With the release of "Avatar: Special Edition" in 3-D this week, there is no question that throngs of moviegoers are going to see filmmaker James Cameron's world Pandora like they've never seen it before thanks to nine minutes of extra footage.

And while nine minutes may not seem like a lot of time in our day-to-day lives, you have to remember that in movie time, even a few seconds here and there can add great depth and complexity to any given scene. As audiences will find out, nine extra minutes in the world of Pandora is a generous amount of extra time.

"Everybody's been saying, 'How come it's only nine minutes?' and speaking as an editor, I say, 'Do you realize what it takes to get eight or nine minutes out of a movie? Taking 10 frames out here and two seconds out there? It probably took us six months to take out nine minutes out of the film," Cameron said in a recent @ The Movies interview.

The great thing is, the nine minutes worth of footage put back into "Avatar" for the special edition release aren't comprised of throw-away scenes that are normally used for DVD and Blu-ray fillers. Cameron wants moviegoers to get their money's worth, so he went back to 20th Century Fox to get "x-millions to finish the footage" -- since only about two minutes of the nine minutes of the film added to the special edition were completed by visual effects house WETA Digital.

Cameron, who was nominated for Oscars for producing, directing and editing "Avatar" earlier this year, promised a huge wow factor will be delivered with the inclusion of the new scenes.

"They're not dogged scenes of everybody sitting around the base and drinking coffee, talking about what just happened," Cameron said. "It's all stuff that takes place out in the Pandoran landscape with the Na'vi or the Avatars, and it's all computer-generated stuff. There's a new hunt scene and creatures that you haven't seen before, and there's new flying. There's also new action with the riding of Dire Horses and stuff added back to the battle scenes here and there."

For a refresher, "Avatar" is set 154 years in the future, where Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic Marine veteran, travels to the distant, Earth-like planet of Pandora. Populated by the Na'vi -- the planet's 10-foot-tall blue, alien humanoid species -- Pandora is a valuable source of Unobtanium -- a rare mineral that somehow holds the key to solving Earth's energy crisis.

Replacing his deceased twin brother as a member of a vital scientific program, Jake is on Pandora to link his consciousness to an Avatar: a genetically engineered "remote control" body that resembles a member of the Na'vi.

Together with Avatar program director Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) Jake's mission is to establish a "bridge of trust" with the Na'vi -- while on the sly, he's recruited by securing head Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) to infiltrate the tribe to gain an upper hand. What Jake didn't count on, though, was the bond he would form with Neytiri, a strong and beautiful member of the tribe -- a bond that will force him to choose between his loyalties.

While Cameron said the extra footage adds a great amount to the film, he added that the film's narrative hasn't changed because of it. It's the same "Avatar" as before -- just more of it.

"There was a concern because we were in revisionist's territory a little bit," Cameron said. "I didn't want to change the overall response to the film and didn't want to change the overall storytelling -- I just wanted to embellish a little bit here and there with little treats for the audience. I didn't want to change the perception of the moments already there."

So, Cameron added, don't expect to see something in the film to make you look at Jake or Grace in a different light because something was taken out in the first version.

"I just want audiences to spend a little more time on Pandora," Cameron said. "Nobody complained about the length of the film the first time around that I can remember. Some people said, 'I wish it were longer. We're really responding to what the fans are telling us."

With $2.7 billion box office in box office revenue worldwide, there's no question that a lot of people saw "Avatar" in its original form. But apart from the extra footage, Cameron noted that the special edition release will be, well, special, because the number of 3-D venues has increased dramatically.

"We have a lot more screens now than we had back in December and January -- especially internationally," Cameron said. "We've gone from 4,000 screens internationally to 8,000 in just these last few months, so there are going to be a lot of people to see it for the first time in a movie theater in 3-D. It's going to be pretty cool."

The return to the 3-D couldn't come at a better time for moviegoers (and this writer) soured by lackluster conversions of the 2-D films into the 3-D format. Cameron is well-aware that there's a danger involved with studios lulling people into thinking they are getting a better product simply because it's a 3-D film.

"They're just trying to rake in -- they saw a gold rush with 'Avatar,' 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'How to Train Your Dragon' after they became huge hits," Cameron observed. "I haven't seen 'Alice in Wonderland' in 3-D, unfortunately, since I've been busy, but 'How to Train Your Dragon' in 3-D is pure magic. It's a really cool looking film and it made a lot of money, so now everybody started saying, 'Well, what can we convert?'"

Cameron, 56, believes that in time, the idea of converting 2-D films will eventually fall by the wayside as the use of the format becomes more prevalent.

"What you're going to have over the next couple of years is 3-D in the home with sports being broadcast in 3-D. The whole mentality of the business of 3-D is going to shift toward live production and conversion is not a factor," Cameron said. "When hundreds of people are shooting with 3-D cameras every single day, it's hard to argue a movie can't be shot in 3-D when a soccer game is being shot in 3-D."

While Cameron has been officially completing the first chapter of "Avatar" with the special edition of the film, he's also started work on the film's two planned sequels. And while he couldn't provide a great number of details about the second "Avatar" or when it will be released, the "Titanic" director will be setting sail in a familiar territory for at least part of the film.

"The story is going to continue on -- as long as we get all the deals worked out, which we're working on right now -- there will be some ocean scenes but it's not like the whole thing is going to take place underwater," Cameron revealed. "There are actually a whole new number of new environments you are going to see, and the ocean is one of them. That's an environment that I'm particularly excited about doing the design work for."