Film director James Cameron “has been accused of plagiarism over his current worldwide blockbuster, Avatar,” says British website The First Post. According to its report, “despite the film’s anti-materialistic sentiments, the accusation comes from Russia, where it is claimed he ripped off the storyline from a hugely popular futuristic fantasy by two former Soviet sci-fi writers. Russian film-goers say Avatar has several key elements in common with The World of Noon – or Noon Universe – a series of 10 bestselling novels written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in the mid-1960s.”

The Strugatsky books are hugely popular — “they sold in their millions and were popular with Soviet teenagers and intellectuals alike” says First Post — and outraged fans are trying to get surviving brother Boris to go to a screening of the film and sue for plagiarism but so far he’s “shrugged it off.”

So is there a case? “The most obvious similarity is that both stories are set on the planet Pandora in the 22nd century. The Strugatskys’ Pandora is inhabited by the Nave, a group of humanoids whose name sounds very much like that of Cameron’s humanoids, the Na’vi. Both Pandoras are also warm and humid, and densely covered in trees,” explains First Post.

Of course, Cameron “is used to defending himself from accusations that he has borrowed from other writers,” notes the report. “The same claim was made after the release of his Terminator films and, of course, there was nothing original about Titanic.”