# Film Plots Lifted Almost Exactly From Other Films **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 23, 2005, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469 "2005-02-23T03:02:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/21 "2005-02-23T15:52:19Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Well, “Memento” was a pretty good film, while Dana Carvey’s “Blank Slate” was one of the lamest comedies I’ve ever seen. > > Fact remains, the plot of “Memento” was completely ripped off from “Blank Slate.” _Memento_ was adapted from a story written by Jonathan Nolan, the director’s brother. I’m not sure when he wrote the story exactly, but I’m pretty sure he was inspired by a newspaper article about a man with retrograde amnesia. _Blank Slate_ doesn’t enter into the picture. On the other hand, _50 First Dates_ might seem to owe something to _Memento_. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/22 "2005-02-23T15:58:37Z")
> [@Kaitlyn](#): > > Make it a gangster picture, and you’ve got **Last Man Standing**. > > **Casablanca** was remade as **Barb Wire** And **Caboblanco**. And **Havana**. _Aliens_ owes more than a little to **Them!** And I’ve always thought the plot similarities between **The Third Man** and Renoir’s earlier **The Crime of Monsieur Lange** were particularly uncanny (though the tones couldn’t be more farther apart). ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/23 "2005-02-23T16:02:15Z")
**8 mile** is **Purple Rain**. Hell, a lot of movies are **Purple Rain** , and **Purple Rain** is probably something older that I haven’t seen. ---
**Author:** ![fusoya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecccb3/32.png) [@fusoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fusoya)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/24 "2005-02-23T16:14:53Z")
> [@Sublight](#): > > **The Seven Samurai** has been adapted a number of times. **The Magnificent Seven** was the most obvious one, but there’s also **Battle Beyond the Stars** , which set the story in outer space, with a hero flying in a talking spaceship with tits. Don’t forget about the latest big remake - **A Bug’s Life** ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/25 "2005-02-23T16:15:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Aliens owes more than a little to Them! I’ve heard this before, but I don’t buy it. The similarity comes from the idea of fighting a colony of hive insects, but beyond that there’s not a lot of similarity. The little girl in trouble at the beginning of **them!** disappears right away, unlike Newt, and she was a staple of 1950s monster flicks (see , for instance, **The Monolith Monsters** ). I think **Aliens** owes a lot more to Heinlein’s book **Starship Troopers** , which it’s arguably a better version of than Veerhoeven’s film. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/26 "2005-02-23T16:21:49Z")
> [@Sublight](#): > > **The Seven Samurai** has been adapted a number of times. **The Magnificent Seven** was the most obvious one, but there’s also **Battle Beyond the Stars** , which set the story in outer space, with a hero flying in a talking spaceship with tits. I must protest, sir! The talking spaceship in _Battle Beyond the Stars_ did **not** have tits. It was a giant flying uterus with fallopian tubes for cannons. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/27 "2005-02-23T16:36:25Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I think **Aliens** owes a lot more to Heinlein’s book **Starship Troopers** , which it’s arguably a better version of than Veerhoeven’s film. I hate to disagree with you. **Cal** , but **Aliens** doesn’t owe squat to **Starship Troopers**! The only connection between the two is that both feature an alien race that has a hard black exoskeleton. There is no similarity in their behaviors, life cycle, motivations, or anything. Or is the connection that both movies feature soldiers in spaceships? Again, not even close! You might just as well say that **The Empire Strikes Back** is a remake of **Dune** because Jabba the Hutt is a large worm-like creature and Dune has sandworms - or, alternatively, because the soldiers in both armies in wear a full-body suit! Or have I totally missed something? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/28 "2005-02-23T17:00:08Z")
**Velvet Goldmine** doesn’t have the same plot as **Citizen Kane** , but it borrows its structure, several shots and other visual elements, and some of the basic events. In **Velvet Goldmine** the Charles Foster Kane character is a Bowie-esque glam rock star, and the reporter is doing a “whatever happened to” piece about him. There’s no Rosebud, though. > [@Marley23](#): > > _Memento_ was adapted from a story written by Jonathan Nolan, the director’s brother. I’m not sure when he wrote the story exactly, but I’m pretty sure he was inspired by a newspaper article about a man with retrograde amnesia. _Blank Slate_ doesn’t enter into the picture. On the other hand, _50 First Dates_ might seem to owe something to _Memento_. Neurological nitpick: That’s _anterograde_ amnesia. Retrograde amnesia is the more familiar soap opera kind of amnesia, where people lose their memory of the past. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new long-term memories. I too doubt **Clean Slate** had anything to do with **Memento** , and “man suffers from anterograde amnesia” isn’t a plot anyway. It’s barely even a premise. I haven’t seen **Clean Slate** , but glancing through the IMDB info it appears to be about a professional detective trying to deal with his memory problem in preparation for testifying at a trial. **Memento** is about an ordinary man turned vigilante who’s trying to solve his wife’s murder and avenge her death, despite his memory problem. Those aren’t totally dissimilar plots, but neither are they remarkably similar once you look past the fact that the main characters suffer from the same neurological problem. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/29 "2005-02-23T17:07:26Z")
I almost forgot this one. I’m sure it’s a coincidence (or rather, the result of being inspired by the same classic horror films), but **The Rocky Horror Picture Show** has the same basic plot as **MST3K** favorite **Manos: The Hand of Fate**. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/30 "2005-02-23T17:23:38Z")
