A week or so ago, a friend of mine and I were strolling through a bookstore when we came across a stand advertising the newest book in the Inheritance cycle by Christopher Paolini. After a short dialogue about my desire to read the book and the obligatory comment that the movie was horrible (it was horrible compared to the source material; even Jeremy Irons couldn’t save it), my friend made a face and simply replied, “That movie was such a rip off of Star Wars.”
That wasn’t the first time I’d heard such a statement, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But, it did get me thinking about a few things, the first of which being that the movie that irrevocably altered our pop culture isn’t all that original to begin with.
I know many people may be astounded that a nerd would say such a thing, but honestly, if you’re gonna say something is a rip off of Star Wars, you should at least acknowledge that Star Wars is technically a rip off of The Odyssey or any other story that follows the pattern of the monomyth.
Anyway, this conversation reminded me of a fantastic web documentary entitled Everything is a Remix which details numerous citations throughout our cultural history where the borders between creativity and piracy have been blurred. It’s a fascinating thing to experience.
I recently re-watched part two, where the writer goes into detail about how innumerable films today are based off of books, comics, games, older movies, etc. Throughout the clip, the documentarian modifies numerous film clips and movie titles to draw our attention to the fact that everything in the film industry is just a fabrication of something else someone else did.
It’s interesting to look at the line between creativity and plagiarism and how prominent a concern it has become to contemporary people.
Why is this?
My guess would be that kids today have more access to a broader array of resources than children and adults did just thirty years ago. In this changing world, it is fascinating to see how obsessed we have become with individual creativity while our cultural history has been built upon ideas that all had clear influences.
Where is the line between individual expression and intellectual theft? I honestly can’t say.
Personally, I have to agree that Eragon is a fantasy version of Star Wars (with a few variations...). I definitely see where you were going with this post, though. Everything is a rip-off of something, because all the good plots (and the bad ones) have been used, and they work, so people use them again. I think the line between individual expression and intellectual theft comes with the new twists someone gives to a story.
ReplyDeleteEragon was different from Star Wars in setting, eventual plot twists, as well as other concepts. If it had been too similar to Star Wars (having characters with light swords or similar names to Star Wars characters), that might've been a problem, but you're right in saying that the line is somewhat hard to find. Great post.
It seems to me that every movie made today has to give some sort of credit to another work due to some imitation. Where are all the creative people in the world and why aren’t they helping the movie industry?! Making a movie based on a book is still a good idea, in my opinion, but things start going south when books are written to be movies (*cough, Twilight, cough*). What I think ends up being far worse than imitation or replication of past films, however, are sequels. Copying yourself and trying to sell it as something different is boring and unnecessary.
ReplyDelete