance, the development (of twenty-first century cartoons, right?!), are all icing on the cake for what becomes the story of one person's sacrifice so that others might live. That's the kind of story which resonates with me, and one that echoes that of the "greatest story ever told." Watching Avatar, I ask myself, "Could I do the same?" and recognize that laying one's life down for one's friends looks different all the time. Even in Blu-ray blue-skinned aliens.