Hi,
I remember a Dredd story in which a childrens tv presenter (in a SIMP costume?)is sacked. His wife (on the TV show) is having an affair with his co presenter.
It all ended badley with Dredd getting involved (it was his story). Am I right? Is my memory failing me??
Well the new Robin Williams - Ed Norton - Danny DeVito film is coming out called "Death To Smoochy". It follows the above story - just no Dredd.
Someone better tell Tharg - and get those lawyers involved.
This happened with a film called "Hardware" which was based on a Future Shock
story.
regards
rehan.
RNMirza@aol.com
The story was by Wagner (I think.) Early full colour art by Liam Sharpe if my memory circuits haven't burnt.
Dredd busted the kiddies presenters and poor old Bungle and Zippy were done for molesting Sooty too.
Who would have thought it, eh?
scojo
Talking of rip-offs, was there ever any acknowledgment of the similarities between 'Jurassic Park' and the dinosaur theme park introduced in 'The Cursed Earth'? And what of Liam Sharpe's swiping from just about everybody?
I often wondered about the whole Cursed Earth cloning thing and Jurassic Park.
I can only assume there was an article back in the seventies in a scientific paper or newspaper that said it could be possible and both got their inspiration for that.
Or Crichton is a thief (just kidding rich man with lawyers), it is very similar. Mind you Jurassic Park was just a re-working of Westworld with dinosaurs.
Didn't an episode of flesh have a beserk robotic gunslinger just like Westworld?(I can't remember but there is a picture of one on the Flesh cardgame).
They could make a Flesh film or cursed Earth dinosaur pic very similar to Jurassic Park (but perhaps make it not so tedious and dull) and avoid prosecutiom.
'Flesh', as envisioned by Andy Warhol. 'A day in the life of male dinowhore'. I have some vague memory of this robot gunslinger you mention, but. . . Nope, it's gone.
The Robot gunslinger was actually a Robot Marshall who policed Carver City in Flesh. I remember making the connection to this and Westworld when I first saw it as well. If you want to see this, TThe Megazine startted reprinting Flesh from Issue four in its latest run.
According to the Michael Crichton Web page, he first wrote about cloning a Pterodon back in 1983, but he wasn't happy with the story so he worked on it. Jurassic Park was first published in 1990, with The Lost Work comming along in 1995. I had always believed that Crichton had written the book way back in the Sixties, and he it adapted into a film by Spielberg much later. I guess I was wrong.
Come to think of it, it's a good job TV shows and films don't go suing low-distribution comics for wipping off THEIR ideas. Anyone remember MACH 1 (Six Million Dollar Man)/Harlem Heroes (Rollerball)/Skizz (ET)?
ALl I'm trying to say is - grow up. You can't take ownership of a loose premise such as x loses his job because x's wife is sleeping with y ;)
Peace and light,
Doggie
Link: Doggieville
Hey, there's no copyright on ideas. I was merely curious as to whether or not anyone ever made mention of the similarities between the two stories.
I agree with your comparisons they are too obvious not to be missed.
Grow up, that's a bit rich. I don't think there's been an immature or plain dumb post on this thread. Just some people having a pleasant enough conversation.
Bloody Hell.
If I remember rightly, Skizz pre-dated ET. Anyone confirm that?
I think Baikie and Moore knew ET was coming out, and tried to do it their way before it came out at the cinema.
So Moore went off and quickly wrote the story of Skizz coming to earth. I don't think they had any more than the 'kid finds ET' idea. They may not have even known that. I'm sure some guy with a better memory than me knows.
As for similar stories there was another rollerball story in Action which was really good. There was HookJaw in Action which was obviously jaws, and Shako wasn't very similar to Richard Adams' Shardik, about a polar bear?
Steeling a story is wrong, but SF is littered with borrowed idea's.
Who was it said 'genius steals'? 2000 AD in its formative years did have some very obvious rip-offs but that was surely due in part to the attitude at the time being it was merely for the kids. I do think in some cases, notably MACH 1, the stories, for all their pulp sensibilities, did surpass the material which inspired them. Which, let's face it, wouldn't have been difficult if we consider just how bad something like 'The Six Million Dollar Man' actually was. Besides, it was done with such a sense of energy and fun, something I found lacking from as late as the mid-nineties onwards and which probably contributed to my no longer reading 2000 AD.
Anyway, I bet you your battered free space spinner John Probe could have that Steve Austin wuss anyday. Mate.
No, ET came first.
Many years ago, Alan Moore was the guest at a Glassgow SF c0nvention I was at, and he told the audience the story behind Skizz:
Basically, Tharg phoned him up, told him about this new 'boy meets alien' Spielberg film coming out in the US and said he wanted Alan to rip it off. Which Alan happily did, but taking the premise further than the film did.
Alan also swore blind that he knew nothing more about ET other than what Tharg told him - the film hadn't been released then - and that Skizz being initially discovered in a garden shed (or whatever, can't quite remember) was just one of those spooky coincidences that happen in writing.
"New film rips of 2000AD" conspiracists please note that last bit. Independent coincidental duplication of ideas happens _all_ the time. To be plagiarism, you have to have some evidence that the creators of Work A have seen or are aware of earlier Work B and so may have taken their ideas from it. Some film loosely sounding like the premise for a minor and barely-remembered Dredd story is hardly going to start the Rebellionb lawyers phone lines buzzing.
Couldn't agree more re: rip-off conspiracy theorists. Like I said, there's no copyright on ideas.
. . . But then, as PVS said, it's only idle chit chat.
I remember the fuss over robocop, was there actually some legal action from 2000AD? Or is that just a myth? To be honest I never really could see what Robocop had to do with Dredd. Robocop and Dredd are in no way similar (in my eyes). A few similar lines, oh I don't know, I've heard the explanations before, but I still don't get it. Don't repeat them please!
Of course there has been a genuine rush to eat from JK Rowling's and her fantastical magical trough of cash. Everyone on earth has been claiming they had a boy wizard up their sleeve. I even heard Neil Gaimen had a go, people have mentioned that Luke Kirby thing which looked so good and I rapidly lost interest in. I've also heard that there was one book which even has a similar plot and names (or so I've been told).
All these people complaining that she used an idea similar to theirs but she did it better and made a million (or 67).
It's funny how you can get away with so much with books and films but music is incredibly tight. Maybe it's just easier to prove.
say, i always thought halo jones and bridget jones's diary are too similiar coz they both have jones in the title. someone call in the solicitors.