Blue Déjà Vu

Is there some unconscious reason why we might empathize more with an alien who was blue?

A few days after Xmas I had the opportunity to check out James Cameron's newest flick Avatar at the local cinema. The film was so shamelessly over-hyped I'd grown skeptical about it being any good. But I'm not one to pass over many sci-fi films.

Overall, I enjoyed the film. The storyline was entertaining and obviously catered towards mainstream audiences. It touched on quite a few contemporary sci-fi concepts without delving too deeply and without managing to get overly technical, philosophical or preachy. I've heard a few critics deride it for being somewhat shallow. While I can't completely disagree, I also can't believe that Cameron missed the mark he was aiming for. Avatar is the new Star Wars, not the new 2001. Personally I felt the visual effects worked well with the straightforward storyline, the pacing was good, and as stated before - I enjoyed the movie.

While watching the movie however, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu. I knew I'd already read a similar story set in the same universe. I just couldn't remember exactly what. After I got home I searched through my bookshelves for collections of sci-fi short stories. I found it - a short story entitled In His Sights, by Jeffrey Thomas. It's in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, published in 2007. I quickly reread the story, expecting to discover some sort of tie-in between the movie and the short story. Instead my sense of déjà vu dissolved into a strange sort of narrative confusion.

Firstly, I was wrong. Thomas's story - a satisfying sci-fi narrative in its own right - is not set on the world of Pandora (the setting for Avatar). Yet despite my faulty memory, my association between the two stories was no accident. Numerous similarities exist:

• both stories were told from the point-of-view of a disabled veteran (Jake Sully is a paraplegic in Avatar; while Jeremy Stake suffers from metamorphic paralysis in In His Sights)
• both protagonists travel to a jungle-like world populated by blue-skinned humanoids with almond shaped eyes (the Na'vi of Pandora; the Ha Jiin of the unnamed blue world)
• the blue-skins world is invaded by humanity solely for the acquisition of a rare and exotic subterranean resource (Pandora's ridiculously named mineral: Unobtainum; the Ha Jiin's strange subterranean gasses)
• on both worlds the mining of resources involves violating sites considered sacred by the blue-skins (Pandora's sacred trees containing the souls of their ancestors; the Ha Jiin's sacred burial catacombs)
  
• both protagonists were selected because their unique genome allowed them to assume the form of a blue-skin, infiltrate and gain access to said exotic resource (Jake Sully - his genetically engineered Avatar; Jeremy Stake - a mutant human with mild metamorphic abilities)

Yet despite all of these similarities I'm left with the impression these are two very different stories. Given the timeline, it seems unlikely either author could have directly influenced the other. Thomas's story was published in 2007, by which time production for Avatar would have already been underway - yet far from released. It’s also worth noting that while their stories share multiple details, they ultimately differ in form and intent. Perhaps I'm being naïve, but I'm not convinced that Cameron was influenced by Thomas' story (or vice-versa) - which makes the similarities all the more bizarre.

The scope and nature of the similarities is baffling. While the major thematic elements are hardly unique: conquest of an another culture for resources, assimilation into an indigenous culture, etc. (Frank Herbert's Dune is the first sci-fi staple that comes to mind, but really almost any war of conquest - real or fictional - could be cited as inspirational basis.) The plot specific similarities are more intriguing. Particularly the protagonist's special ability to take the form of a native. Even so, if only these similarities existed, it'd be easy enough to chalk it all up to pure coincidence. It's the little details that are the most perplexing: the physical description of the natives, the hostile jungle world they inhabit, the protagonists even have similar names!

Yet clearly both narratives are not versions of the same story. Despite the eerie similarities these are unique narratives - each set with a different focus and ultimately going different directions. Cameron spends a lot of time creating allegories about living in balance with nature - a sub-theme absent in Thomas's short story. Thomas’ sub-themes focus instead on the horrors of war, and the increased diversity of human and alien cultures in the future. In fact Thomas’s narrative primarily takes place on a cosmopolitan human world (the protagonist experiences flashbacks taking us to the hostile blue world). Other differences of note:

• the Na’vi are ten feet tall; the Ha Jiin are not
  
• the Na’vi are untechnological and tribal; the Ha Jinn utilize technology
  
• Pandora is accessed by spaceship; the Ha Jiin world is reached via trans-dimensional pods
• Sully utilizes a genetically engineered Avatar, effectively becoming a flesh and blood Na'vi; Stake is a human mutant capable of mimicking only the appearance of a Ha Jiin
• Sully ultimately becomes a Na'vi; for Stake the transformation is disguise only
• Pandora is more colorful; on the Ha Jiin world almost everything appears bluish to humans
  

In the end, the differences seem more significant than the similarities. Perhaps Cameron and Thomas drew inspiration from a common source. Perhaps not. Strange as it is, I can’t help but think about Jungian archetypes and wonder if somehow they each independently drew from the same unconscious wellspring when trying to create a captivating alien world. The stories are different, but the shared elements serve to create the almost familiar perspective – the feel – of a hauntingly strange world and its people. Maybe it had to be blue.