Avatargate
January 29, 2010 10:52 PM Subscribe
In the early 90s, a comic series called Firekind was published in the British comic anthology 2000AD, probably best known in the US for carrying Judge Dredd. What does this have to do with anything? Well, it seems there are certain, er, similarities between Firekind and James Cameron's blockbuster film Avatar. Coincidence? You decide.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Er, yeah, "my friends made this" is pretty not-okay territory for a post. Your intentions seem fine, DecemberBoy, but that's not really kosher regardless. -- cortex
I haven't seen Avatar, but I'm pretty sure Heavy mixed up the protagonists on the chart. Previous posts in the blue would indicate that not only is Avatar the movie with the washed-up marine named Sully, but Cameron's choice of his name has racist implications.
posted by arnicae at 11:03 PM on January 29, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by arnicae at 11:03 PM on January 29, 2010 [2 favorites]
You mean Avatar wasn't original storytelling?
posted by Joe Beese at 11:09 PM on January 29, 2010 [5 favorites]
posted by Joe Beese at 11:09 PM on January 29, 2010 [5 favorites]
Goddamnit that movie had serious potential. Stop reminding me!
posted by Brocktoon at 11:15 PM on January 29, 2010
posted by Brocktoon at 11:15 PM on January 29, 2010
Paging Joseph Campbell's monomyth: you're needed in discussion #88750.
posted by Graygorey at 11:22 PM on January 29, 2010 [12 favorites]
posted by Graygorey at 11:22 PM on January 29, 2010 [12 favorites]
I don't think these similaries are very deep or interesting.
posted by marble at 11:26 PM on January 29, 2010
posted by marble at 11:26 PM on January 29, 2010
Yep. As similarities go, this is pretty weak stuff.
posted by Justinian at 11:28 PM on January 29, 2010
posted by Justinian at 11:28 PM on January 29, 2010
for another fantasy world that uses the "hometree" concept, check out Robin Hobb's Soldier Son Trilogy. also features exploring destruction of indigenous peoples/eco-systems and obvious physical differences bridged by transformation for shared understanding.
the thing is, this kind of story is so old, so trope, that you can instantly find dozens of books and films covering precisely the same ground to various degrees of success and cliche. it's been covered in SF/F since the beginning, sure, but you can even go back to certain marchen for similar adventures of experiencing life as an oppressed or hunted other and gaining appreciation for the "old ways" or "natural world".
at some point, i believe most creative people with your average dose of awareness will suddenly discover animism and want to do a treatment on it. or see an article on how poorly the indigenous of the world are treated. or read a study on habitat destruction. and, being creative, they'll want to explore this in their way, with their own characters, consciously or unknowingly borrowing from all of the other creators who have done the exact same thing.
all stories have already been told, some like to say. it's how well they're told, how compelling they are, that makes the difference. the best show homage to those they've been inspired by and try to either cover new ground or use improved understanding to expand the scope of the concepts covered. the average just tell the same story with different characters and backgrounds in an adequately updated fashion. the mediocre often seem to believe they're blazing trails when they're just repainting the old one.
posted by batmonkey at 11:30 PM on January 29, 2010 [2 favorites]
the thing is, this kind of story is so old, so trope, that you can instantly find dozens of books and films covering precisely the same ground to various degrees of success and cliche. it's been covered in SF/F since the beginning, sure, but you can even go back to certain marchen for similar adventures of experiencing life as an oppressed or hunted other and gaining appreciation for the "old ways" or "natural world".
at some point, i believe most creative people with your average dose of awareness will suddenly discover animism and want to do a treatment on it. or see an article on how poorly the indigenous of the world are treated. or read a study on habitat destruction. and, being creative, they'll want to explore this in their way, with their own characters, consciously or unknowingly borrowing from all of the other creators who have done the exact same thing.
all stories have already been told, some like to say. it's how well they're told, how compelling they are, that makes the difference. the best show homage to those they've been inspired by and try to either cover new ground or use improved understanding to expand the scope of the concepts covered. the average just tell the same story with different characters and backgrounds in an adequately updated fashion. the mediocre often seem to believe they're blazing trails when they're just repainting the old one.
posted by batmonkey at 11:30 PM on January 29, 2010 [2 favorites]
There's additional circumstantial evidence: Cameron's first treatment for Avatar was written only a year after this comic ran, and he is friends with the guy who wrote the script for Judge Dredd, so it's less of a stretch than it may sound that he's familiar with a semi-obscure British comic anthology.
