I approach this cautiously, which means maybe I shouldn't say anything. And I haven't read Lost Boys . But I find this calling M. N. S. a thief ironic given Card's avoidance of Starship Troopers . I can certainly tell any similarities are superficial at best. But let's ease up.
SPOILERS???? . . . . . . . My understanding of Lost Boys is that the departed child was still visible to the living. I don't really see the parallels to Sixth Sense . But I'm the one always saying Alvin Maker isn't really parallel to Joseph Smith. So judge my view accordingly. . . . . . . . . End SPOILERS?
Anyway, MNS is pretty slavish in his homages to Hitchcock. I haven't read the story that The Village is based on. But so far as Card ascribing it to a pattern of story theft, I am curious to know if anyone besides Card sees Sixth Sense as a theft of Lost Boys .
Posted by Taalcon (Member # 839) on :
Oh man. I just have to shake my head. This seems more reactionary then anything - I personally think making such a statement about a film without having a firsthand account of it (synopses from others I don't consider as fitting the bill) is... just tacky. Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
I have never heard OSC say anything like that toward Sixth Sense. Maybe I missed something, but the only ones I have heard make that claim was fans here.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
It's probably easier to feel that way when you are the author of a book. I personally never saw it. Sixth Sense was different enough, and well-crafted enough, that it stands on its own. Don't most stories have influences from elsewhere? He may have been influenced, but I don't think there's any reason to believe he's stealing stories. I'd have to see a parallel written by Card, to see it from his point of view.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
The thing is, OSC had defended himself vigorously on his right to incorporate non-original material in his work. And I think he is right to do so. Novelty is overrated, and it is the craft that matters. I haven't seen MNS's latest or read the book it is supposedly based on. I'm more debating Card's assertion that MNS has displayed a pattern of infringement.
Posted by Bekenn (Member # 6602) on :
I've seen Sixth Sense and read Lost Boys (both short story and novel). Lost Boys is possibly OSC's best work, and Sixth Sense is certainly very good, as well. But apart from them both being great, I really don't see any similarity, especially between the movie and the novel version. I have no doubt that Sixth Sense is either Shyamalan's original work or stolen from somewhere else; I doubt he's even read either version of Lost Boys, and I would never have thought of comparing the two had OSC not mentioned it in the column.
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
quote:But the author of Lost Boys -- me -- knew that enough had been changed that there was no point in suing. Besides, if Lost Boys was filmed, I wanted it to be more faithful to the storyline of the novel -- and that film could still be made.
In other words, it was just enough like Lost Boys to make a connection, but not enough to say it was actually plagerism. I often agree with OSC, but this comes off as quibling. As someone said, it might be just a knee jerk reaction; possibly to his innability to get Hollywood to act on his wishes. Unlike writing, making films is much more about colaberation, compromise, and the bottom line. Creative independance is NOT encouraged.
In case anyone missed it, I don't think that Sixth Sense and Lost Boys have any similarities other than there is a boy and dead people.
quote:And maybe Shyamalan thought it up himself.
And at least he gives a possibility of the benifit of the doubt.
By the way, has anyone ever read Running Out of Time, and seen the M. Night movie? Care to compare?
[ August 17, 2004, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: Occasional ]
Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
Village, Sixth Sense, Lost Boys, and Running Out of Time spoilers below.
Sixth Sense is no more taken from lost boys than Lost Boys is taken from Ghost. The stories simply aren't that similar.
