I'm with Super Dude, Orcus and Bosk on this. While Avatar certainly instigated the recent 3D fad, to compare it to the original Star Wars film(s) in being revolutionary to the film industry is a stretch.
Except natural special effects tend to age better than CGI (budget-dependent. See: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV Series, BBC). The non-CGI editions of Star Wars still look gloris.
I can't really but into that. Jurassic Park's CGI will forever go down as one of the best accomplishments in the history of movie making. I am aware that Jurassic Park had a bunch of non-cgi stuff too.
Actually Grizz is spot-on with that statement, Chino. Natural special effects generally
will age better than CGI. That's because CGI shares a common issue with a lot of video games; it's always being improved upon. As a result, most CGI effects that look "incredibly realistic" now will end up becoming incredibly obvious CGI five years later.
Natural special effects, on the other hand, are real/physical. That lends itself to visually holding up down the road... so long as you don't see any of the strings.
I actually just watched Jurassic Park for the first time in years the other day and I noticed that, while the effects were generally awesome, there were also moments where you could really tell it was just CGI. Sure, sometimes it can hold up and have a fair amount of longevity, but it takes a lot more work to pull it off than what most filmmakers do with CGI.