Exactly. It's obnoxious self-aggrandizement. Which is not to say Cameron doesn't need to keep his mouth shut - and more importantly stop using shit without giving proper credit.
Hollywood has ripped off other artistic creations before, if this Roger Dean accusation is true then it would be nothing new in the industry.
OK, reading my post back, the use of the word copyright was a poor choice as it is steeped in legalese and subtext. I'd considered using 'artistic vision' but that just sounded wanky. I am no expert on American law. I do, however, say that if the whale is white and the captain of the whaler is named Ahab you have a case. Personally I think Dean will lose. I'd like him to get credit, but Cameron's legal team will be hard to beat.
Sadly, Don Rosa has retired (eye trouble), but if Marvel would hire him to write and draw a story about Howard the Duck's visit to Duckburg to meet his cousin Donald Duck, I'd buy multiple copies!
Avatar is a concept that was thought of planned out by none other than J. Michael Straczynski. Unfortunately for that under-appreciated visionary, James Cameron was spying on him in the shower as he mumbled the details to himself as they came to him.
I wrote Avatar when I was in highschool. Though in my version the aliens weren't sexy cat people and there was a lot more "Starship Troopers"-esque propaganda to push the war effort against a clearly outmatched enemy. As to the art in question, while there is some clear inspiration there, none of it rises to the level I would say constitutes theft. I have no doubt that some of Dean's work was posted up along with that of dozens of other artists to help shape the landscape of Pandora but if that was enough to sue over, no artist would ever make a dime because they would all be paying royalties to the artists that inspired them. I say that as an artist who can say with 100% confidence I've never made anything even 50% original in my life. Dean's signature is in the style he applies to those concepts, not the concepts themselves, and it is clear to me the art team of Avatar took a path very different from that style.
Not every developed country fantasy about somebody going and joining the natives then leading them into battle is a copy of every other one. It's a pretty base fantasy that can be pandered to in many different ways.