Strictly speaking, the world is just one big stealing machine, in which artists and creative types take an idea from the generation that influenced them, make a few changes, and send it back out into the world with a huge “look at this amazing idea I made up” sticker plastered across its face. Naturally, the world applauds this kind of behavior.
Which is this writer’s way of saying: everybody steals everything. Which is fine, given that old ideas give rise to new ones. Directors, in fact, take elements and aspects from the things they love all the time, and aren’t usually shy to admit it. Take George Lucas, who borrowed the serial aesthetics from shows like Flash Gordon and re-interpreted them as Star Wars. Or Quentin Tarantino, whose entire career hinges on his reputation as a kind of hip-hop movie director, stealing things from his favourite filmmakers and twisting them into exciting new wholes.
As far as snatching a few minor plot ideas go, then, most of us can probably agree that it’s generally considered to be okay (in moderation, at least). But how far does innocent “borrowing” need to go until it just becomes fully-fledged stealing of the criminal kind?
Here’s 8 iconic movies you might be shocked to learn ripped their entire plots from other works of fiction. In some cases, we’re seriously surprised that the creators of the original works were so indifferent to all the, um, theft.
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30 Comments
The reason why Darren Aronofsky has the rights to Perfect Blue was because of the following scene in Requiem for a Dream: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anlHmGA-Bvs
I believe he’s been quoted as saying how much he loves Perfect Blue, hence why he bought the rights to mimic the scene. Regardless, you’re right: it’s kind of weird. But the connections, in his case, are probably intentional.
The M. Night Sham-a-lam-a-ding-dong example you should have mentioned was The Sixth Sense since it was “inspired” by an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? entitled “The Tale of the Dream Girl.”
Shaymalan has even said that this episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark was the inspiration. The movie immediately reminded me of that episode as well
Guess it’s true when they say there’s no such thing as an original idea! Oddly, directors and writers seem to get away with it if they say it is a ‘re-imagining’ of other film/tv show. Revenge, for example, is supposed to be a ‘re-imagining’ of The Count of Monte Cristo.
The idea behind The Matrix (if your world was not real, how would you know?) was heavily influenced by a book called ‘Simulacra and Simulation’ written by a French Philosopher called Jean Baudrillard (the book was cheekily referenced in the first movie, Thomas Anderson pre-Neo uses a hollowed out version to store the disks before handing them to the “follow the white rabbit” crowd).
Baudrillard absolutely hated the movie and felt they completely misquoted the intentions of his book.
One more to add to the list. The Fast and the Furious and Point Break are the same movie. Switch out surfing for car racing.
The whole “get into people’s dreams and interact with them” of Inception was also featured in another Japanese anime called Paprika. Both Paprika and Perfect Blue are from director Satoshi Kon. What a genius he was!
To be fair on Inception – which is a hideously overrated film and is neither “genuinely complex or needlessly complicated” but actually very, very simple and rather dreary – I’m pretty certain it won’t have stolen its premise from a Donald Duck cartoon. I’ve observed the similarities, yes, and I do love the comparison but… those similarities are quite superficial – much like Inception’s plot.
The notion of entering a person’s mind to steal their secrets isn’t an entirely unobvious one. It’s a great premise to explore but not a difficult one to imagine. The true ingenuity is to do so through dreams, which do provide a marvellous interior landscape for these visual adventures, but it’s still no great leap to get there.
Beyond that, every detail written into the world would be one which describes the difference between the dream and reality… So we end up with the capability of altering dreams through imagination and the exaggerated effects which occur given hauntings from our past. (That second point, though, is one of the reasons I hate Inception. Mal is the only character with any depth – everyone else was just there, it seems, to question and to bring out of him details about that past…)
Even the totem isn’t a hard conclusion to arrive at. Most stories end up revolving around a single artefact of some sort. Objects are one of the greatest way to tie an emotional connection into a longer story. We want to know, “what’s in the box?” or otherwise.
So I don’t think Nolan ripped off a Donald Duck comic book…
…but I do still think Inception sucks. (Overrated piece of f..)
Absolutely worst Nolan’s film to date. At least TDKR has Bane.
…and Anne Hathaway in a catsuit. I’m pretty fond of Anne Hathaway in a catsuit.
There’s also a spongebob episode where he jumps into people’s dreams. It was far more complex and fun.
I think you may have just destroyed my entire faith in humanity. If Inception isnt remotely clever, then what is a clever film? Im not saying Inception is the greatest film ever to have some funky ideas but you could hardly call the film dumb.
Look no further. Memento and The Prestige were both clever, not necessarily complex, but still clever.
