6 Movies & TV Shows That Stole From Lesser-Seen Cult Classics

Someone once said there is nothing new under the sun. That famous phrase can easily be applied to cinema. There are plenty of examples of filmmakers borrowing shots, scenes and sometimes entire plots from other movies. Most of the time these are simply references to other movies or in-jokes between the audience and the creative team. It is like a film is saying: "You remember when that one movie did this? Yeah, we do too!"

Every now and again, though, a hugely popular movie or television show will steal elements from cult favorites, and these stolen elements can contribute hugely to the popularity of the thief with no credit given to the lesser-seen originators.

In order to avenge these transgressions, it is important to acknowledge the movies and television shows that helped inspire these new touchstones in popular culture.

Eleven from Netflix's flagship sci-fi show has now reached The Joker status of annoyingly repetitive Halloween costumes we see every year, which means she is one of the most recognizable characters in pop culture. Like The Joker, Eleven is not an entirely original character. Stranger Things creators, The Duffer Brothers, borrowed many elements that comprise Eleven from Japanese Anime.

Utilizing telekinetic and telepathic abilities, a kid wearing a hospital gown escapes from a government facility. That sentence could describe the backstory for both Eleven in Stranger Things and Tetsua in Akira, and this is no coincidence.

Unlike other writers/directors (Darren Aronofsky and Perfect Blue), The Duffer Brothers admit they were inspired by Japanese anime while creating the character of Eleven. They concede Akira was something they had in the back of their minds, but it was Lucy from Elfen Lied, another anime inspired by Akira, that helped give birth to Eleven.

Ross (Duffer): ...Akira was obviously a big one.

Matt (Duffer): But then weirdly it’s like, I haven't seen it for a long time. More recently I had seen an anime called Elfen Lied that is clearly inspired by Akira. And that was really influential. When I watched it I thought it felt like an ultraviolent E.T. There were a lot of things in there that I really liked and that made their way into the show, particularly related to the character of Eleven.

So, if you love Eleven and the patient approach to storytelling Stranger Things takes, check out some of the anime that inspired it.