Avatar Story Controversy and Piece on Cameron

Published by Jeff Leins on: October 26th, 2009

This morning an article popped up on i09 that cited comparisons between James Cameron’s 3-D epic Avatar and a 1957 novella by Poul Anderson.  Titled “Call Me Joe,” the story centers on a paraplegic hero who telepathically connects to an artificial life form in order to roam a harsh planet.

In Cameron’s movie, the names are changed but the basic premise is similar.  Sam Worthington plays Jake Sully, a wheelchair-bound war hero recruited into an interstellar mission to explore Pandora.  He links his mind to an avatar in order to assimilate to the native culture, but ultimately comes to understand the resistance towards the encroaching humans.

The plots diverge there however, with Joe becoming self-aware and ultimately separating himself from his human operator.  There’s no love story, which Cameron insists is the core of his $230 million film despite the marketing centered on it’s groundbreaking technology and flashy gun battles.

I personally believe it’s just a coincidence.  Once the premise of a harsh planet has been established and the technology to explore it, you can easily reverse engineer the story to a crippled controller that’s sympathetic to the people.  I’ve read the scriptment Cameron wrote in 1994 and I think once people experience the two and a half hour spectacle it’s originality will be crystal clear.

Cameron, who wrote and directed, even said he drew influenced from Edgar Rice Burroughs (”John Carter from Mars”) and Dances with Wolves.  There’s even some Pocahontas scattered in there.

This isn’t the first time his writing has been called into question.  He was accused of plagiarism shortly after The Terminator was released in 1984.  Writer Harlan Ellison sued the production company, claiming two episodes of his “The Outer Limits” were ripped off.  Cameron took the premise in another direction, but the company settled out of court with Ellison, who now retains a story credit.

In a lengthy, but extremely immersive and entertaining piece on Cameron in the New Yorker, he claimed the idea of a chrome skeleton emerging from fire and crawling after a woman came to him in a dream after an over-worked night.

There’s also a bit about how Arnold Schwarzenegger was originally considered for Kyle Reese the human resistance fighter, O.J. Simpson was a possibility for the terminator (there’s a joke here somewhere), and how Cameron ended up marrying its star, Linda Hamilton (though only briefly).  Trust me, if you have the time it’s a great read, especially for movie geeks.