It had clever direction. It just overstates the complexity of its premise and was poorly written. Though I can’t deny the impressiveness of, for example, the corridor fight sequence. That was brilliant.
‘…Dreamworks weren’t happy about this, and decided to sue Michael Bay…’
Dreamworks had nothing to do with “The Clonus Horror”, it was the people behind TCH that were trying to sue Dreamworks & Bay.
Seriously, you really need to do better research before writing anymore articles!
I agree that Inception is copied from Donald Duck cartoon.Nolan himself said that at first in first draft of script he actually wanted to do it as a Heist movie(just like Donald duck plot).i think Inception is also inspired from David cronenberg’s film eXistenZ,levels of game-levels of dreams.Inception is also inspired from Paprika,Matrix,James bond films(climax action scene in snow mountains).creating parallel episodes of action scenes(-parallel levels of dreams with exciting action-thriller scenes) is hollywood recipe for blockbusters since Starwars
The horrible Bruce Willis movie “Last Man Standing” was a word for word copy of “A Fistful of Dollars”. And “The Departed” which everyone thinks is about Boston gangster Whitey Bulger is actually a complete ripoff off the Korean movie “Infernal Affairs”.
The Departed isn’t a ripoff, it was remade with permission from the original filmmakers of Infernal Affairs so it’s a remake
Trivia: Don Rosa got the idea for dream of a lifetime from his fan from french…..who had copied a plot of some other movie..wich Don Rosa saw 2 2-4 months after Finishing that comic..at least that is what Don Rosa says/claims.
I would expect a list of this caliber would have included The Terminator for ripping of the two Outer Limits episodes Deamon with a Glass Hand and Soldier. Inception stole much more thematic elements from James Bond and quite a bit of all cyberpunk cinema. Great list though, love the Perfect Blue point out. But I think this article could have been fleshed out more. There is a lot more ground to cover. Ever heard of Kimba the White Lion…ever heard of Walt Disney’s “The Lion King” ? ? ?
how about how avatar is a retelling/ ripoff of dances with wolves and fern gully…more so fern gully, even down to the navi attacking a big tree destroying machine???
Iconic must be the word of the day today. 2 titles using the word but I don’t think this article is using it properly as that mask article. ‘Popular’ would be a better fit. But that said, interesting about DA and Point Blue but a lot of filmmakers/studios make sure to acquire the rights to similar projects to avoid plagiarism charges in courts.
Could definitely do a sequel to this list with a lot of the above-mentioned films, including Apocalypse Now, which as has often been mentioned is really Heart of Darkness.
In need of a few Spoiler Alerts in some of the list entries and i already noted the incorrect use of the word iconic (Cars? Iconic? Really?) But good read otherwise.
If anyone has actually seen The Innocents and The Others then they would realize that both films have cosmetic similarities and that’s it.
I always thought Mission Impossible 2 was very similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious.
I can’t imagine how you could have overlooked “Hunger Games” and the Japanese film “Battle Royale.” Even though the author denied it, there are too many similarities to dismiss.
Not many people realise this article actually stole most of its points from Cracked.
Three amigos is one of the most iconic 80s comedies of all time. The story of how famous actors, who are famous for playing heroes, are mistaken for the real deal and are called upon to fight a real foe who’s terrorising somewhere. But, many other movie have had this plot. I mean, going back to Pixar, A Bug’s life has a similar plot, Tropic thunder also has a similar plot. Hell, Galaxy quest has the exact same plot as Three amigos.
Thoroughly enjoyed this article. One of my favourite reads on WC. Kudos to you sir. Love the style.
I always thought De Palma’s Dressed to Kill drew some noticeable comparisons to Hitchcock’s Psycho besides the tension of course, and the long drawn-out stretches. Namely there’s the shower scene vs. the elevator scene; the cellar scene vs. the subway scene; razor blade instead of knife; the diversion in Psycho is the stolen $40,000, in DTK it’s the Venereal Disease reveal (Ugh! Shock Horror!) and the lead male characters are shown to have very overwhelmingly discernible feminine leanings/tendencies – both decidedly psycho-logical!
If you haven’t seen Dressed To Kill then I suggest you don’t READ this!!!
Skyfall was a lot like Nolan’s Dark Knight crap. Both Bruce and Bond are orphans who lived in a mansion, although that’s in the comics. Severine and Miranda Tate, are mysterious, and both actresses seriously under used in their roles. The Moneypenny reveal basically being the Talia al’ Ghul reveal. Mallory being the new M, and Joseph Gordon Levitt being “robin.” The biggest obvious being Silva and Joker. Both are blond, have deformities, disguised like cops, and monologue about some moral stuff. Mendes said Nolan inspired him, seems a little more like copied.