My favorite moment in Avatar was when Giovanni Ribisi’s character (faced with the navigating a complex 3-D mapping interface) turns to a nearby lackey and orders them to navigate for him.

Another point to consider is who the interface is made for. Consumer products focus a lot more on usability and simplicity to create a positive user experience. But I think we have all experienced that a lot of enterprise software, specifically for technical applications or data management, are focused heavily on functionality and budget with little or no time put into interface.

To that point, perhaps the examples in the movies (which are obviously about impressing the viewer with futuristic CG, not mimicing reality) are not as off-target as we might assume. I can tell you from my brief employment with NASA that their in-house code had no thought or effort at all put into elegant user interfaces.