For years ‘Avatar’ has been talked about as a transcript of ‘Pocahontas’ and ‘Dances with Wolves’. And with some reason: As spectacular as it was technically, it is undeniable that much of its plot was based on both films., or rather in inherited clichés of the genre. But to find its true source of inspiration (so to speak) we may not have to look at American capitalism… but to Russian communism.
The Pandorian Iron Curtain
Year 1961. The United States, in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, refuses to print or display anything that comes from beyond the iron curtain (and vice versa). That prevented the Noon Universe, the extensive work of the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, from even being translated at the time. It is a saga of science fiction novels that began with ‘Noon: 22nd Century’ and continued for more than a decade. Make no mistake: basically it was propaganda, but with more incentive.
In the Noon Universe, communism won on Earth, and that made technological progress grow and, therefore, human labor is no longer needed thanks to the unlimited resources coming from the system. Actually, rather than a shared universe, the Strugatskys were choosing from here and there the concepts they liked best from their own novels to bring them out again and only at the end did they take it upon themselves to unite them and ask joint questions.
In 1965, the brothers wrote a part of the franchise that they did not publish at the time but will be vital to the story we are telling: ‘Disquiet’. The novel would end up becoming another titled ‘The snail on the hillside’, far from the Noon Universe, but in 1990 the draft of the original was discovered and it ended up being published 25 years after its creation. And this is where we stop, because the book takes place on a heavily forested planet called… Pandora.
Inspired, wink, wink
The planet Pandora in the Noon Universe is a vacation spot that is basically a jungle populated by alien creatures that the younger ones dedicate themselves to hunting. In ‘Disquiet’ the authors explain how humans have gone to Pandora to take advantage of its natural resourceshunting for sport and without taking seriously the dangers found within the forest.
For a time it was said in the press that on Pandora, a hot and humid planet, surrounded by trees, there were humanoid beings of the “Ship” race that it is impossible not to remind us directly of the Na’vi, but it is not true: In the novels there is a character named Nava, but the similarities end there. In return there is another similarity with ‘Avatar’: both stories take place in the 22nd century. Did James Cameron try to pay homage in his own way (that is, without admitting his sources of inspiration)? It is probable, because it is difficult to find more points in common, no matter how remarkable these two are.
In ‘Avatar’ the Earth is dying, and in the Noon Universe it is better than ever thanks to the victory of communism. Also, the human race spans many different planets: Ark, Giganda, Garrota, Leonida, Tissa… Pandora is just one of them and it is not where the protagonists spend the most time. In fact, as we discussed, the book wasn’t published until well after the original series, well into the 1990s.
Colors in Pandora discover
It is inevitable to believe that James Cameron has taken from here and there. In fact, the inspirations he took for ‘Avatar’ could already fill an entire book, from the artist Roger Dean (Cameron admitted that he had been an inspiration when creating Pandora but Dean lost his mind) to the now classics of ‘Pocahontas’ and ‘Dances with Wolves’, passing through ‘Ferngully’,
Cameron has been embroiled in accusations of plagiarism since ‘Terminator’, which took a lot from the ‘Beyond the Limit’ episode titled ‘Soldier’. So much so that they paid their screenwriter, Harlan Ellison, $65,000., and now it appears in the credits (despite the reluctance of the director). For having, he even had problems with the drawings that Leonardo DiCaprio painted in ‘Titanic’ and with the series ‘Dark angel’.
‘Avatar’, meanwhile, He had up to eight lawsuits for plagiarism, from writers of children’s novels to screenwriters whose films did not finish production. What is clear is that anyone can take a thousand inspirations from the highest-grossing film in history, and it is even likely that Cameron took different ideas without permission, but only he has been able to transform them into a money-making machine.