As for the Village and that other book, here is a summary of the book from Amazon (they took it from the School Library Journal):
quote:This absorbing novel develops an unusual premise into the gripping story of a young girl's efforts to save her family and friends from a deadly disease. Jessie Keyser, 13, believes that the year is 1840. In truth, she and her family, along with a small group of others, live in a reconstructed village viewed by unseen modern tourists and used as an experimental site by unethical scientists. Jessie discovers the truth when her mother asks her to leave the village and seek medical help for the diptheria epidemic that has struck the children of the community. Jessie must cope with the shock of her discovery; her unfamiliarity with everyday phenomena such as cars, telephones, and television; and the unscrupulous men who are manipulating the villagers. The action moves swiftly, with plenty of suspense, and readers will be eager to discover how Jessie overcomes the obstacles that stand in her way. While she is ultimately successful, the ending is not entirely a happy one, for several children have died and others are placed in foster care to await resolution of the complex situation. This realistically ambiguous ending reflects the author's overall success in making her story, however far-fetched, convincing and compelling. Haddix also handles characterization well; even secondary characters who are somewhat sketchily drawn never descend into stereotype. This book will appeal to fans of time-travel or historical novels as well as those who prefer realistic contemporary fiction, all of whom will look forward to more stories from this intriguing new author.
Now, I haven't read it, but I have read a detailed synopsis, and the it sounds like the only similarity is the "Moderns making old village" premise. Furthermore, Haddix's work bears far more similarity to an old (and utterly wretched) Piers Anthony novel called "Race Against Time" that the Village does to Haddix's work. In Anthony's novel, people from the future recreate a simulated American 1960s town and try to fool a young boy growing up in it. He escapes and has to deal with the future world. He finds that they also recreated towns from Japan and Africa, and he has the standard adventures. Once again, the premise is similar, but the story isn't.
In the Village, the story as we see it is a love story amid danger. It is the monsters in the woods that form the basis of it, and the most significant twist comes when we find out they are fake. Only at the very end is it revealed that it is the modern era, and all the characters who thought they were living in the 1890s still did at the end of the story. In short, the changes are not superficial. They go to the heart of the story. Only if you know the twist from the beginning (as the synopsis Card got almost certainly told him) do the stories look at all similar. Furthermore, the Village does not make Running Out of Time unfilmable. The similarities between the two are no greater than the similarities between Armageddon and Deep Impact, Chasing Liberty and First Daughter, Antz and A Bugs Life, or Finding Nemo and A Shark's Tale.
Lastly, why isn't Card whining about similarities between Harry Potter and Jane Yolen's Wizard's Hall. Here is Card's description of the latter:
quote:Eleven-year-old Henry is a kid who isn't particularly good at anything, and has no particular ambitions in life. Like most kids, he has passing fancies about what he'd like to be -- but to his surprise, when he mentions the idea of maybe becoming a wizard, his normally complacent mother seizes on the idea and packs him off to study at Wizard's Hall.
There Henry finds himself immediately out of his depth. He's the newest student, of course, and because his arrival completes the total of 113 students that the magisters were looking for, he will always be the newest. They take away his name and call him Thornmallow because he's "prickly on the outside and squishy on the inside," and then proceed to make it plain that he lacks even the most rudimentary talents that wizards must have in order to do well. He also has a habit of blurting things out and making spectacular mistakes.
But he does have a few friends, and when it comes to his schooling, he tries, which may -- or may not -- be enough.
The similarities are obvious. And I suspect the reason he didn't complain is that he read both books before hearing any inaccurate or misleading synopses. (As far as I know, when Card first heard of the Sixth Sense, he heard that it was the boy who was dead, and he first thought he saw similarities based on that) I suspect that had he seen both movies before biasing himself, then he wouldn't have worried about the similarities so much, because the differences in execution are so huge.
Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
Uhm, folks, not sure if you missed it but apparently Card isn't the only one who thinks the similarities are too coincidental:
quote: Meanwhile, Haddix's publisher, Simon & Schuster, are deciding with Haddix whether to sue Disney and Shyamalan for copyright infringement.
I've heard Card state the "Lost Boys" vs "Sixth Sense" similarities before. A child who sees dead people, the murderer is a molester, the child is seeing a psychologist who doesn't believe him (in one case, at first) and the suprise twist ending
<spoiler> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * in which we find out someone we thought was alive is actually dead. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * </spoiler>
The reason that similarities like these aren't pursued as strongly when they occur in books (a more obvious example being Lord of the Rings and Sword of Shannara) is because if the first book was pretty bad, no one will remember it and it has likely already gone out of print. If the first book was very good, the next book will be seen as clearly derivative. Either way, not much is lost. Same thing happens with movies. Antz is clearly derivative of A Bug's Life, and it is pretty much scorned.
