Protest

I am currently protesting against James Cameron.

Those of you who know me know I'm completely for artistic appreciation and protecting other people's art. I try and refrain from bashing movies (There's always going to be at least one redeeming feature, even if I don't like the movie), but I have exceptions.

Ever since 6th grade, I've been working on a fantasy story-turned-novel. It was truly an allegory, reflecting on most of my middle school career. In a nutshell, it was about Humans coming onto a previously-unknown alter world (Darhoumnd) and trying to colonize it to better help people on Earth, Elves and people called Trovens already live there and pull the "Hell no, I won't go" card, war breaks out. I had shown several people, and a few of those said that if I finished and edited it, it could have publishing potential. As I hit high school and was both

a) Not as miserable as I was in middle school and
b) Didn't have as much time as I used to.

From there, I casually chipped in bits and pieces when I had time. Largely, I spent time in easier classes just wondering what it'd be like and if it ever could be published. From the urging of my friend Aubrey, I posted the prologue on my DeviantArt to get some critique and inspiration to keep writing.

I saw this trailer this afternoon and nearly cried.



He called it "Pandora" (Which, mind you, is both Greek and an online RADIO STATION), and painted his people blue. I can't help but imagine that he found my DeviantArt, read the prologue (Which, truly, is the only part that is copied), altered some quotes and made the people blue.

Even if this is a huge coincidence, it kills me knowing that if I had only kept writing, turned it into to someone sooner, then apparently it'd be a huge commercial hit. Seems it'd be made into a movie.

Whenever I write, I cast my characters into what they would be if they were a movie. True, my ideal movie wouldn't work, as I cast my protagonist as Brandon Lee. But I hate not seeing Laura Michelle Kelley as my leading lady. Where is Ed Saunders? Why isn't this a Peter Jackson movie?

To top it off, Cameron is flaunting this to the world with various articles on how "original" he is:

"One aspect of Avatar that seems to have gone pretty unnoticed amongst all the praise and hype around the visuals and the technology invented for the film, is the fact that it’s a completely original script. This doesn’t have decades-old stories (e.g. Lord of the Rings) or an existing fan base (e.g. Harry Potter) to play off of. Although Cameron will undoubtedly have been inspired by sci-fi films of the past, when it comes down to it, this is a newly created entity that’s about to be unleashed on the movie going public."

"Cameron goes on to talk more about the very true fact that he won’t be letting a massive amount of people down if they don’t like Avatar – no one (by that I mean the majority audience out there) knows what Avatar is, no one has been able to read Avatar the novel, or the graphic novel and the majority of people will be going in with a blank slate, free of worry that it won’t live up to the source material… because there ISN’T any."

"It’s actually really refreshing to see an original project like Avatar making its way to our movie theaters. So many movies nowadays are based on existing material in some form or another – not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. But I’m sure I’m not the only one looking forward to not having any comics, books, TV shows or past movies to hold up against Cameron’s latest effort.

What about you? Are you glad to see a through-and-through original movie of this scope getting made? Do you think it will help or hinder the movie at the box office?"

I'm this close to getting rid of my copy of Titanic. Nevertheless, there is no way in hell anyone will catch me at a movie theatre to see Avatar.