Foster's Midworld?

Rating: 9/10 (21 December 2009)

The movie is too closely based on Alan Dean Foster's Midworld. Parallels are in the terms: Home Tree and Sky People, the concepts of evolved adaptive humanoids (the native people), of "emfolling", and of an interconnected world mind. The local tribe shown here is much bigger that Earth's humans but essentially human nonetheless. The local tribe in Avatar places importance in the ritual of recognizing the sacrifice of a hunted and killed creature. The same concept is found in "emfolling" (emphatic foliation) in Midworld. The minds of pre-existing beings are merged with the Home Tree in Midworld, ditto in Avatar. The Invaders come from the sky and are dependent on high-technology in both Midworld and Avatar. The guileless introduction of sky people into the local culture is the same in both movies.
This is not to say that the adaptation was not in itself a very clever and very original work. I loved it. But credit should be given where credit is due.