# \[Story/Movie A\] is really just a reworking of \[story/movie B\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 21, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282 "2017-08-21T15:16:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/1 "2017-08-21T15:16:38Z")
Yesterday afternoon, my laptop was laid low due to a virus, so I had to resort (gasp!) to reading a book. From some guy selling used books on the street corner, I picked up a copy of Stephen King’s “The Mist”, which I’ve actually read before but not for a long, long while. Upon re-reading it, what struck me most was that this story was simply a re-working of “Night of the Living Dead.” Different characters, different monster, but a strikingly similar situation and resolution. The Lovecraftian beasties within the mist are really not that different from Romero’s zombies: they are inexplicable mindless hordes that feast on humans. They appear as if out of nowhere and are immediately everywhere. While a possible rationale for the zombies/mist beasts are proposed in each tale, their origins are almost beside the point. One morning, it’s just another ordinary day in the lives of the very ordinary protagonists; before the day is done, everyone is hunkered down under seige somewhere. And the monsters continue to loom around the perimeters of the house/store under seige, ready to strike if anybody ventures out. Also in each story, the monsters really serve more as a plot device to force a lot of disparate characters to abruptly hunker down together and begin squabbling. The real crux of each story is really the in-fighting among the people forced to take refuge together and the breakdown of societal mores under stress. Power struggles among the beseiged occur. Both stories feature an attempt by a smaller sub-group of the beseiged to go on a small mission. In “Night”, a small group attempt to drive the truck to the gas station to refill it. In “Mist”, there is an expedition to the drugstore in the same mall. Both attempts end disastrously, with numerous characters getting killed. Ultimately, each story ends with the beseiged survivors turning on each other and ending up in open conflict with one another. The end of each story is fairly ambiguous. (In “Night”, all the main characters are dead, and the local law enforcement are mowing down zombies, but there’s no confirmation that the crisis is over.) The ultimate moral to each story is that mankind will eventually fall victim to outside calamity because society is too acrimonious and divided to work together to save itself. I know there’s numerous theories about how there are really only so many different types of stories that can be told, and King certainly added his own unique twists, so that I wouldn’t call it a blatant ripoff. But the similarities are just too close for me to think it’s just a coincidence. He must have had the original movie in mind when he wrote “Mist.” I am just curious about other instances of stories you’ve read, movies you’ve seen, that you realize are really just reworkings of other stories/movies. ---
**Author:** ![SykoSkotty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@SykoSkotty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SykoSkotty)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/2 "2017-08-21T15:20:35Z")
I’ll go with the obvious one : The Force Awakens is really just a reworking of A New Hope. A kid on a sand planet with no parents suddenly becomes able to use the Force, and a gang of rebels figure out a way to blow up a planet-destroying weapon run by the evil empire. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/3 "2017-08-21T17:09:48Z")
_Titanic_ is basically just _The Poseidon Adventure_, but upside down. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/4 "2017-08-21T17:33:05Z")
Avatar is basically Dances with Wolves. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/5 "2017-08-21T17:49:52Z")
Superman is Jesus crossed with Moses. ---
**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:** [August 21, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/6 "2017-08-21T17:59:49Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > Yesterday afternoon, my laptop was laid low due to a virus, so I had to resort (gasp!) to reading a book. From some guy selling used books on the street corner, I picked up a copy of Stephen King’s “The Mist”, which I’ve actually read before but not for a long, long while. Upon re-reading it, what struck me most was that this story was simply a re-working of “Night of the Living Dead.” Different characters, different monster, but a strikingly similar situation and resolution. > > The Lovecraftian beasties within the mist are really not that different from Romero’s zombies: they are inexplicable mindless hordes that feast on humans. They appear as if out of nowhere and are immediately everywhere. While a possible rationale for the zombies/mist beasts are proposed in each tale, their origins are almost beside the point. One morning, it’s just another ordinary day in the lives of the very ordinary protagonists; before the day is done, everyone is hunkered down under seige somewhere. And the monsters continue to loom around the perimeters of the house/store under seige, ready to strike if anybody ventures out. > > Also in each story, the monsters really serve more as a plot device to force a lot of disparate characters to abruptly hunker down together and begin squabbling. The real crux of each story is really the in-fighting among the people forced to take refuge together and the breakdown of societal mores under stress. Power struggles among the beseiged occur. > > Both stories feature an attempt by a smaller sub-group of the beseiged to go on a small mission. In “Night”, a small group attempt to drive the truck to the gas station to refill it. In “Mist”, there is an expedition to the drugstore in the same mall. Both attempts end disastrously, with numerous characters getting killed. > > Ultimately, each story ends with the beseiged survivors turning on each other and ending up in open conflict with one