Avatar - the new Fern Gully movie?

I finally watched Avatar last night. What a visual treat it is - the colours, the animation, the conceptualisation of all the living, breathing creatures and plants. I must say, when James Cameron makes a movie, he makes it worth one's while. But for the most part, i couldn't help wondering if he'd borrowed ideas from Fern Gully-The Last Rainforest.

Here's why.

In Avatar, Jake's a human who gets his own Avatar and becomes one with the N'avi. His purpose is to win their trust and get them to leave their land, but he falls in love with the people and decides to change sides while his superiors think he's betrayed humanity.

In Fern Gully, Zak-one of the workers out to destroy the Fern Gully rainforest, gets shrunk into a thumb-sized creature by the daughter of the fairy people's king. Of course, he 'learns their ways', falls in love and finally turns against the rest of his team to help save the forest.

In Avatar, Pandora is as much its people as the people are Pandora. The bond between nature and humanity is strong, solid and magical. Same with the fairy people of Fern Gully.

In Avatar, they have the HomeTree and the Tree of Souls - their most sacred space. In Fern Gully, they have their home tree and a sacred tree that's the lifeblood of the forest, the source of all creation in the forest.

Avatar has it Eywa, and Fern Gully has its Magi.

And there's so much more that's similar. The seeds of Eywa, paths lighting up when they walk on it, the love triangle...

And, apparently, i'm not the only one who thinks this way. There's plenty of videos on Youtube that has mash-ups of the movies and stuff.

I'm not complaining, though. I love Fern Gully, and i really liked Avatar for its scale and elaborateness. So what if Cameron took off from the 1992 award-winning movie? I think he added a lot more life to it.