I have not seen “Avatar”. When it was released, I read a review that included a plot summary, and I thought, “I read this over fifty years ago! Humans want to exploit a planet that they can’t live on, so they develop a mind-link that lets them inhabit the bodies of natives; a human cripple who ‘operates’ a healthy native comes to identify more with him than his own body and comes to love his world – it’s “Call Me Joe” by Poul Anderson, from “Astounding Science Fiction”, April 1957. It was the cover-featured story, and has been reprinted in several s-f anthologies and collections of Anderson’s best stories.
I assumed the reason that “Avatar” wasn’t sued for plagiarism was that Anderson was dead by then.
I have not seen “Avatar”. When it was released, I read a review that included a plot summary, and I thought, “I read this over fifty years ago! Humans want to exploit a planet that they can’t live on, so they develop a mind-link that lets them inhabit the bodies of natives; a human cripple who ‘operates’ a healthy native comes to identify more with him than his own body and comes to love his world – it’s “Call Me Joe” by Poul Anderson, from “Astounding Science Fiction”, April 1957. It was the cover-featured story, and has been reprinted in several s-f anthologies and collections of Anderson’s best stories.
I assumed the reason that “Avatar” wasn’t sued for plagiarism was that Anderson was dead by then.
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?57395
Fred Patten