New plot twist in Avatar battle

Zhou Shaomou, the Chinese writer who says the script for the sci-fi epic Avatar was lifted from his novel and who had a 1-billion-yuan plagiarism claim rejected by a Beijing court, is now trying to get in touch with the film's creator, James Cameron.

Zhou has sent METRO an English-language version of an open letter he has written that claims there are astonishing similarities between Avatar and his work, Blue Crow Legend.

"Eighty percent of Avatar's content, plot, events, environment description and even dialogue can be found in Blue Crow Legend," the letter claims.

Zhou listed 10 similarities between the book and the film, which he says proves his work was plagiarized. He points to the fact that aliens in both his novel and Cameron's movie were blue and that the alien worlds in both were depicted as backward societies similar to the Chinese Qing dynasty, where men were identified with big pigtails.

"There are many more (similarities)," the letter said.

Zhou said he wrote the letter "with the purpose of communication and rights protection", but he did not mention the 1-billion-yuan payment he had tried and failed to get from the film director.

"We hope to get in touch with your side through the public media and work together to solve the original works problem between Avatar and Blue Crow Legend. Also, we hope we can get a positive response create a harmonious and win-win result and promote the communication and cooperation of science-fiction works," the letter said.

Zhou's claims so far have fallen on deaf ears. He went to Beijing No 1 Intermediate Court on March 7, but it rejected the case, saying the material for an indictment was insufficient.

The letter was written last Sunday. So far, the film director has not responded.

A staff member with 20th Century Fox's Greater China Region, Avatar's distributor, earlier told Beijing News the outline for Avatar was in place as early as 1995. Zhou's work was said to have been written in 1997, which means, copyright infringement was not possible.

"If someone says the script was created in 1995, they should provide some solid evidence, shouldn't they?" Zhou responded.

In the meantime, speculation about Zhou's claim was rife on the Internet, where many netizens suspected he was interested in promoting himself and creating a sensation. An unnamed netizen left a comment on 163.com saying the accusations were "unreasonable and shameless" because the novel had not been published. "It is humiliating to all Chinese," he said.

According to Zhou, "more than 200,000 such netizens" have poked fun at him.