Mark Ratner: Perhaps Speilberg could've ripped off more scenes and dialogue for the craptastic, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

Mutt Williams: I don't understand. Why the legend about the city of gold?
Indiana Jones: The Ugha word for gold translates as "treasure." But their treasure wasn't gold. It was knowledge. Knowledge was their treasure.

[www.0-60mag.com image 532x299]

Shoulda ripped off this:


Or Spartakus and the Sun beneath the Sea

Mark Ratner: Perhaps Speilberg could've ripped off more scenes and dialogue for the craptastic, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

Mutt Williams: I don't understand. Why the legend about the city of gold?
Indiana Jones: The Ugha word for gold translates as "treasure." But their treasure wasn't gold. It was knowledge. Knowledge was their treasure.

[www.0-60mag.com image 532x299]

It was a fun popcorn movie. Get over it.

/watched Raiders last night

OregonVet: Wow - thirty movies that have similar scenes and chopped up to resemble the first thirteen minutes of another movie. Nice troll.

Don't you have a park ranger to kill?

Actually, the Adventure of Tin Tin was 10x the movie the last Indy movie was.

Hope there is love in the article for the Scrooge McDuck they stole the Raiders boulder from.

I can't believe (from pizza roll guy) that Indy III was supposed to take place in a haunted house, but Spielburg turned it down because he just did poltergeist.

Nice try, Lao Glomgold

Storytelling and basic film techniques -- how does that work?

weak. You could take any movie and pair it up against 30 others, not even from the same genre, and match up random shots and scenes. Doesn't mean anything important.

Internet forums about (insert art medium here) are always full of guys complaining how something is 'stolen' or 'not original' or whatever. They of course have no work of their own to present, but of course if Hollywood listened to them, they would be highly successful and not complaining on the internet, right?

Art isn't made from some black box out of nothing. It's always at the very least influenced by past experiences with similar art and often, tips of the hat to well-liked works. The French have a word for this - homage. Imagine that, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" takes queues from a film called "Raiders of Ghost City"! Scoundrels!

There are infinite stories to be told, but only so many ways to tell a story and have it really resonate with people. The bible of this is over at TV-tropes.

"Yup, that's how culture works...at least if we let it." Please. Go back to your cheetohs and internet-biatching.

Mark Ratner: Perhaps Speilberg could've ripped off more scenes and dialogue for the craptastic, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

Mutt Williams: I don't understand. Why the legend about the city of gold?
Indiana Jones: The Ugha word for gold translates as "treasure." But their treasure wasn't gold. It was knowledge. Knowledge was their treasure.



That's what you get when you let George Lucas do the character development and write the dialogue...

I'm guessing Dick Van Dyke dancing with animated penguins in "Mary Poppins" has never been duplicated.

Fano: Actually, the Adventure of Tin Tin was 10x the movie the last Indy movie was.

Yeah, saw Tin Tin this weekend with the kids and have to agree, came out with the impression that it is definitely a needed refresh of the genre. To be fair though, having the pseudo-realism of the Tin Tin style better supports the fantastic parts of these stories (an alien crystal skull is just too unbelievable for a live action movie but could probably work in Tin Tin).

I find this better than a few of the Disney change the color of the people and it's a whole new scene.

Similar movies in similar, or same, locations are going to be similar. Who woulda thunk.

I almost stopped watching when they compared two Paramount movies starting with the word "Paramount" around a mountain since that's the farking logo of Paramount, I'm guessing half of Paramount movies start this way.

Plus Lucas mentions on several occasions that he wrote Indiana Jones (and Star Wars) to be a modern day version of the serials of the 30's and 40's so it's no small wonder that the movie looks a lot like a serial of the 1940's since that was his inspiration and what he was trying to copy.

jake_lex: Nefarious: Grables'Daughter: OregonVet: Wow - thirty movies that have similar scenes and chopped up to resemble the first thirteen minutes of another movie. Nice troll.

I have to agree with this. If it's not two movies running continuously, what is the point?

That the series is know to have been based on serial adventures has shots that resemble the shots in said serials

Yeah, Raiders of the Lost Ark is derivative as hell, but that's kind of the point, and Spielberg and Lucas admitted it openly. That's part of the charm of the movie.


In the special features DVD that comes with the box set, they discuss various old serials they'd seen and wanted to adapt elements and action sequences from. They went into pretty big detail about how the scene where Indy gets dragged under the truck was based on an older film featuring a similar stunt with a stagecoach. They wanted to take these old tropes and ideas and make them their own on a bigger, more exciting scale and I think they did a great job of it.

TheDirtyNacho: The French have a word for this - homage

Homage? You're all drunk. It's disgusting. Out! The lot, out!

Cory Doctorow (the guy who posted the thing, not the guy who made the comparison video) is known for arguing against the draconian and nonsensical extensions of copyright law. His point is that culture is always about borrowing and that's a good thing. If you criminalize borrowing, you'd criminalize culture and be much the poorer for it.

So--to be clear, the point of this is not "oooooh, Raiders was part of a genre", but rather that Raiders would not be possible without the movies that went before it, and by extension, that we should all have the freedom that Spielberg/Lucas were able to have in borrowing freely from what went before in order to possibly create great entertainment or art.