another. The end of each story is fairly ambiguous. (In “Night”, all the main characters are dead, and the local law enforcement are mowing down zombies, but there’s no confirmation that the crisis is over.) The ultimate moral to each story is that mankind will eventually fall victim to outside calamity because society is too acrimonious and divided to work together to save itself. > > I know there’s numerous theories about how there are really only so many different types of stories that can be told, and King certainly added his own unique twists, so that I wouldn’t call it a blatant ripoff. But the similarities are just too close for me to think it’s just a coincidence. He must have had the original movie in mind when he wrote “Mist.” I am just curious about other instances of stories you’ve read, movies you’ve seen, that you realize are really just reworkings of other stories/movies. There’s a much better parallel to King’s **The Mist** , as I’ve pointed out before. King frequently lifts his premise from some pre-existing work, and I’ve seen several of these cases. For The Mist, the precursor is a 1957 British science fiction film entitled **The Strange World of Planet X**. It was released in the US under the title **The cosmic Monsters** , which is what I knew it as when I watched it innumerable times as a kid. > [@](#): > > In the south of England, at an isolated laboratory near a small village, physicist Dr. Laird (Alec Mango) is assisted by American scientist Gilbert Graham (Forrest Tucker). They are performing a series of advanced and dangerous experiments with magnetic fields, while using massive amounts of power in equipment never designed to carry such loads. An accident occurs and injures another assistant, after which a request for a replacement sent to the Ministry of Defense brings Brigadier Cartwright (Windham Goldie) down to investigate. He is accompanied by a woman computer expert, Michele Dupont (Gaby Andre), who helps to solve Laird’s power problem, but not the larger risks inherent in his experiments. > > Cartwright is impressed when an interrupted experiment transforms several pieces of steel, not in the test chamber, into useless lumps of powder. His report convinces the Deputy Defense Minister (Geoffrey Chater) to make Laird’s project a top priority. He sends down a full security team, led by counter-espionage expert Jimmy Murray (Hugh Latimer). It soon becomes clear, however, that enemy agents are the least of the dangers around Laird’s project: The hyper-magnetic fields that he has generated have been affecting the ionosphere, causing unnatural weather patterns, threatening ships at sea hundreds of miles away, and also weakening the magnetic shield that protects the surface of the Earth from cosmic rays. A sudden burst of cosmic radiation from deep space causes brain damage in one local man, turning him into a homicidal maniac, while also causing the insect life to mutate in the area around the village and laboratory. > > In the midst of this growing threat to the world’s safety, a mysterious “Mr. Smith” (Martin Benson) arrives in the village. He is well-spoken, with little knowledge of ordinary life, but a great deal of knowledge about magnetic fields, while offering strong opinions about the dangerous experiments that Dr. Laird is conducting. Murray is positive that he is a spy, but Graham and Dupont decide that there is less threat from him than from the obstinate Dr. Laird, who plans on continuing his risky work. Even with “Mr. Smith”'s dire warnings, the forest adjacent to the village is soon swarming with gigantic insects and other mutated monsters. Graham’s and Dupont’s best efforts fail to stop Dr. Laird, and so they alert the authorities to investigate and send in the military. Later, when leaving the laboratory, Dupont is threatened by the encroaching monsters and becomes trapped in the web of a giant spider. The army arrives in time and is able to destroy all the mutations, saving her life. Fortunately aliens, feeling threatened by the invention, destroy it, thus saving all our collective necks. The film starred Forrest Tucker, who was the favorite British movie American Hero Guy in the 1950s (_The Trollenberg Terror/The Crawling Eye, Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas_). The use of Giant Insects was a popular 1950s trope because they looked creepy and could be intercut with scenes of people. You can see them in \*Killers from Space, Beginning of the End, \* and lots of other cheap flicks (besides the more expensive versions, like _Them!_). ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/7 "2017-08-21T18:10:14Z")
\*Cars \*is _Doc Hollywood_. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/8 "2017-08-21T18:12:01Z")
King has said that, “The Mist,” is _ **The Alamo** _ re-worked by Bert I. Gordon. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/9 "2017-08-21T18:13:57Z")
> [@SykoSkotty](#): > > I’ll go with the obvious one : > > The Force Awakens is really just a reworking of A New Hope. > > A kid on a sand planet with no parents suddenly becomes able to use the Force, and a gang of rebels figure out a way to blow up a planet-destroying weapon run by the evil empire. you can go even further. Harry Potter and Star Wars are both the same story which has been re-told over and over again in various ways since the Bible. i.e. an unlikely savior from little means rises up and defeats an over-arching evil force. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/10 "2017-08-21T18:18:07Z")