> [@](#): > > I hate to disagree with you. Cal, but Aliens doesn’t owe squat to Starship Troopers! The only connection between the two is that both feature an alien race that has a hard black exoskeleton. There is no similarity in their behaviors, life cycle, motivations, or anything. Naahh – disciplined, competent Space Marines with integrated weapons facing an army of Bugs organized into hives. And Cameron is a big SF fan and good at portraying it. What I meant was that Aliens conveyed the believability and feel of ST infinitely better than Veerhoeven’s exercise did. Not to be taken literally. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/31 "2005-02-23T17:25:22Z")
> [@detop](#): > > Are you sure ? Not being a western fan I cannot confirm or deny it. But I have always tought that it was Carpenter’s _hommage_ to Romero’s _Night of the Living Dead_. \*'Assault on Precinct 13" is not so much a remake as a riff on an old familiar plot: The fort is surrounded, and the defenders have to fight off the attackers and deal with possible traitors in their midst. Howard Hawks did versions of this so often that after John Wayne starred for him in “Rio Bravo” (1959) and “El Dorado” (1966), he told Wayne he was sending over a script for “Rio Lobo,” and Wayne told him, “I’ll make it, but I don’t need to read it. We’ve already made it twice.”\* From [here.](http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050118/REVIEWS/50113004/1023) It did, of course, offer elements from NotLD as well. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/32 "2005-02-23T17:41:16Z")
Every American film that has made more than $5.00 has been remade in Bollywood. Throw in a couple of songs, subtract out most of the sex, and throw in a family issue and you’re all set. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/33 "2005-02-23T17:59:08Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Lucus borrowed from lots of films in making his epic (and other sources – aside from the Samurai helmet, Darth Vader’s costume is just Dr. Doom’s from The Fantastic Four, done over in black.) Samurai, perchance, Cal. But my first impression lo those many years ago was that Vader’s helmet was a passing attempt at getting some mileage from the Nazi soldiers ‘coalscuttle’ style helmet. And the ship in Battle Beyond the Stars? [Clearly boobies.](http://www.musicman.com/00pic/3057.html) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/34 "2005-02-23T18:17:21Z")
**Jonathan Chance** , you just ain’t seen enough samurai helmets: [http://www.quanonline.com/military/military\_reference/japanese/samurai\_helmet\_drawing.html](http://www.quanonline.com/military/military_reference/japanese/samurai_helmet_drawing.html) Since Lucas was lifting from Kurasawa, it seems likely to me that his borrowing from Japanese culture. But he did take a lot from WWII movies as well. ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/35 "2005-02-23T18:17:49Z")
“Honeymoon in Vegas” and “Indecent Proposal”. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/36 "2005-02-23T18:18:49Z")
> [@fusoya](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by Sublight > > The Seven Samurai has been adapted a number of times. The Magnificent Seven was the most obvious one, but there’s also Battle Beyond the Stars, which set the story in outer space, with a hero flying in a talking spaceship with tits. > > Don’t forget about the latest big remake - **A Bug’s Life** Really? Were the Seven Samurai and the Magnificent seven dudes actually out-of-work entertainers mistaken for itinerant enforcers/paladins? **A Bug’s Life** is more properly reminiscent of **The Three Amigos**. I heard that _The Wizard of Oz_ was some kind of _homage_ to _Dark Side of the Moon_, but I wouldn’t know about that. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/37 "2005-02-23T18:24:52Z")
**The Core** was **Armageddon** inside out. Both were pieces of crap, BTW. What was Hillary Swank thinking? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/38 "2005-02-23T18:30:01Z")
I’ll agree with **fusoya** about **A Bug’s Life** owing a big debt to **Seven Samurai** – Village about to be beseiged by marauders whjo steal their food send out rep(s) to find warriors to protect them. The warriors end up interacting with the community, and the community finds the strength within itself to fight the intruders themselves. The “circus bugs” bit was original with ABL\> I haven’t seen **Three Amigos** , but if it’s as similar as this, it seems another candidate for ripping off Seven Samurai. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/39 "2005-02-23T18:30:53Z")
Probably, “WOOHOO! I’m getting paid for this!” > [@CalMeacham](#): > > **Jonathan Chance** , you just ain’t seen enough samurai helmets: > > [THE SAMURAI HELMET ANATOMY - MilitaryItems.com](http://www.quanonline.com/military/military_reference/japanese/samurai_helmet_drawing.html) > > Since Lucas was lifting from Kurasawa, it seems likely to me that his borrowing from Japanese culture. But he did take a lot from WWII movies as well. Not like I don’t agree with you. But the angularity of Vader’s helmet always struck me as more Germanic (and therefore more potentially threatening to a western audience of the 1970s) than Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469/40 "2005-02-23T18:34:06Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’ll agree with **fusoya** about **A Bug’s Life** owing a big debt to **Seven Samurai** – Village about to be beseiged by marauders whjo steal their food send out rep(s) to find warriors to protect them. The warriors end up interacting with the community, and the community finds the strength within itself to fight the intruders themselves. The “circus bugs” bit was original with ABL\> > > I haven’t seen **Three Amigos** , but if it’s as similar as this, it seems another candidate for ripping off Seven Samurai. **Three Amigos** is pretty much exactly what you described. Except, in the Three Amigos, they were silent-film stars. So the “circus bugs” bit wasn’t so much original either. Also, I would include **Galaxy Quest** on the list of **Seven Samurai** ripoffs… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/film-plots-lifted-almost-exactly-from-other-films/291469.md?page=3)