Avatar has been said to be based on so many movies that one wonders whether it is actually based on any one particular story, and instead belongs to a family of related stories. Avatar is an imaginative recombination of existing themes and story elements, and a visually interesting realization of its story, but I do think it owes more to some movies than others.
So much so, in fact, that I think that certain movies had a noticeable impact on the minds of the story's developer(s).
Click on the picture to enlarge.
I started thinking about this when I first heard Avatar characterized as "Dances With Wolves on another planet." The more I thought of this idea, the more apparent it was to me that it had much more close parallels with another film. As I finally started to assemble my thoughts on the matter, I came across the meme above. If you look at the picture, you can see some apparent similarities between Avatar and some other films. Some are more superficial than others.
