Danke, TBG.  Who woulda thunk it?  (Didn't realise there was a whole industry of this stuff on Avatar, though i've realized for two decades or more that plagiarism is Hollywood's second biggest industry.)

Should the similarities between Avatar and Call Me Joe cause problems for Cameron, it wouldn't be the first time. After The Terminator came out, writer Harlan Ellison sued the production company for plagiarizing two episodes he wrote for The Outer Limits. Even though Cameron took Ellison's ideas in a very different and novel direction, the company settled with Ellison, who is now acknowledged in the film's credits.

Literature, film and art are derivative of past efforts. The extent to which one is influenced does matter, but it's wrong to pick and chose who gets scorn and who gets praised. There's nothing wrong with seeing a great story and being inspired by it, and that is how some of the best material was created. Without that, we'd have a tiny collection of books and film.

The story with "The Terminator" is as follows. Cameron admitted in conversation that he had ripped off the plot "from a couple of Outer Limits episodes". At that point, the author of said Outer Limits episodes (Ellison) asked to be paid, and after a bit of litigation and negotiation (perhaps made unnecessarily unpleasant by the caustic personalities of both Ellison and Cameron) he was. This was perhaps entirely unnecessary, as the ideas ripped off were sufficiently generic that there is little chance Ellison would have had a case had Cameron not already admitted it. If the same has happened again with Poul Andersonm, well I hope he gets paid too.

 A lot of these plagarism charges get thrown around far too freely by fans who don't realize how easy it is to accidentally reverse-engineer another story simply by taking a story where it naturally wants to go.

Interesting that Cameron mentions Dances with Wolves as an influence, as well as admitting there were a host of SF stories which influenced him on various films.  The similarities to Pocahantas, a bit overworked comparison in my view, interests me as the star, Irene Bedard, is a friend of mine from the days of Smoke Signals. I haven't seen Ferngully (will rent it today) but i do know the producer, who was the model for The Dude in Big Lebowski.

What sets my claim apart is that most of these are from already published stories, while  Hiawatha  is an unproduced script, and to the degree there are specific elements taken, that could only come from having read the script.  or else two people having the same idea at the same time... which of course has never happened before.  :-))

As stated earlier, I'm not interested in going the lawsuit route at all.  I'm interested in seeing Hiawatha on screen.  I suppose it's time for me to reconnect with the father of the Titanic star (who introduced me to Leo at Tim Leary's wake), as he's told me Hiawatha is a great script.

and i suppose it's time to round up the native film community, from which i've been so distant since i've been focused (re-focused) on windpower here in Germany.  See what we can do now.

Remember, Wes Studi is in Avatar, and he was a colleague in arms.  Tantoo Cardinal from Dances also, and Irene as Pocahantas.

My ex told me that at least this will wake me up again, and apparently it has.  It's already been worthwhile to post here at ET, look what i've learned from TBG's links.

My first internal reaction to realizing Cameron read Hiawatha was that perhaps this will end up to be a good thing.  Wer weiss?

((Postscript:  How wide are the circles in Hollyweird?  One time i was hitchhiking at Sundance, and got picked up by Samuel Jackson. he asked my why i was there, and i told him i wrote Hiawatha. he stopped the van, turned back to look at me, and told me what a great script it was. Of course i had never sent it to him.

Jumpcut.  Jon Voight has taken me out to dinner after the rough cut screening of John Boorman's film (he had a role, and had never seen it before).  Samuel Jackson and a posse of ten are sitting at the next table, so of course he comes over to give props to the legend, Mr. Voight. But when he turns to me and says, "good to see you again" i'm particularly stunned. As is Mr. Voight.))

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin