Monday, January 04, 2010

10 Possible Sources of "Avatar" in Classic Science Fiction

Dark Roasted Blend: 10 Possible Sources of "Avatar" in Classic Science Fiction: "Instead, we are going to list some possible influences from obscure and even forgotten classic science fiction sources that came to our mind while watching 'Avatar' - there is no telling if James Cameron read any of them or was influenced by any particular tradition, but it was a good fun to find out and remember the jolly good reads that they are (see if you can remember any of the stories mentioned below, or if you can think of other ones)."

4 comments:

George said...

I forgot about Ben Bova's THE WINDS OF ALTAIR. Plenty of parallels there to AVATAR.

Richard Robinson said...

This topic is all over the web, but this is one of the best lists I've seen. I'd forgotten about the Le Guin book, and have never read the Robert F. Young novella.

Regardless of the sources, and the more of them that pop up, it appears ever more likely this is simply a genre-wide plot idea, rather than a steal.

We still haven't seen it, but perhaps next weekend, when, hopefully, lines will be gone.

Steve Oerkfitz said...

You borrow from one source it's plagiarism. You borrow from many sources and its research. I forgot about the stories of Robert F. Young-a very good writer who published a lot in the late 50's and 60's.
Cameron ran into trouble over Terminator borrowing heavily from a Harlan Ellison story that was adapted for Outer Limits on tv. Ellison sued and won.

S.B. said...

The story went deeper: in the eighties a science fiction and horror reviews magazine did a portion on THE TERMINATOR and interviewed Cameron, who said he had seen 'a couple of old Outer Limits episodes'.

A different author knew about SOLDIER and DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND and brought the article to Ellison's attention, and he rightfully brought suit; later video copies would have a story credit for Harlan Ellison. To pilfer the idea of the futuristic war Soldier and the concept of the mechanized man and time travel is one thing, but there it was right in the interview on printed pages!

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Terminator borrowing heavily from a Harlan Ellison story that was adapted for Outer Limits on tv. Ellison sued and won.