Actress Qorianka Kilcher, who played Pocahontas in The New World, has taken James Cameron and Disney to court. The lawsuit alleges that the facial features of a 14-year-old indigenous girl were used to create Neytiri without permission or payment, while the franchise generated billions.
Biometric capture without consent in the digital age 🎭
The facial capture technology used in Avatar allowed the digitization of the young indigenous girl's unique expressions and proportions to animate the Na'vi. According to the complaint, this constitutes an appropriation of biometric data without a license, a legal loophole the studio exploited. While Disney profited from sequels, the original model received neither a cent nor on-screen credit.
Pandora exists and doesn't pay royalties 💸
It seems the real world of Avatar is not Pandora, but Hollywood, where they borrow your face for a multi-billion dollar saga and pay you with the experience. The indigenous girl now knows her face is worth more than all the unobtainium in the movie. The irony is that they probably didn't even give her a signed poster.