Avatar's stolen concept?

[mellojoe]

Anyone see the movie, yet?

 

There was one phrase that they used that, well, if you saw it you know what I mean.

 

"I see you"  Anyone catch that?  (Besides the other stolen concepts, it was a beautiful movie... but there were a few items that felt borrowed from other sources).

[Feral]

I seem to recall "dreamwalker" was also mentioned.

[mb]

This was discussed somewhat recently.

 

I have not yet watched the movie; so far only seen commercials about it.

 

[Joebiwan]

I don't know If I'd necessarily say that things like "dreamwalker" and " i see you" are necessarily stolen from WoT.Dreamwalkers are found in lots of other media and cultures, so he could have pulled from those. As far as "I see you",I don't know, I guess that could be, but IMHO I'm not so sure. I do agree there definitely was alot of borrowing in the movie; the plot is basically the exact same as Pocahontas. I liked it though. 

[mellojoe]

heck, the plot is Dances with Wolves.  I just thougt that the "i see you" was VERY similar to the way the Aiel use it

[Talmanes]

Well there were actual cultures in real life that used that sort of greeting.

[Morsker]

We have to be careful with this. I'd hate for WoT fandom to be guilty of the same type of annoyance as when people said RJ copied from Dune. Sometimes it's a coincidence.

 

[Taura-Tierno]

I didn't react on anything in Avatar as being "stolen" from WoT. I didn't even consider anything similar, not more than Avatar's concepts being similar to lots of other stories and not least the overall Hollywood-theme on the movie.

[ed2funy]

lol....I posted this in another thread talking about this.

This is where it is copied from...

:D

[Taura-Tierno]

Also, I'm a bit lost on the "I see you"-thing. How's that related to WoT? Don't really remember exactly where in Avatar they said it, and I can't recall any particular place in the books where they've used it.

[ed2funy]

Aiel.

I see you Rhuarc.

 

In the movie that is there greeting. You see the scientist teaching the wheelchair guy in the portable unit thing.

[Taura-Tierno]

Ah. Now I remember, thanks :)

 

But didn't "I see you" in Avatar mean something like "I know who you are", whereas the Aiel used it like "I know you are there so you cannot sneak-attack me" (according to wikipedia anyway)? That's quite different ways of using the phrase.

 

 

[ed2funy]

True. Aiel are more of "Hey, I know you are there", while Avatar is more "deeper" than that.

 

But people see a similarity still. :-\

[NetSlider]

We have to be careful with this. I'd hate for WoT fandom to be guilty of the same type of annoyance as when people said RJ copied from Dune. Sometimes it's a coincidence.

 

 

OMG, this whole Dune again! I honestly don't understand what WOT has to do with Dune besides the dessert, somewhat a messiah figure, and what??? giant worms in Blight that only appear once in the first book?!!!! Every time I see references to Dune it drives me insane, and when I ask what's this whole thing about no one responds.

[rubbernilly]

Avatar

Dances With Wolves

The Last Samurai

 

It's an archetypical plot. Personally, that means that we should concentrate on what the movie did differently rather than on what is stock for that sort of story.

 

As for the greating, it struck me as similar to the Aiel, but not in a stolen/borrowing way. I agree that it is fairly standard across many cultures.

 

Heck, all of these sort of greetings have a similarity (for me) with 'namaste.'

[Crael123]

who cares where James chameron got his inspiration? it is the 2nd top movie of all time, behind titanic, barely. its made a shit load of money. it was a gorgeous movie. who cares dont play semantics.

[Thorum]

I think it surpassed Titanic last week.

 

we should concentrate on what the movie did differently rather than on what is stock for that sort of story.

 

Now I'm curious. Exactly what part of this movie is different than Pocahontas? I'm talking story-line here, not setting or dimensionality...

[mellojoe]

True. Aiel are more of "Hey, I know you are there", while Avatar is more "deeper" than that.

I kind of thought that the Aiel used it "deeper" than just "I know you are there".

 

I'm thinking of when Rand meets everyone at Cold Rocks Hold.  We meet Rhuarc's wife for the first time.  He says "I see you, shade of my heart" or something like that.  It seems much more than just "I see you standing there".