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:33 PM on January 29, 2010
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:33 PM on January 29, 2010
Heh. Firekind is actually a lot closer to Avatar than a lot of the other things that are all simultaneously "exactly the same as" Avatar, but it's various twists are all a little bit weirder and more exotic, sometimes in ways that are good and sometimes in ways that are a bit naff. It's a very odd comic - basically the result of an editorial edict to do "something about dragons" passed on to John Smith, who used that as a springboard for doing something more related to his own concerns, which aren't very high fantasy orientated.
posted by Artw at 11:37 PM on January 29, 2010
posted by Artw at 11:37 PM on January 29, 2010
Oh, and it has been reprinted, in the quarterly Extreme Edition comic Rebellion ran for a while. It should be pretty easy to pick up a copy on eBay.
posted by Artw at 11:39 PM on January 29, 2010
posted by Artw at 11:39 PM on January 29, 2010
Žižek would find it telling that while the Euro-Anglo intelligentsia pick the movie apart for its racisim, actual indigenous people identify with it.
posted by clarknova at 11:57 PM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by clarknova at 11:57 PM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]
Avatar ripped off pretty a lot of existing content, and I'm not entirely convinced these guys have more of a claim than anyone else. My impression was that Cameron had combined about a dozen badly written sci-fi stories and worn out genre tropes with whatever b-movie and video game concept art was laying around or seemed applicable, then smashed it all through a multi-million dollar rendering engine and pretty much called it a day.
posted by sophist at 12:00 AM on January 30, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by sophist at 12:00 AM on January 30, 2010 [2 favorites]
worn out genre tropes
This is really what saves Cameron: There was nothing that original in either Avatar or Firekind. People wearing masks to breath on a planet with a hostile atmosphere? Floating rocks? People riding dragons? People having freaky sex with aliens? Member of an invading species turns native and leads the fight against his former faction?
I mean, it wasn't subtitled "Dances with Wolves in Space" for nuthin'...
posted by fatbird at 12:05 AM on January 30, 2010
This is really what saves Cameron: There was nothing that original in either Avatar or Firekind. People wearing masks to breath on a planet with a hostile atmosphere? Floating rocks? People riding dragons? People having freaky sex with aliens? Member of an invading species turns native and leads the fight against his former faction?
I mean, it wasn't subtitled "Dances with Wolves in Space" for nuthin'...
posted by fatbird at 12:05 AM on January 30, 2010
So, they're both full of plot holes & logical inconsistencies?
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:11 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:11 AM on January 30, 2010
DEAR MR CAMERON
In 1989, on the back of a series of fourth-grade spelling tests, I drew some totally bitchin' pictures of floating mountains with dragons flying between them. Please send me ten million dollars.
Eponymically yours,
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 12:11 AM on January 30, 2010 [8 favorites]
In 1989, on the back of a series of fourth-grade spelling tests, I drew some totally bitchin' pictures of floating mountains with dragons flying between them. Please send me ten million dollars.
Eponymically yours,
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 12:11 AM on January 30, 2010 [8 favorites]
About 10 years ago, I thought up what was basically Planet Hulk/World War Hulk, but with Wonder Man as the protagonist. Just sayin'.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:21 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:21 AM on January 30, 2010
I was thinking about having sex with the Blue Man Group and leading them to victory over humanity years before Cameron made Avatar. There's nothing new under the sun, is there?
posted by stavrogin at 12:29 AM on January 30, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by stavrogin at 12:29 AM on January 30, 2010 [2 favorites]
I always kind of thought that Smith had named one of the twists of Firekind off of the 1983 Sky Whales shorts. And it has floating rocks, come to think of it...
