More than 15 years after developing the concept for "Avatar" -- the last four and a half of them actually producing the digital effects-heavy sci-fi opus -- "Titanic" Oscar-winning director James Cameron says only two words could best describe seeing his most ambitious cinematic vision come to life: "Be patient."

"It's 100 percent true, because the processes of making these computer-generated scenes and characters are so incredibly painstaking," Cameron said in a recent @ The Movies interview. "You're not sculpting in soft stone, you're chiseling away at granite and it takes for-frickin'-ever. You have to be patient, and the funny thing is, I'm not that patient on the set. But I know if I have to be patient, I can Zen-out."

Nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Director for Cameron and Best Picture, "Avatar" takes place in the year 2154, three decades after the Resources Development Administration establishes a mining colony on Pandora -- a distant, Earthlike planet which contains Unobtainium -- a rare mineral that somehow holds the key to solving Earth's energy crisis. But with the resistance to the human presence by the Na'vi -- an indigenous race of blue Humanoid aliens -- the Avatar program may be the only hope of stopping a war from breaking out.

Recruited for the program is paralyzed ex-Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who gets new legs when his consciousness is linked to an Avatar -- a genetically engineered "remote control" body that resembles a member of the Na'vi. Under the direction of program head and fellow Avatar Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) to develop a "bridge of trust" with the Na'vi, Jake is also recruited on the sly by security force heavy Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) to infiltrate the tribe to gain an upper-hand.

But the focus of Jake's covert mission is blurred when he's rescued by Ney'tiri (Zoe Saldana) -- a beautiful Na'vi who shows Jake the way of her civilization. Putting his personal honor ahead of his military honor, Jake finds himself in the middle of a battle that could mean the end of a civilization of peaceful warriors.

Since opening in mid-December, "Avatar" has earned $630.1 million, winning the box office for seven straight weeks until this past weekend, and breaking the record haul set by "Titanic." It has also earned a total of $2.2 billion worldwide since its release, also breaking "Titanic's" record.

Without question one of the biggest challenges for Cameron in the making of "Avatar" was the creation of the Na'vi species -- not so much in the body as a whole, but with their faces and eyes to give the characters soul. Developing from scratch a new image-based facial capture system with a head-rigged camera, Cameron said the system took about two years to perfect. It afforded the filmmaker the opportunity to truly integrate the performances of his actors, rather than using them as a means to an end.

"It didn't make sense to me that I would do something with the actors and then spend the next two and a half years re-inventing the wheel by having the animators trying to create a performance," Cameron said. "It wasn't worth my time -- and in a funny way, wasn't worth the actors' time on the set -- to drive toward that perfect take where you really feel that you've nailed it, only to make it all up for grabs later."

As a result, Cameron let his actors know that their performances -- despite being under layers of digital rendering -- were vital. He wanted to capture their soul and then some. He wanted the performances to define their characters.

"Maybe it was delusional at the time -- but we actually thought we could do this," Cameron recalled. "So I said to the actors, 'What you do now will be definitive, so let's get it right.' We worked on the performance capture work just as we would if we were shooting live action. I'm talking about going 10 takes, and going towards something in an iterative way. Most actors like to do that. They like to try some takes and get a feeling of what they're doing and build on what they've done, so it only made sense. The end outcome is, two years later, their performance is 100 percent on the screen."

This was especially important for Saldana -- who starred as Uhura in the summer blockbuster "Star Trek" -- because, unlike Worthington and Weaver, her performance as Ney'tiri is entirely in the digital realm.

"She is so much the heart and soul of the film," Cameron said in admiration. "As much as Jake is the person you journey with, and Sam's performance is so spectacular, Ney'tiri seems to so represent the philosophical and spiritual core of the film. She's also the character who's in the greatest jeopardy in the final battle, so you feel so strongly for her. It's just this amazing illusion because Zoe doesn't exist photographically. Her character doesn't even exist photographically. But what Zoe created is coming through so strongly. It's just booming through."

New World For Weaver

While Cameron got to experience the raw talents of Saldana and Worthington for the first time with "Avatar," he was just as thrilled to reunite with Weaver -- who became the quintessential female action movie hero with her stunning turn as Ellen Ripley in the filmmaker's 1986 classic, "Aliens."

And while it's reasonable for moviegoers to expect another round of butt-kicking by the statuesque film veteran in "Avatar," Cameron believes it's her turn instead as Grace -- an Earth-mother of sorts -- that will knock fans on their hind-ends.

"Earth-mother is a great term because we kind of played her as this hippy scientist in a way. It's easy for people to say, 'OK, it's a high-tech action and science fiction film, and you got Sigourney Weaver -- so it's Ripley, right?' Well, pretty much exactly not," Cameron said, laughing. "Although Ripley was a maternal character, she was also this focused and disciplined person who became, ultimately, a warrior at the end of the film."

"Grace is not that at all," Cameron added. "Grace is appalled by the con of the military. She's appalled by the anything having to do with the gunships and machine guns and all that sort of thing. She's such an advocate of the Na'vi and life on Pandora."

There's no question that bubbling under the surface of Pandora's massive Unobtainium deposit is a biting social commentary on President George W. Bush's war doctrine ( Audio: Cameron Talks 'Avatar's' Modern, Historic War Parallels ) -- and even more pointed is how Cameron parallels the siege against the Na'vi and the plight of the Native Americans.

But while Cameron has sunk his personal roots deep into "Avatar," he said his aim, first and foremost, is to entertain the audience.

"I don't think you can lecture people about this stuff -- an entertainment film is a dubious place for information," Cameron observed. "Go see 'An Inconvenient Truth,' read a book or read Scientific American if you want to get the straight scoop. A movie can emotionalize an issue, and give you an emotional context for information that you either already have or will subsequently gain. An entertainment movie can do that and do it very powerfully."

That's not to say that people can't glean something off a film they've been entertained by -- and if they do, it's all the better. Either way, through "Avatar," the 55-year-old filmmaker feels like he's done his passion for protecting the Earth proud.

"I could off on a rant about this stuff -- and probably will from time to time because it has great meaning to me," Cameron said. " "To spend four and a half years of my life to have it just be a hollow piece of entertainment wouldn't make any sense."