There’s this girl who’s the daughter of a tribal chief in pre-colonial America and her father tells her that she needs to grow up and take her rightful place in the leaderarchy. But she’s not super fond of her father’s restricting view of her new role so she goes off by the water which she’s way into and it’s like a metaphor for freedom and independence and she sings a song about it. Then she meets up with a grandmother figure with a strong spiritual insight and reaffirms her belief that there is something more for her in the world. Anyway, a conflict arrives from over the sea and the grandmother character suggests that perhaps this is the girl’s destiny and so she goes off to meet it. Along the way she acquires an antagonist with a fixation on shiny golden things and after some adventures she meets up with a dude who is not particularly respectful of her, really, but then she messes up because she overestimates her ability to solve the conflict and nearly gets the disrespectful dude killed. She decides to reject her destiny because she no longer thinks she is capable but then she talks to spirit grandma who reassures her that she does have the right stuff and the girl goes off and fixes everything, not through might or trickery but through her compassion. Her dad immediately agrees that her initial reservations were correct and lets her define her own role in the leaderarchy and then she guides her people into a new era of peace and prosperity. Anyway that’s the story of [del]Pocahontas[/del] Moana. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/11 "2017-08-21T18:37:38Z")
James Bond films tend to repeat the plots of earlier films and just switch the villians and settings out and move the events around. The most obvious is You Only Live Twice/The Spy Who Loved Me/Moonraker which generally all follow the same major plot beats and formula. Then again all three were directed by the same man so it isn’t that surprising he would reuse a successful formula. ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/12 "2017-08-21T18:39:12Z")
Freddy, Jason, etc are all reworkings of each other: Demented killer murders horny teens after they have sex. ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/13 "2017-08-21T18:40:28Z")
Terminator 2 is a reworking of the original film: Terminator is sent back through time to murder John Connor, with the resistance sending a protector for him back as well. Terminator is killed, and so is his protector. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/14 "2017-08-21T18:42:21Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > James Bond films tend to repeat the plots of earlier films and just switch the villians and settings out and move the events around. > > The most obvious is You Only Live Twice/The Spy Who Loved Me/Moonraker which generally all follow the same major plot beats and formula. Then again all three were directed by the same man so it isn’t that surprising he would reuse a successful formula. ISTR, Cubby Broccoli had a formula that all Bond films must follow: Bond meets girl, girl gets killed. Bond meets girl, girl tries to kill Bond. Bond meets girl, girl goes to bed with Bond. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/15 "2017-08-21T18:43:49Z")
The Bob & Doug McKenzie comedy “[Strange Brew](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086373/?ref_=nv_sr_1)” is an adaptation of “Hamlet,” though that was intentional. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/16 "2017-08-21T19:18:56Z")
Easy one. “Last House on the Left” was based upon the Swedish film “The Virgin Spring”, which was in turn based on a 13th Century Swedish folktale. Mother and father send their daughter(s) and friend (servant) on an errand (go to a concert) where they are killed by miscreants who later coincidentally show up at the parents’ house. The parents find out what they did and get their revenge. The original story has another twist (spoilers for 13th century fairy tale) where the miscreants were originally the sons of those very parents who had been turned out into the world years earlier to fend for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/17 "2017-08-21T21:21:51Z")
Rent is a rock version of La Boheme. ---
**Author:** ![Tierce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea5d25/32.png) [@Tierce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tierce)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/18 "2017-08-22T00:46:49Z")
Even more classic: _Yojimbo_ with Toshiro Mifune has been variously retold as _A Fistful of Dollars_ with Clint Eastwood, _Last Man Standing_ with Bruce Willis, and rather entertainingly, _Omega Doom_ with Rutger Hauer as a lone killer robot who wanders into a post-apocalyptic town controlled by two rival gangs of other killer robots. And probably more movies I’m not aware of… ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/19 "2017-08-22T01:28:59Z")
> [@Tierce](#): > > Even more classic: _Yojimbo_ with Toshiro Mifune has been variously retold as _A Fistful of Dollars_ with Clint Eastwood, _Last Man Standing_ with Bruce Willis, and rather entertainingly, _Omega Doom_ with Rutger Hauer as a lone killer robot who wanders into a post-apocalyptic town controlled by two rival gangs of other killer robots. > > And probably more movies I’m not aware of… > **[The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984) ⭐ 4.2 | Adventure, Fantasy](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088379/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_177)** > > 1h 21m | R > **[Miller's Crossing (1990) ⭐ 7.7 | Crime, Drama, Thriller](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100150/)** > > 1h 55m | R > **[Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) ⭐ 6.1 | Action, Western](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0906665/)** > > 2h 1m | R The basic set up - one man playing off two rival gangs - is also at the heart of Dashiell Hammett’s _The Glass Key_, which has been filmed a couple times. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282/20 "2017-08-22T01:36:32Z")
**Only the Lonely** (John Candy) was a rework of \*\*Marty \*\*(Earnest Borgnine). Both are about aging men, overly devoted to their mothers and rarely dating, finally pursuing/settling for plain girls. Of course in both movies the not so pretty girls were pretty. In the original **Teleplay of Marty** the women was actually plain. (A young [Nancy Marchand](http://classicmoviechat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/526x297-Qlz.jpg)) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-movie-a-is-really-just-a-reworking-of-story-movie-b/794282.md?page=2)