As for possible 2000ad influences of Avatar, how about Bad Company? Troops from a dying earth fighting for control of a lush jungle planet that's got a symbiotic ecosystem and which ultimately rejects them... by blowing up.
Oh, and a story of mine in 2000ad got accused of being too much like Avatar before the bloody thing had even been released. I did kind of sit on the edge of my seat whilst watching the thing, as Cameron clearly pulls from the same Sci Fi bits box as some of my stories and it would be a bit embarrassing if it had the same twist... which it didn't, though there was a bit where I thought it might go the same way as another story of mine... he didn't have no zombies or implied destruction of the human race though.
Oh, and since we're mentioning 2000ad and Judge Dredd and rip offs, we should really mention The Cursed Earth. It's one of the first Judge Dredd mega-epics, with Judge Dredd travelling overland from Mega-City 1 (basically all the eats coast cities joined together) to the plague struck Mega-city 2 (same again on the west coast) across the irradiated remains of America. It's fantastic, a defining moment for the character and the comic. It also rips off a ton of stuff from Damnation Alley. When I finally read the Zelazny book a few years ago I was really shocked at just how much it takes - the point of the quest, the reason they can;t just fly, the punk biker, the super-vehicles. Of course the stories more about the mad stop-offs along the way, but even some of those...
Weirdly the degree to which it's a rip off only increases my admiration for it.
DecemberBoy - You linked to the IMDB page of the fucking Judge Dredd movie? Jesus... why do you hate comics, the entire population of the UK and the world?
posted by Artw at 12:30 AM on January 30, 2010 [12 favorites]
As for possible 2000ad influences of Avatar, how about Bad Company? Troops from a dying earth fighting for control of a lush jungle planet that's got a symbiotic ecosystem and which ultimately rejects them... by blowing up.
Oh, and a story of mine in 2000ad got accused of being too much like Avatar before the bloody thing had even been released. I did kind of sit on the edge of my seat whilst watching the thing, as Cameron clearly pulls from the same Sci Fi bits box as some of my stories and it would be a bit embarrassing if it had the same twist... which it didn't, though there was a bit where I thought it might go the same way as another story of mine... he didn't have no zombies or implied destruction of the human race though.
Oh, and since we're mentioning 2000ad and Judge Dredd and rip offs, we should really mention The Cursed Earth. It's one of the first Judge Dredd mega-epics, with Judge Dredd travelling overland from Mega-City 1 (basically all the eats coast cities joined together) to the plague struck Mega-city 2 (same again on the west coast) across the irradiated remains of America. It's fantastic, a defining moment for the character and the comic. It also rips off a ton of stuff from Damnation Alley. When I finally read the Zelazny book a few years ago I was really shocked at just how much it takes - the point of the quest, the reason they can;t just fly, the punk biker, the super-vehicles. Of course the stories more about the mad stop-offs along the way, but even some of those...
Weirdly the degree to which it's a rip off only increases my admiration for it.
DecemberBoy - You linked to the IMDB page of the fucking Judge Dredd movie? Jesus... why do you hate comics, the entire population of the UK and the world?
posted by Artw at 12:30 AM on January 30, 2010 [12 favorites]
Nthing the nothing new in Avatar. Half-assed sci-fi has been done so many times, in so many forms of media, that any time any new half-assed movie/book/comic comes out, someone who used the idea in a different form (used, not had. That idea was had many, many years ago, and keeps being used) will pipe up and say "I did that before, they're stealing my precious wonder!"
