7. A Bug's Life (1998) Is Seven Samurai (1954)
Anybody with even a passing interest in movies is probably aware that Akira Kurosawa's seminal movie
Seven Samurai was remade in Hollywood as
The Magnificent Seven, which meant swapping out all those swords and Toshiro Mifune for cowboy pistols and Yul Brynner. That unofficial remake aside, then, who knew that one day a popular animation studio would take Kurosawa's story into their own hands and translate it to the screen using bugs and a soundtrack composed by Randy Newman? And without even acknowledging it. Because when you look at
A Bug's Life's core story, you'll notice that it's incredibly similar, with only a few minor differences, to the narrative inherent to
Seven Samurai. Both movies concern desperate "farmers" (in
A Bug's Life, these are the ants) who - whilst preparing for the harvest - are constantly ransacked by a group of bandits (grasshoppers lead by the voice of Kevin Spacey, in
A Bug's Life). Eager to prevent the next attack, a villager ventures out to the big city to find a group of "warriors" (samurai or circus bugs, take your pick). To be fair, though, there is one major difference:
A Bug's Life is about eighteen times shorter.