This was an incredibly mainstream meme, back in the day! https://mattbateman.net/writing/avatar-pocahontas.php describes his contribution to the comparison.

And Pocahontas is Fern Gully repainted

Actually, when I saw the first Avatar, I thought that it was much closer to the "Treasure of Silver Lake" ("Der Schatz im Silbersee") by Karl May, combined with many scenes from the earlier novels of Karl May.

Many characters of that series of Karl May novels have a direct mapping, e.g.:

Old Shatterhand => Jake Sully

Winnetou => Neytiri (gender swapped)

tamed mustang => tamed flying dragon

and many others.

Fern Gully was 1992, three years before Pocahontas.

I believe the comment I saw, back when the first one came out, was "PocaHalo."

The second one developed its own story much better.

I mean, Avatar is a pretty on-the-nose allegory for the decimation of American Indian tribes and western colonization. I don't think this is at all a controversial take.

Or Lawrence of Arabia or…

Nah, Avatar is Dances With Wolves

Smurfcat planetary immune response.