But it is different when a movie is derived from a book, and I think Card explains very well why this is so.
quote: because The Village was made, no movie based on Running Out of Time can ever be made. He used up Haddix's property completely.
[ August 17, 2004, 04:40 PM: Message edited by: AmkaProblemka ]
Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
A quick check on Google, with the words Haddix "Out of Time" "The Village" will reveal there is actually quite a bit of stirring up going on about this.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote: the murderer is a molester
I don't remember this in The Sixth Sense Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
I'll have to go back and check, but he couldn't make himself stop, he blamed it on the psychiatrist and that is why he shot the psychiatrist and then killed himself.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I guess the makers of 1900 house and Frontier house could also be infringer/infringees.
As Card says himself, the rights would have been easy to procure, why would Shymal(oh, forget it) steal them?
I can't seem to find it, but in the review of either Signs or Unbreakable, Card says he never saw Sixth Sense because as soon as he heard the premise he felt Lost Boys could never be filmed.
Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
I understand Card did later watch Sixth Sense, which is why he now knows that Lost Boys actually is filmable.
Anyway, I was wrong, but I know why I kept that impression. The murderer had stripped down to his underpants, so I got an immediate impression of a sexual victim/predator when I first watched the movie.
But I remembered another similarity: that of the boy learning how to help the dead people he sees.
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
Amka, even if those similarities are true that doesn't come close to plagerism. As long as you don't have the same sequence of events, the same characters, the same outcome -- than you are hard pressed to do anything about it. At best you can group it as a genre or derivative.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Well, we know MNS's true genius is his symbolic use of color Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
Occassional:
There is a difference between ethical plagerism and legal plagerism.
Card hasn't accused Shamaylan of legal plagerism in regards to Lost Boys.
But the idea of legal plagerism is becoming an issue with The Village and Running Out of Time.
Card has simply stated that this would tend to make the similarities between Lost Boys and Sixth Sense seem somewhat more than coincidental, though he still wouldn't pursue this because of what you said: it isn't legal plagerism and Card can still make a movie out of Lost Boys.
Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
Spoilers I think that you could have come up with as many similarities between Lost Boys and Ghost. There is a criminal who plans carefully and is only stopped in his crimes because of the intervention of a person who he killed. And since we know that Card saw and enjoyed Ghost, can we therefore conclude that he committed "ethical plagiarism?" I don't think so. All three are very different, and almost certainly just taken from ideas that abound in the general culture. Stories about ghosts that stay because they have some work to do are very common. And between the Village and Running Out of Time, the only similarity is the "moderns simulating olden times" aspect. Furthermore, since Village was advertised as a monster movie, while Running out of Time was (in the summary above) advertised as a fish out of water kind of story, they wouldn't conflict with each other at all.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I haven't seen The Village or read Out of time . I just don't think Card's assertion that Sixth Sense stole from Lost Boys strengthens the argument for plagiarism.
Now I'm seeming to remember that the underwear patient killed his parents or something like that. No, underwear guy could hear the voices, that is what Bruce man couldn't stop. Because he didn't choose to help, that is why Bruce character was so obsessed with the JHO character.
[ August 18, 2004, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: pooka ]
Posted by Rohan (Member # 5141) on :
Hazen, you might want to check out when Lost Boys (the short story) was written and when Ghost was made, and then rethink your analysis of whether Card committed "ethical plagiarism."
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Rohan, I think Hazen was just trying to make a point. He could just as easily have said, "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" or something equally ancient.
Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
I thought Ghost was made in the mid 80s. I was wrong, it was 1990 (It certainly struck me as 80s-ish). And I never thought Card plagiarized it at all. As I said earlier, these types of stories are common.
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
Amka writes:
quote:There is a difference between ethical plagerism and legal plagerism.
Exactly. And there is a long tradition of ethical plagarism among entertainment studios (TV and film).
As others have stated, the problems with "ethical plagerism" is that it's not quite like the print publishing world where there is room for many variations on the same plot points etc.
