Is Avatar Not As Original As Cameron Would Like You To Think?

At this point in the game, I can only hope that James Cameron delivers a good movie with Avatar. I say that because there’s just no way one single film can live up to so much pre-release hype. Sorry, but I’m not buying into the “This will change the way you look at movies” statements made by the likes of Cameron himself.

Don't take that as me shitting on the guy because I'm not. Been a huge fan of his ever since I was a kid. I even remember reading about the status reports of Titanic (on Aint It Cool News, Dark Horizons and Corona Coming Attractions) and being happy to hear that it wasn't a turkey like many predicted. Yes, I was a nerd from early on.

Not helping matters is this rather interesting find by I09 pointing out the similarities between Cameron’s forthcoming 3-D sci-fi epic and a 1950s novella Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson. Both entail a paraplegic having his mind placed in another (artificially created) body so he can go off and explore an erotic uncharted world.  Again in both stories, their new bodies are that of a giant blue and feline looking creature.

You smell that? It’s a lawsuit coming. Any time when there’s money to made, you can bet your ass there’s going to be some schmuck there claiming “damages.”

But in this case, the similarities are rather damning. It'll be interesting to see when (and if) Cameron, producer Jon Landau and/or 20th Century Fox will pipe in on this latest development.