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Was Avatar ripped off from Russian sci-fi books??
Whenever a movie hits it big—and no movie's hit it as big lately as James Cameron's Avatar—people come out of the woodwork claiming the story was ripped off or plagiarized.
Cameron himself acknowledged that he, um, was inspired to create The Terminator by two episodes of the 1960s TV show The Outer Limits, written by SF author Harlan Ellison. When Ellison threatened to sue, the producers added an acknowledgment credit to subsequent prints of the movie.
Now we learn that Avatar is also facing claims that it's copied from other works, and in this case the similarities with a previous work are kinda spot-on.
The British Guardian newspaper reports that Russian audiences are noting the movie's similarity to The World of Noon, or the Noon Universe, created by popular Soviet fantasy writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, a cycle of 10 best-selling science fiction novels written in the mid-1960s.
Consider:
The Strugatskys call their world Pandora, and it is warm and humid and heavily forested. So is Avatar's alien world.
The books take place in the 22nd century. So does Avatar.
In the books, the natives of Pandora are called the Nave. Avatar calls its aliens the Na'vi.
More from the Guardian:
Strugatsky, 76, appears to have shrugged off suggestions of similarities between Avatar and his Noon Universe, and denied reports circulated last week that he was accusing Cameron of plagiarism. On Monday, however, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper devoted an entire page to the affair, and carried out its own close comparison of Avatar with the World of Noon.
There are differences: In the books, there are two humanoid species on Pandora, and Pandora itself is a health resort, not a wild planet.
For his part, Cameron has denied in the past that he's borrowed from other writers and has always insisted that Avatar is original.
What do you think?
By Michael at 1:05 PM ON 01/15/10
Come on, guys. Everything's a knock-off or copy of something done earlier. The true test is if you can tell or not.
No news here.
By melsner at 1:06 PM ON 01/15/10
Three words. Dances with Smurfs.
By IntelKnight at 1:07 PM ON 01/15/10
By K at 1:10 PM ON 01/15/10
That is a very weak comparison. Pandora is a common name, thousands of stories take place in the 22nd century, Nave/Na'vi... all subtle plays on the word Native. I love the little note at the bottom though.. "Pandora itself is a health resort, not a wild planet" in the books.. um, so.. quite a bit different then, no?
By iloivar at 1:26 PM ON 01/15/10
To anyone who reads and watches a lot of speculative fiction, the imagery and plot of Avatar are obviously basic stock scifi/fantasy elements. Therefore it is unsurprising that there are so many comparisons and accusations of plagiarism flying around.
By YoYo-Pete at 1:28 PM ON 01/15/10
I tis possible that two isolated schools of thought can come up with the same idea.
By Justo at 1:29 PM ON 01/15/10
It may be original, Avatar that is. I don't think Cameron would actually just ripoff other works so blatantly. That said, I also think that Cameron is completely unoriginal. He's a good filmmaker, but he's got no creative chops. So yeah, he didn't steal anything, he's just a hack.
By Bluesman at 1:29 PM ON 01/15/10
He seemed to have "borrowed" heavily from Andre Norton's "Judgement on Janus" or is everyone too young to remember that book?
By R at 1:29 PM ON 01/15/10
Yeah, might be, and so what? Dances the Wolves is a rip-off of Sam Fuller's Run of the Arrow, many of Godard's early shots were ripped-off other directors- but he called them... homage.
By Winston at 1:30 PM ON 01/15/10
If there was anyone with a substantial claim to having their work copied by Avatar, it would be Poul Anderson. His story "Call Me Joe" has several key plot points shared with Avatar. In fact, when I first heard about Avatar about a year ago, I thought that short story would be credited.
By megawalker at 1:49 PM ON 01/15/10
Cough cough Lawrence of Arabia cough cough. Doesn't really matter to me though, I had a great time watching Avatar and I've just been taking it for what it is.
By . at 2:18 PM ON 01/15/10
Was Avatar ripped off from Russian sci-fi books?
Probably, among a dozen other contemporary movies, books and general ideas. There's nothing original about it.
By xdeathknightx at 2:29 PM ON 01/15/10
And lets not forget Fern Gully. But after many many many years of writing it will be pretty damn hard to come up with any new ideas.
By . at 3:21 PM ON 01/15/10
"But after many many many years of writing it will be pretty damn hard to come up with any new ideas."
He's worked on Avatar for 10+ years. Masterpieces have had trilogies in less time than that. He's just a hack.
By Lazlo at 3:33 PM ON 01/15/10
What? The word Pandora cannot be used in more than one story? Ever? Hmmm. Guess Cameron will have to fight it out with Strugatsky and the Borderlands game creators. Oh, and Frank Herbert's estate for his Pandora trilogy. Or Christopher Anvil's Pandora's Planet series.
Or...how many other writers have used the ancient bad girl's name? gimmeabreak.
By Iso at 3:47 PM ON 01/15/10
Whether he ripped it off or not (and it wouldn't be the first time if he did), Cameron is still a dreadful writer.
By lewis 445 at 3:52 PM ON 01/15/10
its still a badass movie none the less. i dont think it matters if he did or not
By UnRiel at 3:55 PM ON 01/15/10
Were the Russian novels ever even released in English? The comparisons are persuasive if not actionable. At the worst, the Noon novels may enjoy new attention for their similarity to Avatar.