I'd swear there was some Zorro and King Kong action in there.

jabelar: Fano: Actually, the Adventure of Tin Tin was 10x the movie the last Indy movie was.

Yeah, saw Tin Tin this weekend with the kids and have to agree, came out with the impression that it is definitely a needed refresh of the genre. To be fair though, having the pseudo-realism of the Tin Tin style better supports the fantastic parts of these stories (an alien crystal skull is just too unbelievable for a live action movie but could probably work in Tin Tin).

Want to see Tintin but having trouble with the changes made to Captain Haddock to make the movie more kid friendly (his being drunk was the funniest part of the comic and usually the cause of alot of misadventures)

Fano: [detriotgirl.com image 510x366]
Nice try, Lao Glomgold

Adapting some of Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge adventures to the big screen.
Now, THAT wouid be awesome.

I like Han Solo, P.I. (new window)

And just think, some people still complain about Christopher Paolini's writing.

rhondajeremy: jabelar: Fano: Actually, the Adventure of Tin Tin was 10x the movie the last Indy movie was.

Yeah, saw Tin Tin this weekend with the kids and have to agree, came out with the impression that it is definitely a needed refresh of the genre. To be fair though, having the pseudo-realism of the Tin Tin style better supports the fantastic parts of these stories (an alien crystal skull is just too unbelievable for a live action movie but could probably work in Tin Tin).

Want to see Tintin but having trouble with the changes made to Captain Haddock to make the movie more kid friendly (his being drunk was the funniest part of the comic and usually the cause of alot of misadventures)

Haddock restarts an airplane engine with his drunk breath, I can't imagine how much more drunk he is in the comics. Whiskey bottles were present in almost every scene, and though tin tin yells at him at one point, they never have the oblig "drinking ain't cool, quit drinking hero" scene

msupf: weak. You could take any movie and pair it up against 30 others, not even from the same genre, and match up random shots and scenes. Doesn't mean anything important.

I make my own porno that way.

rhondajeremy: jabelar: Fano: Actually, the Adventure of Tin Tin was 10x the movie the last Indy movie was.

Yeah, saw Tin Tin this weekend with the kids and have to agree, came out with the impression that it is definitely a needed refresh of the genre. To be fair though, having the pseudo-realism of the Tin Tin style better supports the fantastic parts of these stories (an alien crystal skull is just too unbelievable for a live action movie but could probably work in Tin Tin).

Want to see Tintin but having trouble with the changes made to Captain Haddock to make the movie more kid friendly (his being drunk was the funniest part of the comic and usually the cause of alot of misadventures)

How is the uncanny valley problem with this one?

I used to think America's founding fathers were talented and brilliant people, by their creating a republican system of democracy with a separation of powers, checks and balances, representative gov't, etc...until I found out about the
Romans. Hacks! Frauds!

I suggest the irony tag, since an article about plagiarism and derivative work is being linked via boing boing instead of the direct link.

http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2012/01/01/raider-of-the-lost-lawsui ts / (new window)

Glad to see there's a consensus of "Duh, being similiar is EXACTLY what he was trying to do!".

My two cents in regards to Avatar. Read "Life is a Dream" by Calderon de la Barca then re-watch Avatar and keep track of referenced to sleep and dreaming. Not just when they are in the stasis tubes, but when characters are telling each other to "wake up".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_is_a_Dream

Now THIS is plagiarism

Link (new window)

Amazing compilation job. Glad it finally got made.
Just shows how RIGHT Spielberg got it.

The_Time_Master: rhondajeremy: jabelar: Fano: Actually, the Adventure of Tin Tin was 10x the movie the last Indy movie was.

Yeah, saw Tin Tin this weekend with the kids and have to agree, came out with the impression that it is definitely a needed refresh of the genre. To be fair though, having the pseudo-realism of the Tin Tin style better supports the fantastic parts of these stories (an alien crystal skull is just too unbelievable for a live action movie but could probably work in Tin Tin).

Want to see Tintin but having trouble with the changes made to Captain Haddock to make the movie more kid friendly (his being drunk was the funniest part of the comic and usually the cause of alot of misadventures)

How is the uncanny valley problem with this one?

Not as bad as I would have expected - that usually bothers me also with the "turn 2D cartoons into smooth 3D blobby characters." It was also cute in the beginning when a sketch artist paints Tin-Tin... and it is a drawing of him from the comics. And in the background are a bunch of the other characters that way too. Cheeky and cute.

Addressing another post - and a reason I am usually against turning 2D properties into live action - the action sequences are beyond what would work in live action. The physics would defy belief - as say, a pirate ship battle in which one ship is swinging on another ship's mast - BUT IT WORKS!

I don't know, my suspension of disbelief allows me to not blink an eye when Superman picks up a jumbo jet in midair in cartoon form but seems preposterous in live action.

The moment you can do this live action, looking real and not costing 100 million, book me (new window)

So the story goes, Lukas and Spielberg were lunching, remeniscing about the movies they had grown up with. They came up with the idea of making the ultimate adventure movie, harking back to the exciting old movies and serials, to remind the new generations of the great movies they had missed.