KRZ: An avatar story Wiki



Welcome to, KRZ: An avatar story
I'm Eric Ryder, and on December 8th, 2011 I filed a lawsuit over the movie Avatar against James Cameron and his production company(wholly owned), Lightstorm Entertainment.

Besides using this platform to tell the KRZ story, as well as the story of its Development at Lighstorm, and the following lawsuit, I will do my best to identify story elements in the upcoming Avatar Sequels, as they surface, that were first found in KRZ.

Please note however, this is a work in progress and it will be sometime before it's complete.

Thank you.

LATEST: Cameron Attempts to Acquire the KRZ Copyright, Story Work, Reference Materials, and a Commitment From Ryder Not To Sue Again. This Time Over the Avatar Sequels
On May 1, 2018 Cameron attempted to acquire my Copyright to KRZ, the story materials and Art Direction Images, as well as a commitment from me not to sue over the Avatar sequels. I turned it down flat. His offer was wildly insulting given this nearly twenty year ordeal.

The Story Of My Story: KRZ, Cameron, Lightstorm, and Avatar
In the first half of 1996, after nearly ten years as a 3D artist, I was finishing special effects work on the movie Eraser, with Arnold Schwarzenegger. After then moving to California, I began writing a sci-fi short story intended to serve as a movie treatment. It was inspired by a 3D character I’d started to design and build, KRZ.

In 2000 I registered a Copyright for KRZ with the Library of Congress. A short time later, James Cameron's production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, told me they wanted to put KRZ into Development and make it a film. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Lightstorm already had a "Scriptment" on hand of Cameron's latest story, something called, Avatar. But, its Development had recently been put on hold.

After our initial meeting, the first thing I was encouraged to do...was to continue writing. And, that I did. Openings, endings, character development, scenes...anything and everything that came to mind.

Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment is a small production company. They estimate that in 2000-2001, at the time I was in Development there with KRZ, they had a total staff of roughly twelve people. I engaged with Lightstorm Executive, Jay Sanders, Director of Development, and met with, Rae Sanchini, Lightstorm Principle and Executive Producer of Titanic, and Jon Landau, Lightstorm Principle and Executive Producer of Avatar, who oversaw Development.

Lightstorm, Its Development Department, Avatar and KRZ
Cameron launched Lightstorm Entertainment in 1990, which included its Development Department. Yet, in April 2010, Cameron said to the Los Angeles Times:

"I don’t really want to produce other people’s movies…I make my own stuff…I’m not going to be some big production company…It doesn’t interest me."

And, at least in this context, Freudian Slip or not, Cameron was true to his word. Because Lightstorm has apparently never Developed any outside story into a film in the nearly 30 years of its existence.

But, in 2000, I was told an altogether different story. I was told explicitly that Lightstorm wanted to make KRZ into a Feature Film. And, I wouldn't be surprised to hear many other writers thru the years were told something similar.

I now believe the sole purpose of Lightstorm’s Development Department is, what I call, “Idea Scraping”.

Along with the KRZ Copyrighted story and pages and pages of additional writing, I brought more than a hundred images that also seemed to be well received by Lightstorm’s Development team.

It was said that Avatar featured, "...exotic flora and fauna unlike anything on Earth". This is not true. Virtually everything in Pandora's jungle that revealed its bioluminescence at night, similar to the bioluminescence depicted in KRZ, is clearly inspired by life within Earth's oceans. And an ocean on a distant moon is where KRZ is largely set. It seems clear that many of the underwater images I shared with Lightstorm are strikingly similar to imagery in the Avatar film.

In fact, what was called a 'Willathewisp" and described as being similar to a "dandelion seed" in the Avatar Scriptment, became a "Woodsprite" in the Avatar film, and appears much like the Deep Sea Jellyfish image I provided to Lightstorm for KRZ.In fact, it's now precisely how they describe, "A woodsprite...They are similar in appearance to small deep-sea jellyfish, but they float on the wind like dandelion seeds..." Curious then that, in the course of my lawsuit, Avatar's Art Director claimed that rather than a deep-sea jellyfish, their "inspiration" for the change from Scriptment to Script was to give the Dandelion Seed a "bad hair day" look.

After roughly a year or more of Development with Cameron's Lightstorm, they killed the KRZ project.

I was told KRZ was dropped because, "No one wants to see a feature film about the environment".

Cameron, in his deposition for this case claimed he was completely unaware of KRZ.

While, Stacy Maes, Vice President of Development, who started her ten year career at Lightstorm as receptionist and worked her way up, said in her deposition that nothing came into Lightstorm that Cameron hadn't let in.

