Well, folks, it’s official–Avatar has cleared the half billion dollar mark in domestic sales and worldwide the picture only looks better.  But strangely enough, it seems like the buzz is coming back on Avatar, and a whole lot of people are upset with it.

The upshot is that we were one of the first to knock Avatar–it was a beautiful movie but the plot was an utter joke–but now we’ve got a whole bunch of johnny-come-latelys knocking it too.  Why, check out the rogue’s gallery assembling against Avatar right now:

The Vatican’s newspaper calls it “nature worship”.

I09.com calls it “the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare”.

And then there’s this:

Critics have also said that “Avatar” copied story elements from the movies “Dances With Wolves,” “Pocahontas” and “Ferngully: The Last Rainforest”; the Poul Anderson novella “Call Me Joe”; and the “Noon Universe” book series by the Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

A lot of people don’t like Avatar for some reason–almost as quickly as it showed up, it collapsed.  What’s the deal?  No one’s sure.  But the phenomenon is there all the same.