Does James Cameron Owe Poul Anderson Money?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Star Trek = Forbidden Planet.

My God, now I know why I want forty years of my life back!

 

[Kegg]

destroyed any semblance to Mr. Anderson's original.

So it's not like the Poul Anderson story?

Lucas ripped from just about every science fiction pulp story ever made to create his vision... But he never mentioned any specifics..

Lucas has admitted to being 'inspired' by the Japanese film Hidden Fortress, and it's well known he invented his own space opera premise when he couldn't get the rights to Flash Gordon.

Other influences are basically worn on his sleeve. C-3PO is essentially a male version of the robot in Metropolis, I won't deign to speculate where Lucas got the idea of a desert planet, etc.

 

[Sharr Khan]

I won't deign to speculate where Lucas got the idea of a desert planet, etc.

LOL! Don't want to open up that can of worms?

 

[JarodRussell]

Is the guy really called Poul Anderson? Who gives a kid such a name?

 

[Distorted Humor]

The reason why Ellison won was well...Cameron DID rip off his idea.....

Older I guess, less I like his work outside of Terminator. As for Avatar, never watched it (I really don't want to see yet another noble savage film with a plot that has enough holes to sink the Titanic.)

 

[Greg Cox]

Is the guy really called Poul Anderson? Who gives a kid such a name?

It's Danish, so I'm guessing lots of Scandinavian people do!

And Anderson was a legendary sf and fantasy writer who received multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America way back in 1997.

 

[Distorted Humor]

Is the guy really called Poul Anderson? Who gives a kid such a name?

It's Danish, so I'm guessing lots of Scandinavian people do!

And Anderson was a legendary sf and fantasy writer who received multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America way back in 1997.

Indeed, if he was born in Brazil it would of been Paulo Anderson.

He is one of the better "old school" SF writers as well...

 

[Greg Cox]

He was the GoH at one of the first sf conventions I ever attended. I also edited a couple of his short story collections several years ago. I never knew him well, but I recall that he was very easy to work with . . . .

 

[Reverend]

When I first saw Avatar what actually jumped to my mind was a series of novels by Frank Herbert (The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect & The Ascension Factor.) While the respective plots bares little relation to one another, there are elements such as both being centred around a group of resource starved humans trying to forcibly colonise a hostile planet, a native plant life that has a shared consciousness...and the planet in both instances is called Pandora...

No idea if Cameron is even aware of the books (there nowhere near as well known as Herbert's 'Dune' novels) but some of the parallels are quite striking. Of course there's a lot in the books that has nothing to do with Cameron's movie and visa-versa so even if it was a conscious influence I wouldn't call it a rip off. If not then it's just a hell of a coincidence.

 

[vinay92]

This is not to mention Anderson's 1978 novel The Avatar which co incidentally enough refers to a world called Pandora. Well, at least Cameron is great at recycling

 

[Klaus]

I recall in one of the Hugo Winners anthology intros Asimov claimed that only Scandinavians could properly pronounce "Poul"... Somewhere between "Paul" and "Powell", I gather.

 

[Mistral]

I didn't watch the movie credits closely-I just assumed Avatar was "based on a story by Poul Anderson". This is the first I realized he WASN'T given credit for the plot. As soon as I heard the premise I thought it was based on "My Name Is Joe". That thought didn't change after watching it, either.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Bryant Moore - lawsuit

On Friday, Cameron went three-for-three in defending these lawsuits after a Maryland judge denied a $1 billion copyright claim from Bryant Moore, who alleged that Lightstorm had infringed two of his screenplays, Aquatica and The Pollination.

In late 2011, James Cameron was Colonel Miles Quaritch. His Lightstorm Entertainment was sued three times in a 10-day period over allegations he had trampled on the precious works of various writers to create Avatar, which earned nearly $2.8 billion at the box office.

January 2014
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/james-cameron-wins-avatar-theft-672473

3 different lawsuits over Avatar?

Now, according to court docs a federal judge just shut down Moore's suit ... saying the plots of his projects were "palpably different" from "Avatar."

The judge also said the similarities that do exist -- sci-fi with a love story -- are too vague to be protected.

http://www.tmz.com/2014/01/20/james-cameron-wins-avatar-copyright-lawsuit-federal-court/

who's counting?

The Complete (16) List Of Sources Avatar's Accused Of Ripping Off [from io9]

 

[Tosk]

Why do these things always center around Cameron "ripping off" multiple sources, and never around all these other sources ripping each other off? At some point you'd think people would realize that the reason Avatar looks so much like a lot of other projects is because the relatively simplistic idea has been done over and over and over. Why didn't people kick up a big stink about Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves being similar? Three Amigos, A Bug's Life, and Galaxy Quest (and even Tropic Thunder) all "kinda-sorta" ape a film that itself was undeniably "inspired" by another film. Where does the cycle start or end?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Cameron gets shit because he legitimately ripped off Harlan Ellison when he made Terminator. As in, witnesses heard him brag about it and Ellison took him to court and won. Once you get that kind of reputation, it's hard to shake.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

This is a Walking Thread, but I really enjoyed watching the video Kelso linked to.

 

[JarodRussell]

It's entertainment, not a science paper. It might be lazy, but the basic Trek Insurrection story, or the idea of hovering mountains, etc... are way too vague to call it rip off or infringement.