As far as the Avatar plot, ... well you are probably not going to see this movie just for the plot.
Actually, it wasn't bad (Pincus complement)... it just was so familiar.
According to the web - In 1994, director James Cameron wrote a 114-page script for Avatar. Cameron said his inspiration was "every single science fiction book I read as a kid".
It certainly contained elements of every science fiction story I have ever read, as a kid, and more recently, as a much older kid.
I may have a spoiler here so if you haven't seen the movie yet, you may not want to continue reading.
So which books / short stories might Mr. Cameron have borrowed some plot lines from?
Off the top of my head, the credits could have included:
Desertion by Clifford D. Simak - "Colonizing" Jupiter, human minds in native alien life form bodies. Written in 1944 (!), read by me later than that, earlier than 1994.
Various John Varley short stories - bio-engineering for inhospitable atmospheres
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card - neural network of trees.
Various stuff by Anne McCaffry - sentient planets, riding dragons.
Raising the Stones by Sheri S. Tepper - sentient planets, environmentalism.
Caretaker Series by David Klass - Greedy Big Business/Evil Corporations that pollute the environment!
Etc… Etc… Etc…
At least the plot doesn’t include time travel or parallel universes ie Schrödinger’s Cat references.
3 comments:
I heard it described as Dancing with Wolves in Space. Would you say that is an accurate description.
In my lifelong goal of striving to become an intellectual snob, you may have noticed that I compared the plot in Avatar only to plots in books.
However, I suspect I still have not achieved Intellectual Snobdom because the books I referred to are all Science Fiction books. And I did go see a movie (this one).
Anyway, I have never seen Dancing with Wolves so I cannot say if Dancing with Wolves in Space is an accurate description for Avatar.
There are wolflike things in Avatar, but they do not dance.
Dances With Wolves is a book, and I gather it is exactly the kind a true snob would read.
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