In 2001 Landau, having previously been named COO of Lightstorm, installed Greg Frankovich as the new Vice President of Development and Production. With Frankovich in place, enthusiasm for the KRZ project continued abated, and would do so thru 2006. While I was sent packing no wiser in early 2002, KRZ as an active Development project would continue at Lightstorm for 4 more years without the knowledge of me, the Copyright owner.

Avatar was put back into active Development and Cameron began writing the first draft of the Avatar Screenplay in 2005-2006. Lightstorm's internal Database shows the KRZ project being accessed repeatedly during this time.

At the same time, Lightstorm Documents show that KRZ made dozens(?) of regular appearances on their internal project access tracking memos over the following 4(?) years, during which time Avatar had been "rebooted" and put back into Development.

Avatar was ultimately Copyrighted in 2008 by 20th Century Fox. The film premiered in December of 2009. Fox apparently pays 100% of Lightstorm's overhead, financed the film, and is financing the Sequels.

Cameron and Judge Acknowledge Dozens of Similarities Between KRZ and Avatar
Defendant's, Cameron and Lightstorm, argued and the judge agreed, that of the 36 similarities I found between KRZ and the Avatar film, they saw only two dozen. And critically, those 24 were pre-existing. So, in its way, much like having Marvel Comics acknowledge that you independently created and owned 24 story elements found in Spiderman. And, while there is some satisfaction in that, the fact that the same Judge then denied me a trial of the facts on the other striking similarities was, and still is, deeply troubling. One of those facts being that Cameron's Lightstorm put KRZ into Development when it had dozens of Striking Similarities to the bosses own story, then temporarily paused in Development of its own. At the same time it also seems fundamentally at odds with Cameron’s current efforts to extract my KRZ rights from me...if the stories are indeed unrelated.

Once Cameron had decided to reboot Avatar, he was faced with a serious conundrum. The Scriptment was flawed and could not effectively be made into a film as it stood. The story needed ideas, needed a fix. Lightstorm executives, Jon Landau, Rae Sanchini, Stacy Maes, and 20th Century Fox executive Emma Watts, all having read KRZ and intimately familiar with its Development, were called upon to rack their brains for solutions...or there'd be no Avatar movie.

Maes said in her Deposition, that Cameron had directed her to be on the lookout for anything similar to Avatar at other studios,

In his deposition Landau admitted that his suggestions to Cameron for Avatar may have included KRZ story ideas.

Which, is no small irony. Given that Landau oversaw the Development Department at Lightstorm and at first, denied under oath that he'd received KRZ story materials directly to his personal fax. He subsequently, "corrected" his testimony, and acknowledged that in fact he had.

In hindsight, it's hard to believe Lightstorm was ever seriously going to make two movies at the same time in which a protagonist experiences “first person”, thru the sensory nervous system of a lunar being, an out of control corporate executive wreaking environmental death and destruction on a distant moon, in blind desire to mine more of a precious commodity for earth in order to boost quarterly profits, and is enlisted to spy for the corporation to ensure the mining continues, only to succumb to the bioluminescent and natural beauty of the lunar environment and then betray the mission by joining in a mutiny against the devastation.

The most notable difference being, KRZ is largely set underwater.

"Core, Defining" Story Element Of Avatar Film, First Found at Cameron's Lightstorm in KRZ, and Is Not In Preceding Avatar Scriptment
The single biggest change from the Avatar Scriptment story to the Avatar movie story, was the protagonist Jake, who transformed from a simple military "grunt", into a spy who betrays his mission, and then joins in a mutiny against it.

In KRZ, the protagonist, Marlowe, was introduced by stating, "I work freelance as a corporate spy", later betrayed that mission, and joined in a mutiny.

Defending Cameron, his lawyers, led by Robert Rotstein of Mitchell, Silberberg, and Knupp, stated that the spy who betrayed the mission was a, "...core, defining element of the Avatar story". But,that was in another case against Cameron in the 9th Circuit in Pasadena.

In my case, Rotstein said the exact opposite. In the Ryder vs Lightstorm and James Cameron case, Rotstein contradicted himself and said that the spy element wasn't a very important part of Avatar, and besides, the KRZ protagonist wasn't a real spy anyway.

Notably, based on Cameron's and Rotstein's "spy" definition...James Bond "himself" would not qualify as a spy either.

Beyond that, in Lightstorm's own internal project database, the KRZ Development Docs listed Marlowe, KRZ's protagonist, as a "Spy".

In fact, what Rotstein described as not a very important part of Avatar was essentially the only change to what Cameron himself considered the fundamentally flawed Avatar Scriptment, which couldn’t be made into a film.

During his deposition and commenting on the "spy" element, Cameron said under oath, "I, I'm kind of shocked I didn't think of it when I was, you know, blazing out the scriptment originally." (Bates #003006).

