1968 movie in which people uncover a long-buried black alien artifact. Although at first it seems incredibly inert (nothing sticks to it, no magnetic interaction), something triggers it and it sends out a signal that has important and long-lasting effects. It emerges that the aliens had a hand in shaping Man’s evolution before he became Homo sapiens, and are responsible for our becoming super-intelligent. There is a suggestion that the artifact is tampering with our evolution even now, in the present day.
2001: A Space Odyssey of course, but also the motion picture version of Quatermass and the Pit, released in the US as Five Million years to Earth. Not really the same plot, although the above description (right down to the details) applies to both.
I suspect one or both of these influenced Stephen King when he wrote The Tommyknockers, which was later a TV movie, although he played it for horror. (With his customary xenophobia, which I find annoying – aliens are always Eeeeevil in King). He’s even got the ancient buried alien spacecraft.
It may have been on this board or another, but I remember that Star Wars’ plot was ripped off almost completely by Eragon. Not having seen Eragon, I can’t list the similarities
Jeez louise, he’s a horror writer. Of course they’re going to be evil!* That’s like complaining that his books have too high a body count. “Why can’t people just have tea and not be murdered in gory ways like always happens in his books?”
*or, to put it another way: Can you name one story that (a) takes place on earth, (b) is of the horror genre, and (c) only refers to aliens from outer space in a positive light?
Actually, yeah – there are horror stories set in space in which the aliens aren’t evil. And, as King himself keeps saying, he isn’t just a horror writer. It just bugs me that he takes the view that aliens are evil as a given – he doesn’t even have the naive few going up to them (like in Wells’ War of the Worlds, or Cornthwaite’s character in The Thing) under the assumption that they’re benevolent, before being blasted away. In a King story, everyone assumes they’re evil. When everyone automatically attacks the alien in From a Buick Eight, my immediate reaction was “what the hell are you doing?”, but to him, that was a normal reaction.
My favorite example of this the pair of John Wayne movies Rio Bravo and El Dorado. The town used-to-be-good-guy-but-is-now-a-drunk gets helped by John Wayne in a dispute with the local bad guy. John Wayne has a sidekick named after a state (Mississippi and Colorado), and there’s a crabby deputy who helps out too. Upon a little searching I see there is a thread specifically about these two movies: John Wayne Throwdown: Rio Bravo vs. El Dorado (50 year old spoilers) - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
Young dreamer, being raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle (just an uncle in Eragon). Crazy neighbor who everyone thinks is an old senile buffoon, but the boy finds romantic escape in his tales of a former era. Old buffoon turns out to be a former elite fighter, and trains the boy to fight the current evil regime, particularly in use of the force/dragons… I don’t remember the rest.
I was also going to mention three undersea monster movies that all came out in 1989: Leviathan, DeepStar Six, and The Abyss. Granted the third one had a bit more substance to it, but the first two were practically identical.
The Title of the thread is “Movies with the same plot,” not "movies that have one thing in common.
I don’t remember Audrey Hepburn singing the theme song which becomes a huge international hit. If anything Never On Sunday is closer to Pygmalion
Wow. What a stretch. Starfighter is about a video game that is used as a tool to find the next star fighter. War games is about a kid who hacks into NORAD and uses the computer against itself to stop nuclear destruction.
That’s a pretty vague statement to say the story has the same plot. Let’s include Crazy Heart in there; as well as Eddie and Cruisers, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, This is Spinal Tap; etc.
Unless there is a version of My Life as a Dog that’s about doggy style sex in the movies, these aren’t the same plot.
Again, yes there’s a similarity because of real life characters and cartoons, but the PLOT of Roger Rabbit is about WHO FRAMED HIM. Cool World is about a character who want to become ‘real.’
IMO This is the closest so far of a similar plot
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Evolution. Anyone want to jump in on this one?
Not. Even. Close.
I didn’t know there was a sleazy rock star in Ted Hamilton.
And if we want to stretch it a little, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. And Rat Race. But stretching it this far, we’re almost talking about a genre, not a repeated plot.
Last hope for humanity is menaced by time-traveling assassins. Since they have help (in the form of a time-traveling hero, albeit under-powered in comparison to the assassin), they barely manage to survive. The hero dies in the climactic fight, set in an automated factory.
The Taming of the Shrew = The Iron Strain = Impossible Catherine = You Made Me Love You = Second Best Bed = McLintock! = 10 Things I Hate About You = Deliver Us From Eva and about a dozen more.