But think about it: Shouldn't that person take a hint? The story of Avatar sucks. Only, I'd imagine, people who've never seen or read any form of fantasy or scifi could possibly see anything new in it. Do you really want to lay claim to that steaming pile? The dragon-riding cartoon, this comic, and all the others, and the people who wrote them, then claim to have been ripped off should be smacked upon the head with a treatise on decent plot making using original concepts.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:31 AM on January 30, 2010
But think about it: Shouldn't that person take a hint? The story of Avatar sucks. Only, I'd imagine, people who've never seen or read any form of fantasy or scifi could possibly see anything new in it. Do you really want to lay claim to that steaming pile? The dragon-riding cartoon, this comic, and all the others, and the people who wrote them, then claim to have been ripped off should be smacked upon the head with a treatise on decent plot making using original concepts.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:31 AM on January 30, 2010
Ah, here we go, for the terminally curious: it was in 2000ad Extreme Edition 8, review here.
posted by Artw at 12:57 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by Artw at 12:57 AM on January 30, 2010
"I was thinking about having sex with the Blue Man Group and leading them to victory over humanity years before Cameron made Avatar. " - stavrogin
Hey man, I've been thinking about having sex for a lot longer than the Blue Man Group has been around. I'll share profits with stavrogin 85% (me) 15% (stavrogin).
Finders keepers loosers weepers, yo.
posted by pelham at 1:17 AM on January 30, 2010
Hey man, I've been thinking about having sex for a lot longer than the Blue Man Group has been around. I'll share profits with stavrogin 85% (me) 15% (stavrogin).
Finders keepers loosers weepers, yo.
posted by pelham at 1:17 AM on January 30, 2010
Oh, I forgot the ultimate movie "borrowing" from 2000ad (except maybe Robocop)... Hardware/Shok!
posted by Artw at 1:32 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by Artw at 1:32 AM on January 30, 2010
Nice surprise spoiler in that Wikipedia entry. Well wroted to.
posted by curtj at 1:53 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by curtj at 1:53 AM on January 30, 2010
e.g. "Human comes the jungle world with deadly plant and animal life, air poisonous having to breath using simple face mask."
posted by curtj at 1:58 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by curtj at 1:58 AM on January 30, 2010
So wait - I'm confused. Is cultural borrowing a good thing which pushes forward our worlds art yet which is being hampered by large corporations intent on taking IP laws and using them to make money, or is cultural borrowing a bad thing where struggling artists are having their original work stolen by large corporations intent on ignoring IP laws and using said ideas to make money.
posted by seanyboy at 2:04 AM on January 30, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by seanyboy at 2:04 AM on January 30, 2010 [2 favorites]
I remember the first half of Hardware being pretty good, and then...not so good.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:27 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by P.o.B. at 2:27 AM on January 30, 2010
Dude, that comic was totally written by John Smith. What are the chances?
Also: Legos rule.
(Threadcrapping apologies, but I found that picture of John Smith in this hilarious thread.)
posted by georg_cantor at 2:52 AM on January 30, 2010
Also: Legos rule.
(Threadcrapping apologies, but I found that picture of John Smith in this hilarious thread.)
posted by georg_cantor at 2:52 AM on January 30, 2010
I was thinking what he's going to do for the sequels. The next one is going to be The Empire Humans Strike(s) Back. Except he's going to rip off Heinlein and make The Moon, Pandora, Is A Harsh Mistress. Everything is in place already, including the planet wide sentient god-supercomputer. I would lay down even money the ending is the same, and !!SUSPENSE!! they lose their connection to Gaia *cough* I mean Eywa.
The third one has the Ewoks dancing.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:59 AM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
The third one has the Ewoks dancing.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:59 AM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
I wish he spent a gajillion dollars making a 3D rip off of Judge Dredd
posted by Damienmce at 3:16 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by Damienmce at 3:16 AM on January 30, 2010
Damn, P.o.B., way to ruin the mood. I'd love to see Moon is a Harsh Mistress (and really, why hasn't it been greenlit? I haven't heard a single rumor, but it would be easily doable with modern tech), but after Avatar 2, Judgement Strikes of Doom, I can just see a studio exec tossing a treatment aside, saying it's too close to Avatar, just not enough blue people.
