What, another one?

/dnrtfa

I enjoyed Avatar, but the whole time I watched it, I couldn't help but feel like I've seen it all before.

It is not a new story. It's been done numerous times, even before Dances with Wolves and Ferngully.

Wake me when Kevin Costner sues him for ripping of Dances with Wolves.

ArkAngel: So this is the guy who wrote Dances with Wolves and Ferngully?

Or Pocahontas. I remember watching Pocahontas for the first time I watched that movie and realizing it was a point! by point ripoff of Ferngully. But then I didn't mind since the Disney animators made her so hot. In fact, I don't mind saying that I rubbed one off to her, except I didn't finish because the usher kicked me out. I was all "look, it's not like it's the children's matinee or anything", but did he care? Noooooooo.

So Cameron is being sued by the ghost of T.E. Lawrence?

So, he wanted to call his movie KRZ 2068... Maybe Lucas can sue him for ripping off the THX 1138-type title.

I mean IT'S LITERALLY three letters followed by four numbers. Not only was the idea of the story unoriginal but the title was as well.

Ferngully. That is all.

You can't rip off someone's idea and call it something else!

It's Dances with Smurfs!!!

The robot suits were a rip off of the loaders from Aliens. At least the control scheme, anyway.

So if this guy described suits just like the ones in avatar, he ripped off Cameron.

Space Pocahontas: The Final Frontier

telephone: The robot suits were a rip off of the loaders from Aliens. At least the control scheme, anyway.

So if this guy described suits just like the ones in avatar, he ripped off Cameron.

They all ripped off Heinlein.

Just how pointless would it be to point out that there are really very few truly original stories, and that most movies not based on books are simply variations of existing stories/tropes/legends? For exapmple, Inception was the Myth of the Labyrinth set in the Dreamscape.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: So, he wanted to call his movie KRZ 2068... Maybe Lucas can sue him for ripping off the THX 1138-type title.

Can I get royalties on that?

PizzaJedi81: Just how pointless would it be to point out that there are really very few truly original stories, and that most movies not based on books are simply variations of existing stories/tropes/legends? For exapmple, Inception was the Myth of the Labyrinth set in the Dreamscape.

Because IP law.

/lawyers got to be paid

PizzaJedi81: Just how pointless would it be to point out that there are really very few truly original stories, and that most movies not based on books are simply variations of existing stories/tropes/legends? For exapmple, Inception was the Myth of the Labyrinth set in the Dreamscape.

And it's not just movies. The FAX machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attatched to it. Ah, fark it. I'm going to go yell at some clouds.

FTFA: Cameron is being sued by a guy named Eric Ryder -- who claims back in 1997, he came up with a movie called "KRZ 2068" -- an "environmentally themed 3-D epic about a corporation's colonization and plundering of a distant moon's lush and wondrous natural setting."



I'm usually sceptical of these things. But I'm somewhat convinced by this claim. The clincher is the '3-D' part.

I mean, who has ever pitched an idea but insisted that it would be made in 3-D? In 1997?

Sold! Give the dude his cash.


/also, TMZ is getting sued for calling him a sci-fi geek

Avatar was awesome, can't wait for part 2.

Avatar was laughably ridiculous. Please stop paying your hard-earned money for this crap America.
Can we raise our standards so Hollywood starts making good movies? I'd even settle for barely mediocre at this point.

RandomAxe:

95% of Avatar (including all the good parts and most of the bad ones) is stuff that's been an SF since at least 1950 or so. The central premise is pretty much exactly Poul Anderson's from Call Me Joe, from the mid-50s, but it wasn't entirely new then, either. Or when Heinlein did it, or so on.



I think the similarities to Call Me Joe are far too numerous to be coincidence, and well beyond broad ideas into specifics of plot, from i09's brief precis:

"Like Avatar, Call Me Joe centers on a paraplegic - Ed Anglesey - who telepathically connects with an artificially created life form in order to explore a harsh planet (in this case, Jupiter). Anglesey, like Avatar's Jake Sully, revels in the freedom and strength of his artificial created body, battles predators on the surface of Jupiter, and gradually goes native as he spends more time connected to his artificial body."

That's a lot more specific than merely "Telepathic guy understands natives better, goes native" or "Humans are evil villains to the aliens' noble savages" or "future handicapped man gets cybernetic/bionic body". Call me joe has the twist of the native race being actually introduced by humans initially as a lifeform ideally suited to the alien world (actually jupiter, i guess it was still plausible to pretend that it had some landmass in 1956) and then becoming self-aware over the course of the story and rejecting their human controllers.

As a paraplegic, the protagonist identifies with the new natives and joins with them telepathically, leaving his old body a hollowed husk at the end in the arms of a medical staff member on the oribiting space station while his new native body/conciousness is on the surface with his new tribe.

Sure, separately these ideas have all been used before, and the noble savage myth fiction of the American West is a direct precursor, but no one had ever assembled *this* story before of since using all of these separate elements. It's a pretty unique storyline, well beyond the "boy meets girl, doomed" of a generic plot.