The number of movies/TV series that are made each year and the huges costs that go into making them are such that ethical plagarism can really screw over the person with the original idea -- someone who has more pull in Hollywood can take the idea and get someone else to work on it (and add in a few minor tweaks to keep things from being *too* obvious) and as long as there's no provable, legal plagarism, they totally get away with it.
And as OSC points out -- it's not like it would have been that difficult or expensive to buy the film rights to the novel. Heck, Shamalayan could still have written the screenplay and gotten the writing credit.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
When I read OSC's comments about The Sixth Sense years back, before he saw it, my impression was that he wasn't annoyed at plagiarism as he was that now Lost Boys couldn't be filmed because all the audience would see would be kid, ghosts, kid can see the ghosts, and immediately think, "Oh, like The Sixth Sense."
Pesonally I doubt Antz was ripped off from A Bug's Life. They both came out in 1998, and neither one was something you could just whip out. This is not at all a new occurance in Hollywood; sometimes different studios will think of the same ideas, or the word goes out that "hey, Universal is doing a caper movie, maybe we should do one." Remember when four different kid-and-older-man-switch-bodies movies came out in the same two-year period?
[ August 18, 2004, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
Chris:
Right. But those are all on the same level -- one producer or studio exec. gets wind of a film someone is doing and decides to dig around and find a similar script or pull in writers to work on the idea. Or, the copying does indeed happen after the announcement of the project [i.e. all the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" clones], etc.
Who continues to get screwed, however, are the novelists and un-established screenplay writers who have a great project that they shop around (or simply publish). The project gets rejected, but then the studios or more established writers or producers take the idea and put it into development.
The studios then just say that the idea was floating around the Zeitgeist or whatever, but the Zeitgeist is specifically picking up on one particular work.
Again, it's not always clear cut, but I have read some accounts that make OSC's comments about Shamaylan seem not so off base. Of course, these relied on the testimony of bitter writers...
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
But I make a distinction between using similar ideas - such as the mindswap concept, or kids who can see ghosts - and actual plagiarism where ideas are lifted from an existing source.
Posted by PixelFish (Member # 1293) on :
Actually, if I was going to plunk down money on the matter, I'd say Orson's short, Quietus, is a MUCH better candidate for the Sixth Sense ripoff.
SPOILER ALERT:
Similarities include: somebody we think is alive is dead, they are causing disruptions in their environment by refusing to believe that they are dead. The similarities between the shrink in 6th Sense and the main char in Quietus are stronger than if you were to go with the boy/alive/boy/dead switch you'd have to account for if Lost Boys was the source.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
Every person I've known who's seen the Village (some 7 or 8 people) have described it as, "just like Running Out of Time." I know that's anecdotal, but when you think about it, what are the chances that so many people would refer to it the same way?
Posted by Bekenn (Member # 6602) on :
SPOILER for Quietus (I think):
That's the one with the casket in the office, right?
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
quote:And as OSC points out -- it's not like it would have been that difficult or expensive to buy the film rights to the novel. Heck, Shamalayan could still have written the screenplay and gotten the writing credit.
Maybe Night didn't acquire the rights because that would tip off what the surprise ending would be?
I personally don't think The Village is a rip off. I've seen that story several times just in the Star Trek universe. A self-sustaining community turns out to be the results of an anachronistic evil experiment; monsters are revealed to be either hoaxes or aliens pretending to be monsters; and the community decides to keep living the lie.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
I vaguely recall Quietus, but the way people describe it here makes it sound a lot like a short story by HP Lovecraft (Nyarlathotep, I believe).
Curious.
-Bok
Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
If you saw it on Star Trek, chances are the storyline was ripped off from another story. Star Trek may have been radical TV in its day (TOS, at least) but it was never cutting edge science fiction. TNG was neither radical nor cutting edge.
Stories do influence each other. That is a fact. The line between inspiration and plagarism is actually pretty hard to define. But sometimes the similarities are just a bit too much to ascribe to the author much originality.
