I mean Avatar had the feel of the Dune movies and books you know.
"Questions Questions too many questions, want shard here!"-The Dark Crystal
It seems a lot of people see it. It is really taking from somewhat cliché story-telling techniques, so it seems to me to just be a similarity more than Avatar really drawing from Dune.
shareI would have never connected both stories. I see much more resemblances between Avatar and Pocahontas, I would even say Avatar it's simple a remake of the story about the indian princess.
On the other hand, Na'vi are blue and Fremen have blue-within-blue eyes, so there could be a connection, yes.
Sure it's similar to the story of Pocahontas and Dune but it was 1993 OK folks that he wrote the treatment but didn't film it because the technology at the time wasn't ready to film his vision and he had to wait until 2005 to film it.
Avatar was definitely influenced by one of Cameron's fave books known as Dune and John Carter books including Heavy Metal magazine.