Also, Cameron got his ass sued by Harlan Ellison and settled over The Terminator, when Ellison argued that there were significant similarities to the terminator story and two Outer Limits episodes Harlan wrote.

Once a plagiarist, always a plagiarist.

KiplingKat872: Wake me when Kevin Costner Delmer Daves sues him for ripping of Dances with Wolves Broken Arrow.


/hot like a 16 year old wife

deadsanta: Also, Cameron got his ass sued by Harlan Ellison and settled over The Terminator, when Ellison argued that there were significant similarities to the terminator story and two Outer Limits episodes Harlan wrote.

The Soldier is one of the stories.

I saw it a long ago so can't remember how much was similar. Two enemy soldiers from the future go time travelling in the past.

Anyway, doesn't Ellison sue everyone?

GungFu: Anyway, doesn't Ellison sue everyone?

Really? Man, I haven't been sued by him yet.

This about says it all.

PizzaJedi81: GungFu: Anyway, doesn't Ellison sue everyone?

Really? Man, I haven't been sued by him yet.


HAve you written anything with time-travel in it? No? Get writing and expect a call soon.

RandomAxe: It's been done to death, and Avatar is a particularly nonsense version. It had moments, but only about 15 minutes' worth, if you ask me. But I don't care about the 3D. If you're seeing it for the 3D, then, uh, there you go.


I pretty much went to see it solely for the 3D. I looked at it like a 3D version of Planet Earth Pandora, or one of the 'Discover the _____' movies that plays on the IMAX dome at the local museum. And it totally delivered. There was a solid 40 minutes of nature scenes (the hunting/exploring montage, the dragon training scene, etc...) that were just an excuse to show off how awesome this CGI could look in 3D. The story was secondary for me, because unless James Cameron had a change of heart brain, it was going to be this classic story all over again.

Then I made the mistake of seeing 'Alice' in 3D, thinking that Tim Burton might know what he was doing, only t olater find out that it wasn't shot in 3D: it was a studio decision to post-process it into "3D".

So I'm staying away from the 3D movies unless they're written, mocked-up and shot with 3D in mind.

/But, yeah, if you don't like 3D/CGI-alien-worlds, the movie sucked...

It's a classic 'foreign guy with some damage comes in, goes native, saves the day, gets the girl' story.

Just add in a consistently White European lead with a touch of revamped white-man's-burden and you've got yourself a fine range of cookie-cutter movies that hardly vary much in terms of general plot points.

scottydoesntknow: Loomy: So I'm staying away from the 3D movies unless they're written, mocked-up and shot with 3D in mind.

You should go see Harold & Kumar..

And Hugo.

GungFu: PizzaJedi81: GungFu: Anyway, doesn't Ellison sue everyone?

Really? Man, I haven't been sued by him yet.


HAve you written anything with time-travel in it? No? Get writing and expect a call soon.

Apparently Ellison considers him an invisible man.

Fano: GungFu: PizzaJedi81: GungFu: Anyway, doesn't Ellison sue everyone?

Really? Man, I haven't been sued by him yet.


HAve you written anything with time-travel in it? No? Get writing and expect a call soon.

Apparently Ellison considers him an invisible man.

telephone: The robot suits were a rip off of the loaders from Aliens. At least the control scheme, anyway.

So if this guy described suits just like the ones in avatar, he ripped off Cameron.



Ahem...

Mugato: Tsar_Bomba1: telephone: The robot suits were a rip off of the loaders from Aliens. At least the control scheme, anyway.

So if this guy described suits just like the ones in avatar, he ripped off Cameron.



Ahem...
[3.bp.blogspot.com image 308x414]


Yeah, I don't think Cameron invented the "mecha".



Aliens design art by Syd Mead.
Wait!

Knowing how much of a control freak Cameron is, I wouldn't doubt it that he had some input into the design.

Holy cats, get in line, dude. Who and what DIDN'T Cameron rip off for this? Even Roger Dean had to put up a temporary front page telling people he didn't design the visuals. (For The Abyss, either. Yeah, I thought so, too.)

Can a fark lawyer help me out here?

I don't understand what is illegal here.

If I come up with an idea, but it just an idea and I write it down and later someone makes a movie with the same idea, how is that illegal?

tenpoundsofcheese: Can a fark lawyer help me out here?

I don't understand what is illegal here.

If I come up with an idea, but it just an idea and I write it down and later someone makes a movie with the same idea, how is that illegal?

There is nothing illegal about what you've stated. First, "ideas" cannot be copyrighted. Only particular manifestations of ideas. Second, if all you do is write it on your word processor, and save it to a file, and someone later makes an eerily similar version of what you wrote, you won't prevail on a copyright claim. In order to prevail on a copyright claim, you must allege not only identical or very similar expression, but you must also prove that the alleged infringer could have had access to the allegedly copyrighted material.