Tag Archives: Avatar

Roger Dean Sues James Cameron

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dean-asia-cover__130629021944Artist Roger Dean has filed a $50 million lawsuit against Avatar’s James Cameron for copyright infringement and unjust enrichment. And Harlan Ellison says he would love to testify in Dean’s behalf.

Dean’s work has been used on top-selling record albums by many bands, among them Yes and Asia, been displayed in museums and published in books. Filed on June 27, the federal suit contends: 

The similarities of each such work are substantial, continuing, and direct so as to rule out any accidental copying or similarity in scenes common to the genre. The infringing portions of Avatar are so similar to Plaintiffs Works that Defendants and others employed in the preparation of the film must have had access to the Plaintiffs Works.

Specific examples include:

The two key tree forms in the Na’vi homeland, the ‘Hometree’ and the ‘Tree of Life’ and other features of the Pandora landscape, are copies from Plaintiff’s [Dean’s] body of work, in particular the paintings ‘Pathways’ and ‘Floating Jungle’.… These are iconic themes revisited in 10 major paintings over 45 years with a large number of sketches and watercolors going back to initial work in the mid 60’s.

Also:

The Defendants’ ‘Signature Landforms’ are accordingly copied from Plaintiff’s works along with textures, patterns and many other distinctive elements and features of Plaintiff’s works. As a result the overall look and feel of the planet Pandora substantially resembles a Roger Dean world in that Pandora’s most striking and memorable features are those created by Plaintff.

Beyond $50 million in damages, Roger Dean wants an injunction, a full accounting and a court order posted online stating the defendants violated his copyright. He wants his rights enforced for future Avatar projects, too:

Further, upon information and belief, Defendants intend to film two (2) sequels and possibly a ‘prequel’ to Avatar, and a Walt Disney World Avatar-themed attraction, which sequels, prequel and attraction are very likely to utilize many of the original images of Plaintiff which would further continue Defendants breach of contractual obligations owed to Plaintiff.

If Roger Dean needs any help, Harlan Ellison is eager to testify about his own experience with James Cameron. Ellison asked readers of his forum to spread the word:  

SHOUT-OUT TO PHIL NICHOLS & EVERYBODY ELSE …
IN THE WORLD !!!!!!!!

Please make it go viral, if you can, that HARLAN ELLISON IS READY TO TESTIFY FOR ROGER DEAN in his plagiarism lawsuit against James Cameron. Please refresh Roger’s memory that I have been in his place, same guy, same allegation, and that I won…with smoking gun in Mr. Cameron’s mouth, along with his foot. I have no animus toward Cameron, but he really must stop stealing from his betters.

Please, anyone, get to Roger or his legal staff, and at least have them become aware of this vital litigious history!

I have great fondness for Roger Dean and the immaculate originality of his work. The moment I saw AVATAR I recognized the breaking&entering of the Dean Sacrament.

Any help will be appreciated. This suit has been long in the coming.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Update 07/02/2013: This afternoon Harlan posted, “Just got a call from the amazing, famous Roger Dean, from the UK. Thank you all for getting my shout-out to him. Godspeed, Roger, as you try, as I once did, to teach James Cameron that NO ONE can puff oneself up blowhard enough to escape one’s own thieving ways. Or, as Michelangelo put it, ‘Where I steal an idea…I leave my knife.'”

Avatar Meets Disney

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Florida’s two theme park empires are constantly duking it out for supremacy. Universal Studios Orlando landed a solid blow with its Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Ever since people have watched for Disney World’s counter-punch.

Now Disney has announced its Animal Kingdom park will add a section based on the story and imagery of Avatar, the highest-grossing movie of all time. Construction will begin in 2013 and the project will cost about $400m, according to the BBC.

Petréa Mitchell, who keeps an eye on these things, says “Theme park fandom has not generally reacted well to this news.”

Kevin Yee reviews the plan’s pros and cons in-depth in his Miceage column “Pandora-Land”:

The announcement that an Avatar-themed land would be built at Disney’s Animal Kingdom (DAK) [in Florida], with construction starting in 2013, certainly came from out of the blue (pardon the pun). Normally there is chatter before major announcements, if not fleshed-out rumors that have already made the rounds of various message boards. Perhaps because the news was so unexpected, fan reaction has been swift, explosive, and divided.

Let’s sketch the negative reactions first. A number of folks have been dismayed that Disney has gone to an outside mythology for this expansion, rather than building their own. Most attractions in the parks have been based off Disney’s existing film/animation properties, or else designed from scratch by the Imagineers…

On the contrary, the problem isn’t that Avatar is from the “outside” says Mike Thomas in “Avatar a Sad Consolation Prize for Disney”, his opinion piece for the Orlando Sentinel. The problem is that Avatar simply lacks everything a great theme park attraction needs:

Disney built its empire on great characters, great dialogue and great storytelling.

“Avatar” has none of the above.

I saw it once, my daughter saw it twice, and neither of us could name a Na’vi.

We couldn’t even tell you if any of the important ones died in that final battle with the evil white capitalists, even though we both darn near cried when Harry held a fatally wounded Dobby.

Avatar has no memorable heroes, no memorable villains, no memorable lines, no memorable twists, not even a memorable musical riff.

It has nobody that kids yearn to be. No Harry, no Hermione, no Luke Skywalker.

Petréa wasn’t sure I’d think the subject was germane to File 770, but with Orlando bidding for the 2015 Worldcon fans are at least one step closer to visiting the city and having a chance to decide between Hogwarts and Pandora as the place to spend a day.

A Big Bomb

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Charles Pellegrino, an author of several SF novels who also worked on Avatar, has discovered his newly published history The Last Train from Hiroshima is probably based on fraudulent information reports the New York Times. His source Joseph Fuoco supposedly had flown with the crew of a B-29 accompanying the Enola Gay on its mission to drop the first A-bomb:

But Mr. Fuoco, who died in 2008 at age 84 and lived in Westbury, N.Y., never flew on the bombing run, and he never substituted for James R. Corliss, the plane’s regular flight engineer, Mr. Corliss’s family says. They, along with angry ranks of scientists, historians and veterans, are denouncing the book and calling Mr. Fuoco an impostor.

Of course Pellegrino is no stranger to controversy, having co-authored The Jesus Family Tomb (subsequently made into a documentary by James Cameron, who has a similar plan in mind for the new Hiroshima book.) Nevertheless I am sure he is shocked, shocked I tell you.  

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]