By mykl at 4:22 PM ON 01/15/10
Everything nowadays is inspired from something that came before. However in Cameron's case look at his whole career has been nothing but taking other peoples' ideas, adding tons of effects and calling it original. Maybe here and there he had a flick or two that weren't from something but also keep in mind he was sued for “The Terminator” and settled I believe with the man accusing him… so where there is smoke, there could be fire.
Plus I do remember seeing him on PBS a few nights prior to the release of “Avatar” and the covers to the original Noon books were shown and I believe he may have acknowledged he got stuff from them (and odds are he has no plans of ever paying the real creator for lifting any of what he did).
By UnRiel at 4:28 PM ON 01/15/10
There should be a statute of limitations on how long an idea is considered intellectual property. Who gets paid when Frank Herbert writes 300? There are countless such examples.
By Julia at 4:32 PM ON 01/15/10
Avatar is a lot of copied stuff put together in one movie...
You should see this too:
http://themonkeymind.livejournal.com/35638.html
By Azgoroth at 6:17 PM ON 01/15/10
Personally I think he was influenced by C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner series too. The natives of that planet are the same scale as the Na'vi to the humans, and the human to Na'vi dynamic is similar to the books.
By Gallowglass at 2:06 AM ON 01/16/10
In the 1960's, as I remember, the Russian (Soviet) government didn't honor copyrights from other nations. Heck, they didn't bother even getting permision from the authors to reprint in Russia, nor ever pay for the privilege. So if Cameron did 'borrow' something from the books, it wasn't protected by their own government, as I see it.
As for borrowing things nd putting it together with something else, what else does a author do, good or bad. HP was not the first story about a school of magic or those with magic living right next to those without. Andre Norton was not he first to write about people being changed into a lost race either and her change was real, not part of a symbiosis.
One othe reasons it took 10+ years to bring Avatar out was thatthe process had to develop into a comercially viable proposition. Color film/Cameras movies existed long before 'Wizard of Oz' but haad to wait for the projectors to become wide spread enough to make it worth making general release films.
By hiho666 at 5:25 AM ON 01/16/10
There is one big difference – the books of Strugatsky brothers are genuine sci-fi.
By Kirsty at 8:40 AM ON 01/16/10
Haven't seen it yet but my sister has and she said it was just like fern gully but without a rapping bat.
Nobody has original ideas anymore they just take someone else's and do it a little differently.
I dislike james Cameron anyway for taking the title Avatar so Avatar: The Last Airbender had to be changed. The tv show has been called than long before Avatar came out. Pick an original name Cameron...oh that's right, that's why we're all here discussing this.
By karatejon at 12:51 PM ON 01/16/10
Cameron ripped off Pocahontas, not Russian sci-fi!
By Diego at 1:16 PM ON 01/16/10
I believe Cameron got ideas from several stories. The warrior accepted by his enemies as in Dance with wolves, the giant robots are the same as the ones in Matrix revolution, the battle ressembles a lot the Star Wars battles, etc.
Could be less predictible, for example. that would be original...
By Dabydeen at 6:43 PM ON 01/16/10
Just saw it for the 3rd time, and the striking similarity was with history. It's the story of every people who were ever colonized. Flying dragon beasties included.
By Olaf Stapledon Hates You at 9:21 PM ON 01/16/10
You cant ripoff someone if you have no real imagination to begin with. He aint no HP lovecraft Olaf Stapledon, Greg Bear,Robert W. Chambers, Stephen Baxter, Frederik Pohl, Larry Niven, Alastair Reynolds, M John Harrison, Ken Macleod, Peter F Hamilton :)
but syfy wire wouldnt tell the sheeple here about real sci-fi because they only post about "syfy" ;)
By G0m3r at 11:14 PM ON 01/16/10
How old is the scifi genre? There is very little new in the scifi world. Any given story will have things in common with countles other scifi stories.
By Kryche at 11:54 AM ON 01/17/10
I'm just surprised anyone is actually paying attention to the plot. The only reason worth watching this movie is for the 3D and to be at ground zero for "the movie that will change the industry" much like the original Star Wars did.
Unlike Star Wars though, this movie won't stand the test of time. 20 years from now there won't be millions of Avatar fans clamoring for anything they can get in the Avatar universe.
Anyway good for those Russian fellas. Sounds like they had a pretty interesting scifi series, wonder if I could get it in English.
By classy at 9:29 PM ON 01/17/10
who cares, as if the russians were ever going to make an awesome movie..
its like patent holders who do nothing with their patents
By Danuch at 2:29 AM ON 01/26/10
Iam from Sweden and 2 of our biggest companies, IKEA and H&M rip-off thier work of other designers/creators, its wrong I admit it. But in this case, I get cheap furniture and cloths with a damn good design....So over to Avatar, its been done before and its obviously a rip-off so what? I bet you 99% of the people that saw Avatar wouldnt never pick up the Noon books or any other Sci-fi book BUT they might do now :)
And you know what Iwe just bought the Strugatsky Noon book, gonna save it for my pack packing trip in Thailand :) its gonna be great ;)
By nothingnew at 5:41 PM ON 01/31/10
The bible says: Ecc 1:9-10
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
is it original? Probably not..should he at least acknowledge the works that inspired him? Yes
Rom 13:7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.
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nothingnew:
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