When Malayali audiences were convinced that late director Siddique’s Vietnam Colony inspired James Cameron’s Avatar

In 2009, when James Cameron’s Avatar came out, one of the theories that did the rounds was that the film’s story was eerily similar to that of a Malayalam film that came out 17 years earlier. Cameron’s film, set on planet called Pandora, had hostile human beings, trying to get rid of the native Navi tribe, with one man, Jake Sully, tasked with infiltrating the clan and ensuring this operation goes smoothly. Over time, though, Jake realizes the folly in what he’s been doing and becomes a saviour for the tribe.

Interestingly enough, the 1992 Malayalam film Vietnam Colony, written and directed by the Siddique-Lal combo was about an employee of a construction firm, who is sent in undercover to get the residents of Vietnam Colony to vacate the premises, so as to tear it down and begin fresh development at the site. When he then realizes that the company was using illegal methods to demolish the colony, he vows to fight for justice. One half of the director duo, Siddique passed away on August 8, following cardiac failure. 

Malayali audiences have been convinced that Cameron was inspired by Vietnam Colony. Most of the tweets that came out in 2009 were more or less on the lines of - Avatar=Vietnam Colony-Greedy corporate entity sends a man into a settlement to convince them to move. Later, in 2019, when actor Prithviraj Sukumaran wrote that Vietnam Colony is a technical masterpiece and one of the finest made in Malayalam cinema, there was yet again an outburst of comments about this theory. However, this time around, some countered it saying that Avatar was a lot like Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves, which released in 1990. The argument was that Vietnam Colony could have been inspired by the same film.

Read also: Bidding adieu to Siddique: The Godfather of humour who will continue to inspire and entertain audience

While the Vietnam Colony inspiration for Avatar has several voices favouring it, netizens also believe that Avatar 2 is like the Tamil film Asuran.