Films in general are about taking us along on a trip to somewhere far away, be it Tatooine, the RMS
Titanic, Pandora, or even the USS
Enterprise. We watch these films hoping to connect with the story, we want to
be there. That is not just good film making, that is good storytelling.
2001 is supposedly THE smart movie, but I could hardly feel with the characters (honestly, I thought of it more as a visual event than a story) now
2010 I enjoyed more, I was a part of the story.
Movies are stories, we want to be a part of that story, and with modern technology we can do that now. We have whole worlds for which we can escape to, that's the point.