 

In fact, a lot of Aiel are standing face to face when they say "I see you."  So, it must be more than just a visual greeting.

 

Also, for it to be ingrained in the Aiel culture, it seems like it must be more than just a visual greeting.  It has to be "deeper" (in my opinion).  Thus, I think both cultures (Aiel and Navii, or whatever they were called) use it the same.

[Dagon Thyne]

Anyone see the movie, yet?

 

There was one phrase that they used that, well, if you saw it you know what I mean.

 

"I see you"  Anyone catch that?  (Besides the other stolen concepts, it was a beautiful movie... but there were a few items that felt borrowed from other sources).

Yeah.....well...theres a pretty good chance that that line wasnt stolen drom wot.    I've seen westerns from the 50's and 60's that an indian says I see you when a white cowboy comes to talk to him.  If Avatar steals the line then so does Robert Jordan.

[rubbernilly]

I think it surpassed Titanic last week.

 

we should concentrate on what the movie did differently rather than on what is stock for that sort of story.

 

Now I'm curious. Exactly what part of this movie is different than Pocahontas? I'm talking story-line here, not setting or dimensionality...

 

Well, I haven't seen Pocahontus, so I'll do my best. I was speaking more from the perspective of the archetypical plot. Even so, here are some differences...

 

First, in DwW and tLS, the protag was on an island, isolated from his own culture. In Avatar, the construct of the avatar allows our protag to exist in both worlds at once. This means that his transformation will be different, and I'd argue in some ways more subtle.

 

Second, our protag isn't as psychologically jaded or damaged as DwW or tLS. Yes, he is still dealing with the loss of the function of his legs, but there exists the possibility that he will get the use of his legs back. It’s just a matter of money. Therefore, for him, the physical damage that he endures is worse than the psychological damage. Which makes the third difference quite crafty…

 

Third, our protag is sent in, for all intents and purposes, as a spy. Sure, this is a minor difference, but it goes a long way to adding depth to the protag. Since we’ve established that he isn’t so jaded to have made this decision out of some dark place, the fact that he agrees to the covert infiltration gives him some nuance, as well as a lot of room for real growth (not--perhaps--cheap growth of throwing off that jadedness).

 

Fourth, I’d point to some thematic differences. These are maybe pushing the boundaries of your rules for this discussion, since they touch on the setting and world a bit, too. But, since they change the message of the movie, they are worth mentioning at least briefly.

 

You have the contest of marching civilization vs. good stewardship of the environment. While the gold was the driving factor in Pocahontus, I doubt whether the environmental message there was as strong. In Avatar, you could argue that the Unobtanium wasn’t as important (thematically) as what civilization did to the environment in order to get it.

 

You also have the contest of man vs. machine. This one they turn upside down, inside out, and pass it through their lower intestine to examine it from all sorts of different perspectives. Our antags use all sorts of technology... some of it to mimic things that the Novi do through their connection with nature (flying, for instance). At the lowest level, you have iconic scenes enforcing the battle of flesh vs. servo:

…our protag climbing on top of the huge bull-dozer to beat at it with a rock.

…our main antag strapping himself into a mechanical bot-chassie to battle the Novi hand to hand. Even to the point of fighting in that chassie with a blade against another blade.

 

However, the film-makers do some elegant things with the question. For instance, our protag is only granted immersion into this world by passing through something of a mechanical womb. It’s only when he is strapped into the bed that he is in touch with his avatar and, so, learning to be connected to the world. In the end, he must give up this mechanical gateway and simply enter the world. He has to be transferred to his avatar permanently, and here no mechanization can help him. The final transformation, the final connection, is organic/spiritual.

 

Those are just the differences I can list off the top of my head. I’m sure that I could find a few more if I thought about it a while. Sorry if this post comes off a bit… academic. (I know there are some here who would knock me on the head for such things). I tried to keep the tone conversational, but the subject matter does tend to be a bit dry. And since these are the sorts of differences I was initially talking about, there was no getting around some bit of bookishness.