But It's Suspiciously Similar To ...

Above Then Beyond is an animated French short about a lonely widow whose home faces demolition by evil businessmen because it's the only house left in the middle of an urban development.

The sharply dressed bastards then show up to bully her out of her house. And after being served with an eviction notice, she turns her house into a gigantic hot air balloon and floats off into the clouds. You have to admit, that's a pretty bizarrely specific plot to have occurred to two different filmmakers. SlashFilm did this side-by-side comparison:

SlashFilm

Aside from the fact that the protagonist of Up is an old man and not a woman, the only real difference between the films is that in Up, the old man goes on a bunch of zany jungle adventures with a fat kid and a talking dog, whereas in Above Then Beyond, the old lady dies and it's revealed to be a dream she had.

Before being murdered by skinheads.

One of the creators of the animated short was a film student who basically said that he's pretty sure somebody at Pixar got their idea from his film, but he's powerless to accuse them of anything, as the film was part of his studies and no longer technically belongs to him. So once again the minefield of copyright law miraculously comes out in favor of the giant megacorporation.

Remember this scene in The Hunger Games, where they're introduced to the battlefield and forced to fight over backpacks and weapons?

Really, it's not all that different from graduate school.

Battle Royale had almost that exact same scene. When the combatants are thrown into the combat area, they are allotted backpacks, provisions, and random weapons, and they start fighting almost immediately. Both films contain a command center that keeps track of the combatants and reads out lists of the dead over loudspeakers.

But one of the command centers didn't secure their Wi-Fi.

And both films contain emotionally damaged previous winners acting as mentors.

Wait, they aren't both Woody Harrelson?

The author of The Hunger Games said she never heard of Battle Royale, but that when she turned in the first draft of her novel, it was mentioned to her that there were huge similarities between the two. But that was the end of it. The makers of Battle Royale have not made any claim of plagiarism against the better known American film. In fact, Battle Royale has been enjoying a resurgence of popularity ever since a bunch of Japanophiles pointed out the similarities after seeing The Hunger Games. When the Japanese movie was re-released for American audiences, they included a cheeky reference in the trailer, which almost makes it sound like The Hunger Games was a remake:

"Not to imply anything ..."

The similarities between the two characters are so striking that, when the new film came out, lots of reviewers praised it or damned it for its similarity to RoboCop. Of course, no such comparisons were drawn from the 1995 Stallone attempt, but then the new version is a much more faithful adaption of the comic book that RoboCop is suggested to have ripped off. Even Karl Urban, who plays Judge Dredd, admits that the film has a lot of RoboCop references, because "RoboCop was obviously inspired by Dredd."

You can even see some direct elements from the comic that have ended up in the movie. Like RoboCop's quote "Come quietly -- or there will be trouble!" which just happened to be the quote on the cover of this copy of the Dredd comic 2000 A.D.

Ah yes, we all remember the year 2000.

It's been rumored for years that the original Judge Dredd script was passed around Hollywood from studio to studio and writer to writer, going through numerous reboots until it became RoboCop. Hell, even Paul Verhoeven said Judge Dredd was an influence on RoboCop (although you'll need to know Dutch to read that). And RoboCop's screenwriter, Ed Neumeier, has admitted that Dredd was at least a partial influence on the character.

In fact, the initial design concept for RoboCop, shown on the DVD extras, has him wearing a Dredd-style helmet at one point until someone opened a dictionary and saw the definition of the word "plagiarism" and decided they should change at least one thing.

But It's Suspiciously Similar To ...

Timespirits was a short-lived Marvel comic series from the '80s created by Stephen Perry, who also created ThunderCats. Timespirits is so obscure that there's not much information available on the actual plot. However, looking at the following panels, it's easy to see that Avatar doesn't just bear a passing resemblance:

The comic book characters have way better pants.

Still not convinced? Here's another comparison:

To fully enjoy, put on a pair of 3D glasses and proceed to bitch about it.

For what little can be recalled about the obscure comic, it seems that a sexy blue cat lady falls in love with a human man while being hunted by soldier types who seem to embody white guilt.

And the very best in earthling hat styles.

Although Timespirits didn't sell very well, enough people have accused Cameron of ripping it off that it should at least raise a few eyebrows. Then again, Avatar has already been accused of ripping off everything from FernGully to Dances With Wolves to other obscure science fiction novels about paraplegics who have their consciousness inserted into alien avatars. But maybe that says a lot more about Cameron's originality than it does about his deviousness.

Just like The Village, a girl goes on a quest to get medical supplies to cure diseases. But there's a conspiracy theory by community leaders to keep the truth hidden from the village's residents.

Anyone who lived in the suburbs knows the same basic story.

The only real difference between The Village and Running Out of Time is the reason for the village's existence. In Running Out of Time, the village is part of a genetic experiment. In The Village, it is because the village elders wanted to go back to a simpler time before everyone's lives were ruled by Facebook.

Little did they know they'd been infiltrated by Mark Zuckerberg.

There was initially some lawyer talk, like "reviewing our legal options," from the book's publishers, which we all know basically translates to "Motherfucker, you stole my shit." But that was in 2004 and, as usual, those accusations quietly went away.

But It's Suspiciously Similar To ...

"Little Girl Lost" is an episode of The Twilight Zone in which a girl is trapped between dimensions within her house as her parents and a scientist agonize over how to rescue her before finally deciding that one of her parents will have to venture into the other dimension to bring her out. The only difference between this episode and Poltergeist is that in "Little Girl Lost," the parents are helped by a scientist. In Poltergeist, that character is replaced by a psychic.

Both films feature a parent venturing into the other dimension to rescue the little girl. In Poltergeist the mom goes in, and in Little Girl Lost it's the dad -- because, you know, the 1950s and whatnot.

This could still be a coincidence, except that, according to author Andrew Gordon in his book Empire of Dreams, Spielberg was directly influenced by this episode and asked for a copy to watch while working on the script for Poltergeist. Apparently Spielberg has a broad definition of the term "inspiration."

Clovis was brought to life by a lonely child's wish, just like Ted was.

Imagine This!

But Imagine This came out waaaay back in the distant past of 2008, when Seth MacFarlane was still only stealing from '80s movies. As such, it contains fewer recycled Family Guy jokes.

CartoonBrew
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. Stewie Griffin is a ripoff, too.

Of course, there's no direct evidence that MacFarlane was influenced by the comic strip (nobody's seen him reading a copy at the bus stop or anything), and MacFarlane is keeping his lips sealed about the matter. But the comic's creator said he was "devastated" after hearing about the similarities. Either that, or he's just upset that his characters fall so neatly into the MacFarlane archetype.

Aaron Short is a film student, writer, and prolific lover of women. He has a blog about movies and stuff here.

For more unoriginal tripe, check out 5 Insanely Successful Video Games That Were Total Ripoffs and The 6 Most Psychotic Ripoffs of Famous Animated Films.

If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out How One Man Tricked China Into Building a Giant Dong.

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