Not much to add to all this, other than it took me six years to read the Silmarillion; I started in 6th grade and finished it the summer after I graduated high school. I'd read a little, put it down for a few months, read a little... and I don't remember any of it to this day.

As for Avatar... as a reef tank nerd, I was rather underwhelmed with a lot of the scenery. I kept saying to myself, "Oh, I know that "plant", that's a species of zooanthid coral, oh, that plant's a gorgonian, that one's a..." you get the point. The world felt a less like an alien world to me and more like someone was really impressed with their friends aquarium and decided to swipe it.