Yet, Cameron didn't change Avatar's protagonist into a spy until 2005. After KRZ been in Development at Lightstorm with its "spy" element in place for years and some ten years after Cameron supposedly wrote the Scriptment. In his Deposition, he said of the change, "To me, it's quite, it's quite patently obvious." (Bates #0030060).

I think it's pretty obvious too, but I'm referring to where the idea came from.

I believe the story element that "saved" the Avatar Scriptment and helped make the movie “possible” and become the global box office champion was found in my story, KRZ.

Is Cameron Planning to Take The Avatar Sequels Where KRZ and Its Copyright Have Already Been?
I believe the following are Copyright Infringements of my work that will arise based on announced and/or “dot connecting” that gives me a large measure of confidence they will be included in the Avatar sequels as we understand them thus far.

Given the timeline Cameron has laid out for how many years later Avatar 2 will be set from the first, I expect that, like KRZ. reinforcements will be arriving on the moon that were sent by those on earth hoping to recapture their lunar base and resume mining. Next, arguably the biggest difference between KRZ and Avatar was the setting. KRZ was set largely underwater on Europa, moon of gas giant Jupiter. Because the underwater settings were central to KRZ and effectively non-existent in Avatar, that element played almost no part in my lawsuit against Cameron. Other than the underwater reference images I'd provided to Lightstorm. Although, the underwater element of KRZ was of interest to Defendant’s Cameron and Lightstorm, as revealed by their attorney’s line of questioning during my Deposition. In hindsight, it seems Rotstein knew where the Sequels were going then.
 * 1. Reinforcements sent to recapture lunar base and resume mining.
 * 2. In November 2017 Cameron confirmed production had begun on the Avatar sequels and that, like KRZ, they now would be set largely underwater on Pandora, moon of gas giant Polyphemus.

I suspect Cameron will attempt to include another central element from the KRZ story, Volcanic activity on the ocean floor. Underwater Volcanoes, or Submarine Volcanoes, "are underwater vents or fissures in the Earth's surface from which magma can erupt"(Wikipedia). "Hydrothermal vents are the chimneys and mounds created by the circulation of sea water that seeps deep into the volcano and then returns to the surface of the sea floor"(Robert Ballard's Ocean Exploration Trust). Hydrothermal Vents were discovered on earth in 1977 when researchers were exploring the Galapagos Islands. Twenty years later, there was speculation in the Scientific community that there might be similar Volcanic activity on Europa.

In March 2012, Cameron went to the Marianas Islands and a deep sea dive to the Mariana Trench where he was captivated by the Hydrothermal Vents there. He gave a TED talk on his experience in 2010.

Landau has said that there will be more “volcanoes” in the sequels. There were no “volcanoes” depicted in the Avatar movie.

Cameron has said that the islands of Micronesia will be an inspiration for the islands above the underwater settings in the Avatar Sequels. The Micronesian Islands are in fact above underwater volcanoes.
 * 3. Underwater Volcanic Hydrothermal Vents in the Avatar sequels.

Lightstorm's Development Heads described KRZ's underwater settings and Underwater Volcanoes as a, "completely spectacular setting"(LIGHT001800), "the story's setting is so amazing on so many levels"(LIGHT001801), "this is robust and commercially appealing SCIFI-action."
 * 4. Underwater Volcanic Hydrothermal Vent eco-system's creatures and valued materials in the Avatar sequels.

Given that Cameron and Lightstorm are 100% clear on who I am, my story, my Copyright, and my claims...after all, they made me an offer for all of that on 5/1/18...I would see an Avatar sequel that included any of the above as Willful Copyright Infringement.

Cameron doesn't seem to understand the damage he’s done and how it has added fuel to the fire as it relates to questions of character. And, I would argue, questions of creative "chops" as well.

For instance, Terminator, the film that launched Cameron’s career. Cameron said the story came to him during a nightmare while ill. In it, an invincible robot hitman was sent from the future to kill him.

Legendary Sci-Fi author, Harlan Ellison, had heard rumblings about the story around Hollywood and had his suspicions about where Cameron really came up with the idea. These were fueled further by assertions that Cameron supposedly told a magazine that he’d gotten the idea for Terminator from some Outer Limits episodes, and another about a boast that he'd "ripped off a couple of Harlan Ellison stories". Upon seeing Terminator’s premier, Ellison took his case to the Terminator production company. In the end, Ellison received a credit on the film and said he also received financial compensation.

While Cameron was not happy, there's some suggestion this is part of a pattern.

Mr. Ellison contacted my attorneys shortly after my suit was filed offering assistance.

Eric Ryder

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