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James Cameron denies Avatar is a ripoff of a Strugatsky Brothers story
Submitted by Capt. Xerox on January 15, 2010 - 9:33pm.
I'll promise I'll stop writing about Avatar once I actually see the darned thing, but there are so many interesting stories being written about it that it's hard to stop. The most recent is a claim from Russian critics that James Cameron has borrowed liberally, if not outright stolen, the story from a popular science fiction series written by the Strugatsky Brothers.
Cameron, predictably, is denying any such claim. I haven't seen the film or read the books, so I can't say one way or the other, but let's give Cameron the benefit of the doubt. Science fiction writers are also borrowing and building upon the ideas of others so it happens all of the time. Even Boris Strugatsky thinks any similarities are a coincidence.
Meanwhile, SF author China Mieville cites Avatar's CGI effects as being nice to look at, but not necessarily a badge of quality. He believes that slavish devotion to computer effects is rotting science fiction. Instead of crafting good stories, directors are more keen on looking for ways to ladle on bigger and better effects.
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Avatar vs. B. Strugatskiy
I have seen the movie and I know the book by heart. The similarities do exist, but this is a pure coincidence. Yes both the book and the movie describe a planet Pandora with a very unusual flora, fauna, natural resources capable of improving human life and the VERY unusual local folk, and yes in both cases the man from Earth becomes the man of Pandora, but the plots are completely different, the goals of both protagonists are completely different and even if Cameron did used the idea to call a planet with a lot of useful resources Pandora, and even if he did indeed ever read the book (which as far as I know was not translated to English), this is hardly plagiarism. If anything, it's a compliment from one sci fi author to another.
Avatar.VS.Strugatsky
With so many people writing today and contesting for an audience, ideas are going to look and feel similar somewhere in the process. I've been writing "the great american novel" for the last 4-5 years with cloning as it's theme that, all those years ago, really was just gaining a foothold in the mind of the general public. Star Wars did a pretty good number on that story and I began a rewrite - and that had similarities to Avatar, since I'd been working out the details for transferring the conscience of a living human to the clone without a presence ( remember Six Days w/Arnold S. ?? ). It happens . . . deal with it . . . and Avatar is pretty entertaining and quite visually captivating.
Thrawn ( Mitthrawnuruodo )
Avatar vs. B. Strugatskiy
I have seen the movie and I know the book by heart. The similarities do exist, but this is a pure coincidence. Yes both the book and the movie describe a planet Pandora with a very unusual flora, fauna, natural resources capable of improving human life and the VERY unusual local folk, and yes in both cases the man from Earth becomes the man of Pandora, but the plots are completely different, the goals of both protagonists are completely different and even if Cameron did use the idea to call a planet with a lot of useful resources Pandora, and even if he did indeed ever read the book (which as far as I know was not translated to English), this is hardly plagiarism. If anything, it's a compliment from one sci fi author to another.
Strugatsky in English?
I am a longtime fan of the Strugatskys -- but know of Pandora only indirectly through "Beetle in the Anthill" which was published in a great English translation around 1980. What is the title of the book featuring the Nav'i and other humanoid inhabitants of Pandora? And how can we get it translated into English?
Personally, I think Boris Strugatsky would find Avatar quite interesting -- leaving aside the juvenile military-video-game aspects, it is about politics, philosophy, war and peace, all the stuff that matters. And he would recognize at once the use of tales about far-off galaxies to challenge the doings of the powerful on Earth. Avatar is the first Hollywood movie EVER to show us the horror of a "shock and awe" imperialist bombardment from the point of view of those on the receiving end. A "realistic" war movie with such a message would simply never get made.
Strugatsky's Noon books
I don't know if the books use the same place and character names. I think it's the ideas that are similar. The list of Noon universe novels can be found at the ISFDB where it appears that they have all been translated although I don't think there have been many recent editions published. Most appear to date back to the 70s.
C.X.
Pandora is mentioned in many
Pandora is mentioned in many of Strugatskys' novels, but the actual early novel about Pandora - "Беспокойство" ("Anxiety") - was later transformed by the brothers into "The snail on the slope", their most complex, and in my opinion their greatest novel. There is no mention of Pandora in this final version, the planet is unnamed and the humans have no connection to the Noon world. I don't know if any good translations exist.
The thing about SB that sets them apart from most of the sci-fi writers is their astounding mastery of the Russian language, comparable to that of Platonov and Nabokov. That's why it is not easier to translate them than to translate Nabokov (this is especially true about "The snail on the slope"). But it's really great to hear that there is a good translation of "Beetle in the Anthill"!
Avatar
It is typically American, intellectual rights are only one way issue for US. If somebody downloads five songs from the Internet he would be punished by 100.000US
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