"Add some aliens, kid. Have the main character boink one of them in act three. Alien sex is all the rage these days."
posted by Ghidorah at 3:24 AM on January 30, 2010
"Add some aliens, kid. Have the main character boink one of them in act three. Alien sex is all the rage these days."
posted by Ghidorah at 3:24 AM on January 30, 2010
Ah... I think it's only news or interesting when Cameron releases a movie that doesn't plagiarize someone else.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 4:58 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 4:58 AM on January 30, 2010
By leaving 'unobtanium' in the final script (was Mcguffinite off limits for some reason?) Cameron clearly indicated that if the script contained anything original, or omitted a single trope cliche, it was an accidental oversight.
posted by hexatron at 5:15 AM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by hexatron at 5:15 AM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
I thought Avatar was Pocahontas.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 5:30 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by Ron Thanagar at 5:30 AM on January 30, 2010
Cameron clearly didn't go far enough; I was very disappointed at the lack of kinky sex in Avatar. And why is it that whenever a mainstream movie does even a vanilla bondage scene lately the bondage is lame and unconvincing. It's as if they're afraid someone might, um, never mind.
posted by localroger at 6:44 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by localroger at 6:44 AM on January 30, 2010
Come on no. This is, what, the 18th thing that people have held up to Avatar and said "LOOK LOOK!" Give it a rest already.
posted by Aversion Therapy at 7:24 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by Aversion Therapy at 7:24 AM on January 30, 2010
Disclosure: Friends of mine are involved in this article, but none of them use Metafilter or know I posted this.
Doesn't matter, it's still a self-link (or friend-link). Drive-by spammers don't regularly read metafilter either, but that doesn't make their posts OK. If you or your friends are associated with the linked content, then you're probably too close to objectively evaluate it. Your friends' mefi reading habits are irrelevant.
Note: I don't actually care if this post stays or goes. I just wanted to point out your error. I'm kind of a dick that way.
posted by ryanrs at 7:44 AM on January 30, 2010
Doesn't matter, it's still a self-link (or friend-link). Drive-by spammers don't regularly read metafilter either, but that doesn't make their posts OK. If you or your friends are associated with the linked content, then you're probably too close to objectively evaluate it. Your friends' mefi reading habits are irrelevant.
Note: I don't actually care if this post stays or goes. I just wanted to point out your error. I'm kind of a dick that way.
posted by ryanrs at 7:44 AM on January 30, 2010
Doesn't matter, it's still a self-link (or friend-link).
If it were a self link, it would have been deleted. Obviously, it's not.
posted by delmoi at 8:11 AM on January 30, 2010
If it were a self link, it would have been deleted. Obviously, it's not.
posted by delmoi at 8:11 AM on January 30, 2010
UNOBTANIUM. For Christ's sake.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:11 AM on January 30, 2010
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:11 AM on January 30, 2010
> If it were a self link, it would have been deleted. Obviously, it's not.
Don't be ridiculous. The mods may not have seen it yet, or they may have decided to cut it some slack. It is clearly a self-link under the rules, and ryanrs was correct to point that out. Whether his post stays or goes, DecemberBoy should understand the rule.
posted by languagehat at 8:26 AM on January 30, 2010
Don't be ridiculous. The mods may not have seen it yet, or they may have decided to cut it some slack. It is clearly a self-link under the rules, and ryanrs was correct to point that out. Whether his post stays or goes, DecemberBoy should understand the rule.
posted by languagehat at 8:26 AM on January 30, 2010
Ah ha! You're begging the question!
attn pedants: you owe me favorites.
posted by ryanrs at 8:29 AM on January 30, 2010
attn pedants: you owe me favorites.
posted by ryanrs at 8:29 AM on January 30, 2010
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posted by DecemberBoy at 10:57 PM on January 29, 2010