A Rose By Any Other Name -- unacknowledged TV/movie adaptations

[RealityChuck]

There are quite a few TV shows that are unacknowledged ripoff of successful movies.

The Monkees --> A Hard Day’s Night and Help!
Tales of the Gold Monkey --> Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E --> Goldfinger and other James Bond films.

And, of course American Dad --> Family Guy.

[Merijeek]

@Evil Captor

No, what PotC is, is an adaptation of is Tim Powers’ novel “On Stranger Tides.” Consider:

Both stories have a protagonist whose life is altered powerfully by the absence of their father. In PotC, the protagonist believes his father was murdered by pirates and has become a blacksmith specializing in swords with a fixation on killing pirates. In Stranger Tides, the protagonist is a puppeteer who travels to the Caribbean to collect on an inheritance after his puppeteer father is robbed and murdered.

In both stories, the female love interest is a beautiful woman with a weak father who does not protect her.

Each female love interest unknowingly carries powerful magic (in PotC, she has one of the coins from Davy Jones’ locker, in Stranger Tides, she’s been raised for years on a special diet so she can serve as a guide to The Fountain of Youth).

In each story, the plot is driven by the actions of the bad guy, who is a pirate seeking to remove magical afflictions. In PotC it’s the captain and crew of the Black Pearl, seeking to remove the curse of Davy Jones’ locker. In Stranger Tides it’s Blackbeard seeking to remove an affliction of spirits gained by an earlier attempt on the Fountain of Youth.

In each story, magic of the voodoo variety is central to the plot, and is casually used and referenced by pirates.

PotC is not a plagiarism of Stranger Tides, but I’m pretty sure that whoever wrote the script read “Stranger Tides” quite carefully and took notes.

\

:rolleyes:

And now you’ve described “Star Wars”.

-Joe

[Evil_Captor]

@Miller

I laways thought that movie was a bit crap. For my money, the movie that best “got” what Lovecraft was all about is Quatermass and the Pit. In that movie:

Earth was the colony of a race of extra-terrestrial grasshoppers, who engineered humans as telepathically controlled slave stock, before disappearing mysteriously some 30 million years ago. In that movie, humans aren’t blessed, or special, or unique. We’re just industrial waste, a meaningless blip on the vast, unending timeline of a cold, uncaring universe. And that, more than tentacle monsters or make-you-go-crazy books, is what Lovecraft was all about.

Funny you should mention “Quatermass and the Pit,” since John Carpenter’s “Ghosts of Mars” is clearly an unacknowledged reworking of that movie. And it’s much better than any other Quatermass movies except the “Pit” movie, which one of the very few movies to really capture eerie horror, rather than simple grossness, violence, fear, etc.

[Evil_Captor]

@Merijeek

\

:rolleyes:

And now you’ve described “Star Wars”.

-Joe

Sorry, no sale. The only pirate in Star Wars is Hans Solo who’s a good guy. The evil protagonist in Star Wars doesn’t have any magical afflictions unless you count having gone over to the dark side of the Force as an affliction, and the Sith Lord isn’t seeking a cure for being on the dark side. (Neither is Vader). And Princess Leia’s father is evil, but he’s not weak by any measure.

Finally, the Force isn’t voodoo.

But you do have a point about the other stuff.