Is it really original if....?

[jackfaire]

I was looking forward to watching the Village a few years back when I finally got around to watching it. I was excited and expected it to be original as that is what M. Night is famous for. Hell everyone was crowing about the original story he thought up how unique it was etc.

After I watched it I wondered if movie critics never read books or ever talk to their fellow critics in the book world.

This book http://www.amazon.com/Running-Time-M...5153839&sr=8-1


Which came out before The Village was even a twinkling in M's eye has almost the same plot with differences

SPOILER ALERT BELOW





First difference the village in the book was a tourist exhibit young couples agreed to go and live in this village pretending it was 1840.

Like in the movie the children were raised to believe it was real. The company in charge of this tourist attraction would send in "traders" now and then with supplies. Tourists would watch through cameras to see what the villagers were up to.

The tourists are told that as the children get old enough to understand they are told the truth and always have the option to leave. Really though they are kept as prisoners no one is allowed to leave the village and the children are not allowed to be told the truth.

Finally an illness resulting from no access to modern medicine starts it's course through the village and a woman helps her daughter sneak out. The daughter goes for help to bring the modern world with it's medicine to her village to save the lives of her friends.

I can allow that he told an original story but I don't consider the concept he used to be at all original. Nor have any of his concepts really been original.

[Rebel]

There is no such thing as an original story. The idea is that every story that can be written, has already been written. Every 'new' story is just the writers interpretation of a previously told story.

It's actually a fun game to work out which story all the 'new' and 'original' movies and books are derived from.

Twilight=Romeo and Juliet
MacGruber=MacGyver (if you didn't know that already, then please slap yourself)
Killers=True Lies

Or the stories are about a certain life milestone or hurdle or tragedy (Thirteen/Juno/Virgin Suicides).
There can be nearly an infinite amount of versions of the same story.

Though, to be fair, M. Night could have heard the story as a child, forgotten about it, remembered snippets of it, wrote it down, created his 'new' story.

(Were you as unimpressed and unsurprised about the 'twist' in the Village as I was? And I hadn't even read the book)

[Hobbs]

MacGruber is a parody and as such, is meant to resemble MacGyver.

I've never seen Thirteen or the Virgin Suicides, but I still don't think they're that similar to be considered the same as Juno.

Just because something is, "About a certain life milestone or hurdle or tragedy..." does not mean they're unoriginal.

In that vein, would you consider Saving Private Ryan the same as Blackhawk Down? They're both war movies about American Rangers surrounded by the enemy right?

[jackfaire]

Though, to be fair, M. Night could have heard the story as a child, forgotten about it, remembered snippets of it, wrote it down, created his 'new' story.

(Were you as unimpressed and unsurprised about the 'twist' in the Village as I was? And I hadn't even read the book)

Incredibly so and the book came out in the mid to late 90s actually.


And I know all that about original stories and such the thing is having to listen to sheep applaud something as if it is the most original thing in the world or being a writer yourself and being told that you will never be as good as (insert hack writer name here)

LJ Smith has started writing again or at the very least publishing again she has probably been writing for the last 10 years and I overheard someone say about "Vampire Diaries" (which the newer trilogy is a sequel to one she wrote years ago) "It's so cool that so many vampire books are being inspired by Twilight"

[Red Panda]

The Village is a horrible movie with a horrible story and a horrible twist and none of it makes any sense. Thats all I have to say on the subject

[blas87]

I have to agree. Scary Movie 4's version was better than The Village.

M Night just really disappoints me in general.

I wanted to oft myself watching The Happening, it was so bad. Thankfully, I played it safe and just fell asleep.

[Rebel]

MacGruber is a parody and as such, is meant to resemble MacGyver.

Never said it wasn't. Just that it's the same basic story/idea. It's not an original idea, neither is the practice of parodying previously told stories.

I've never seen Thirteen or the Virgin Suicides, but I still don't think they're that similar to be considered the same as Juno.

Just because something is, "About a certain life milestone or hurdle or tragedy..." does not mean they're unoriginal.

Every thing that has happened to you has already happened to someone else at some point. And those examples I made had to deal with obstacles or tragedies one might experience in life (puberty, peer pressure, unexpected/unwanted pregnancy, suicide). It's original in that it could be the first time it's happening to that particular person, but it is no way an original or unique event.

In that vein, would you consider Saving Private Ryan the same as Blackhawk Down? They're both war movies about American Rangers surrounded by the enemy right?

Both war movies that cover search/rescue type missions. They just have different motivations (searching for a last surviving family member and escaping a mission gone wrong). The war and your American Rangers are just the characters used to tell a story, you could easily change it to the Roman army and still tell the same general story.

