i'm gonna echo gwahir here and mention that, at the time of it's writing, lord of the rings was totally original work. it synthesized common folklore of mythological creatures and turned that into lore and ancient, mysterious history, something which hadn't been done on that scope before. he created that world (and the attendant languages, which is incredibly impressive from a dedication standpoint, although the end result is pretentious fanboys learning them to LARP their faggoty hearts out) entirely on his own, establishing the archetypes that haunt every pulp-fantasy story that have followed ever since. you really can't compare cameron to tolkien in any respect, especially not avatar to lotr