Call Me Joe

Rating: 10/10 (10 May 2010)

I don't give a rip if people "Find this helpful"
Not that I didn't totally enjoy this movie, or Terminator before it, but James Cameron needs to do one little thing: Add a writing credit to this film that says "Based Upon the short story 'Call me Joe' by Poul Anderson". And maybe even a CO-AUTHOR credit - Because Cameron snagged LARGE amounts of plot - Maybe even some dialogue! How could Cameron do this and NOT know that science fiction readers would NOT recognise a World-Class, Hugo-Award winning story? Even the original "Day the Earth Stood Still" gave credit to the Harry Bates story "Farewell to the Master" and THAT was not even as highly recognised as "Call Me Joe" is, 53 years after it was written.
Avatar does not simply use little elements of that short story, ut blatantly uses major plot elements including the very end. These things were NOT created by James Cameron, they were created by a science fiction writer named POUL ANDERSON and these things were created not in 2009 but in 1957. If Cameron thinks that he can just DO this thing and people will not say anything about it, he's mistaken! I know he used it, many other people know it and Cameron himself knows it because practically everything that is in the short story has been either used outright, or referred to in the film.
Anybody who has read the Anderson work and then seeing this film, can not afterward say that "This is a Coincidence" or "Cameron has just borrowed a few of the things from that story" - No, Nope. Let's list the basic things which are similar:
1) A ruined person is given a job "driving" another body.
2) This body gives him full use of his legs - The "Driver" is Exhilarated, enjoying his new body as MUCH as possible, even razzing his superiors. But the man, who in the story is named Ernest Anglsey, is chiefly most interested in one thing: Survival. This parallels the film in every way possible.
3) The ruined person's actual body rapidly deteriorates while the "avatar" or in the case of the story, "PsuedoJovian" body gets stronger - This is a MAJOR Plot element used in the film!
4) Eventually the ruined man's brain has been moved compleately INTO the PsuedoJovian body!
5) In "Call Me Joe" - this story takes place on a moon of Jupiter and on the Surface of Jupiter. In "Avatar" - The planet "Pandora" revolves around a SuperJovian"
There had to be a PROCESS where this could happen, in "Call Me Joe", the machine in which the ruined guy sits is getting feedback from the brain of the "PsuedoJovian" and wrecking part of the machine, a "K-Tube" - In this regard "Avatar" is changed from "Call Me Joe" - In which a Technician is sent to investigate why the K-Tubes are failing. This includes a two-year jaunt in 'Frozen Sleep" from Earth to Jupiter, just like how "Avatar" begins, with Sully taking a 5-year trip in Frozen Sleep. Still not convinced? The Short story is told as a narrative by the technician, "Avatar" is told in a narrative by Sully. The technician "Cornelius" is baffled, but eventually discovers this: It turns out that Anglsey had been "writing" himself into the empty Pseudo Jovian Brain the entire time, a brain that was made better than a human brain. So in the end of Call Me Joe, the man discards, happily, his old ruined body - The doctors said he went out with a smile on his face. And this is the EXACT Ending of "Avatar" Cameron took this storyline, and created a Planet that could store a human mind, a planet where every living thing can biologically interface with every other living thing. Because the TREES are a hive mind of some sort? Not that I do not admit that I like the things Cameron did with this story, but he SHOULD have given Poul Anderson DIRECT credit for this, because as much as I wanted to believe that this was a total coincidence, I cannot believe it NOW after watching this film, Cameron had to have deliberately used it.
Now regarding the FILM all I can say is WOW and I apologies for having to include that previous spoiler: it is a very good film, and I would have loved to seen it in 3-D. Seriously, the only thing that annoyed me was Cameron's use of the story without giving credit - The Imagery is Fantastic.
It is hard to imagine a planet that lights up at night, it is hard to imagine Live Action blended with an eerie PIXAR style of animation. The earth-based things, people, ships, guns, all LOOK like they are from Earth, but the things that are from Pandora, look like they come from Pandora, especially when the two things are shown together. James Horner creates a great score using elements from Aliens, Titanic and Enemy at the Gates.
My Favourite shot is when the Shuttle is first descending into the pit on Pandora, we do not understand the size of the pit until the next shot which reveals a MASSIVE machine digging up the ground.
Cameron says a lot about ecology in this film, he shows us the conflict between "corporate" and "scientific" and the resulting atrocities that occur. This has even occurred in the US, in our treatment of our Indigenous Population. Most of the things we use for energy today, were life forms in the past - And this concept it explored in the Avatar material "Unobtanium" - Named so because it probably cannot be obtained.
Regardless of Cameron's use of a classic short story without crediting it, I highly enjoyed this. But if Cameron is thinking of any return trips to Pandora, he needs a return trip to the United States Copyright office.