It seems to be an oft-used classic story: Village (or whatever) is threatened. Villagers (or whoever) go out to recruit warriors to stop the threat. many die. Village is saved. The fist use of this is Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, but it was not long before imitators came along.
The Magnificent Seven: Now I just watched this movie for the first time since I was a wee lad and it pains me a bit now. Most of it is good, but the scenes they lift almost directly from the original tend to be erratic. Coburn’s duel, for example, works well. But any scene where Horst Buchholz tries to play Toshiro Mifune falls absolutely flat. Most of his comments (lines directly translated from SS in some case) are about mediveal Japanese towns and don’t work on 19th century villagers. Still, as imitators go it is among the best.
Battle Beyond the Stars: Could be called John-Boy Walton goes a -seeking space mercs. This movie is a Roger Corman attempt to get some Star Wars magic and as schlock it has its moments. It doesn’t even try to translate moments from SS. The mercs are not characters but rather aliens on one kind or another. Interestingly, Robert Vaughn is in this movie as well as Magnificent Seven. One of the oddball elements to this movie is that John-Boy is flying around is a giant fallopian tube.
Hawk The Slayer could also be called the low-rent Tolkein version of SS. Fantasy characters (elf, dwarf, giant) replace the characters of SS and take on Jack Palance. Only a handful of scenes are ported from the original. Mostly fun for its delightfully monotone elf.
Well, of the top of my head, there’s the Three Amigos . It’s a (not very) humorous version of the classic story, with (obviously) three good guys instead of seven.
There’s also an episode from Deep Space 9, called Those Magnificent Ferengi which was inspired more by magnificent seven that the original movie.
In the DC comics “Justice League of America,” issues 100-102, the JLA is in search of the “Seven Soldiers of Victory,” all of whom had been blasted to various points in the past by their battle with the Nebula Man. Only they had the key to his destruction.
Actually, there were eight, but telling more might be spoiling. . . .
How many “Seven Samurai” knockoffs have their been?
Forty two !
Wasn’t Seven Samurai an adaptation of yet an even earlier work? Not film, but Japanese literature or folklore?
Knowing Kurosawa, I would not be surprised. According to one documentary on the man, he once spent the better part of a day teaching an actor to walk like a Samurai. This was not one of the major parts, or even a speaking role. This is one of the guys who walks past the farmers as they seek Samurai to aid them.
The comic-book adventures of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, though, predate Kurosawa’s movie by a considerable margin, appearing as a group for the first time in 1941. In fact, one of the members (the Crimson Avenger) even predated Batman and is arguably the first masked comic-book hero.
I was going to cite A Bug’s Life, myself, but got beaten to the punch.
While there were 7 main Mystery Men (not counting Dr. Heller or Carmine the Bowler), the story differs quite a bit from TSS. No oppressed people hiring them, etc. I think the same can be said about some of the others mentioned. E.g., I don’t think A Bug’s Life is similar (but it’s been a while since I saw it). Just having 7 heroes isn’t enough IMHO.
Also, MM originated in comics and the number in the first issues may not have been 7.
“Numbers add up to nothing.”
I do think that future producers of TSS remakes should take a page from Battle Beyond the Stars and have a “statuesque” valkyrie-type be one of the heroes.
“Doctor…you are a genius.”
“That’s what the card says.”
The idea of seven champions gathering together for a cause goes at least as far back as Aeschylus’ play The Seven Against Thebes. The original seven incidentally were Adrastus, Amphiarüs, Hippomedon, Mecisteus, Capaneus, Eteoclus, and Parthenopaeüs.