Just because a situation or story is original to one person, does not mean the story is original to another.

[Fryk]

I have to agree. Scary Movie 4's version was better than The Village.

M Night just really disappoints me in general.

I wanted to oft myself watching The Happening, it was so bad. Thankfully, I played it safe and just fell asleep.

I didn't even bother with the Happening, after I heard this nugget in the trailer...

"There appears to be an event happening."

Wow, riveting dialogue.

[jackfaire]

A small village that is supposedly the 1800s in the middle of nowhere. Children are scared into never straying too far from the village. Never told of the outside world. An illness occurs medicine is needed a child is sent out into the outside world to retrieve it.

Those are the similarities.

These are the differences.


Movie: Girl is blind

Book: Truth is revealed to girl being sent for help

Movie: The outside world is not supposed to know about the village

Book: The village is a tourist attraction and the tourists are told that the villagers know what date it really is (the children who were too young to remember or were born in the village don't know) and that they have access to modern health care (they don't)

Movie: The girl returns the village is kept intact and continues on.

Book: The village ends some of the children died from their illnesses the rest lived and the owners of the company that ran the place are brought up on charges.

Other things are different of course minor details of the story. However no one ever really applauded him for originality of story so much as for originality of the concept since "no one had thought it up before"

[Hobbs]

Basically a story is nothing more than Exposition-->Rising action-->Climax-->Falling action--> Denoument.

Therefore, you'd have to conclude that nothing is original.

Just because something flows a similar pattern, doesn't make it unoriginal.

The African Diaspora and the Jewish Diaspora have similarities, but the two are very different events.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

I really get tired of the 'everything's already happened before' sentiment because it hasn't. This is only true if you strip the context of any situation away, chop it up into individual events considered separately and boil down the situation to it's vaguest and basest of components. Lives, wars, movies and books are so much more than the randomly considered individual components or basest of themes that they may have.

In order for two things to be the same their entirety must be considered, not just the background. While any one minute detail may be significant, any story probably contains hundreds if not thousands of such details, the amounts of which and interactions of which are just as important if not more so than the overarching theme.

While there are many self-contained characters, settings and plot-points that are overused these all fall into the realm of cliche and even then only the worst examples don't simply use the cliche as a part of or starting point for said character, setting, or plot point.

Simply put, similar does not equal same. It's just not how the world works dammit!

[Racket_Man]

heck The Village sounds very similar to a movie from like 10 years ago called "The Island" where a few people supposedly survived a viriliant plague and are brought to an underground safe haven when they are "found". at what seems random intervals there is a "lottery" where one person gets choosen to got to another safe place called The Island. it turns out that these "people" are nothing more than clones of wealthy people. The clones "win the lottery and get to go to the Island" when the wealthy person needs a kidney or heart or some other body part.

the clones eventually "figure out" what is going on and revolt (finiding the real safe world above the complex) and two of them even take the place of their "originals"

[AdminAssistant]

Twilight=Romeo and Juliet

And Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was taken straight from an Italian novella. As were Othello, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and all of his other plays set in Italy. There isn't an 'original' story in his entire canon.

[McDreidel09]

heck The Village sounds very similar to a movie from like 10 years ago called "The Island" where a few people supposedly survived a viriliant plague and are brought to an underground safe haven when they are "found". at what seems random intervals there is a "lottery" where one person gets choosen to got to another safe place called The Island. it turns out that these "people" are nothing more than clones of wealthy people. The clones "win the lottery and get to go to the Island" when the wealthy person needs a kidney or heart or some other body part.

the clones eventually "figure out" what is going on and revolt (finiding the real safe world above the complex) and two of them even take the place of their "originals"

I love that movie, but I don't think it came out 10 years ago. lol

Just checked. It was five years ago lol

The Village made me giggle. However, just because it is similar to something, doesn't mean it is ripped off from it.

[Cassandra]

"about "Vampire Diaries" (which the newer trilogy is a sequel to one she wrote years ago) "It's so cool that so many vampire books are being inspired by Twilight""

Aaarrggg! That made me physically cringe! I used to read LJ Smith back in junior high, way before Twilight came into existence. I actually hate how Twilight has spawned a renewal of sorts in vampires. All these "new" vampire movies/books are all rehashes of some of the best stories told. I understand that nothing is truly original, but there can always be a refreshing twist on how the story is told. I mean how many times has Dracula been retold? Some of the attempts are horrible while others kick ass. But for the love of all that is dark and mysterious, do not tell me that these things are inspired by Twilight!