Posted by Tendril (Member # 5977) on :
I have been long amazed that Robert Heinlein didn't have a huge tantrum over Star Trek original's "Trouble with Tribbles." The plot similarities with "The Rolling Stones" (which, by the way, long predated the rock group) were striking, detailed and extensive. But I guess it just goes to show that there are only so many human plots... and the writer's job is to make each telling interesting.
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
Was "Running out of Time" really so popular that people left the Village comparing the two? I had never heard of it until all this hubub arose...
I also raise an eyebrow at the Sixth Sense/Lost Boys comparison. I had seen the Sixthe sense BEFORE I read Lost Boys...and never once did one remind me of the other. The comparison seems to be a stretch. But that's just my opinion.
Oh, and to clarify what really happened in TSS, the guy that killed Bruce Willis was having the SAME problem that the little boy was having, but Bruce Willis couldn't help him back then (or didn't believe him), so he went crazy and came to kill him. So, to feel better, Bruce Willis had to try again to help someone with the same problem and succeed. Posted by EyesClosed (Member # 6796) on :
After reading Orson Scott Cards attack on MNS for using Running Out of Time I decided to look up the book and realized I had actually read it before. So I guess I might qualify for having seen/read the two. As for similarities, there are quite a few though super specifics are beyond me as it has been several years since I read the book.
First and foremost is the obvious setup of an old village in modern times. Both take place in a town that is dated and from the olden times where only the older people know of the real world outside. As for the people's motives in living in their community... I can't quite remember the motives of the people in the book to say for sure :-\.
In both the novel and the movie, the character is taught about the modern world and sent out to explore it because of a medical problem that arises in the community. The girl in the book is sent out to find medicine to stop a plague spreading through the town, the girl in the movie is sent out to find medicine to save her lover and cure her brother?.
Both characters are amazed by the technology discovered in the outside world and eventually find the medicine needed to save their community.
Those are the connections I can identify right off hand, I'd have to read the novel again to identify more. In my opinion, the similarities are strong and the movie definitely had much more in common with this book than King Kong. As for if MNS really used it as motivation? Thats anyone's guess.
Posted by ssywak (Member # 807) on :
[drags out long-dead horse; props it up]
As I've said before, LOST BOYS has already been filmed.
It's called "Nightworld: Lost Souls" or, more simply "Lost Souls"
It's by Alliance Atlantic, and stars John Savage and Barbara Sukowa (you'll recognize her accent right away--she's the spirit in the machine in "Johnny Mnemonic")
Click on "More reviews" for my review.
Here's the rub: the tape/DVD isn't available (except through me!), so only a few people can actually confirm this.
Amka is one. OSC is another.
[folds dead horse back up and stuffs it back in the closet until needed again]
Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
Tis true. I saw Lost Souls, and it was a pretty remarkable rip off.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Now I'm morbidly fascinated and want to see this.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
quote: I'll have to go back and check, but he couldn't make himself stop, he blamed it on the psychiatrist and that is why he shot the psychiatrist and then killed himself.
Amka, I believe he was talking about seeing the dead people and not being able to stop THAT.
Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
quote:In both the novel and the movie, the character is taught about the modern world and sent out to explore it
In the movie, the character is not taught about the modern world. It is debatable whether the father intended Ivy to explore the modern world, he probably hoped that she wouldn't find out anything about it. That's why he sent a blind person out.
quote:Both characters are amazed by the technology discovered in the outside world and eventually find the medicine needed to save their community.
In the movie, she asks once about a noise, and she doesn't even know that modern technology exists. That hardly counts as amazement. She doesn't find the medicine herself, someone else finds it while she stands by a fence. Furthermore, in the movie the entire experience in the modern world is about 5 minutes worth of denouement, while in the book it is the centerpiece of the plot. The movie was sold as a monster movie, and it remained a monster movie until the very end. The book wasn't based on monsters at all. So they really aren't that similar.
Speaking of dubious comparisions, I read one review of the Return of the King movie that complained that the giant spider was "right out of Harry Potter." That gave me a bit of a chuckle.
Posted by Thaale (Member # 6800) on :
There’s an old joke about a guy who has only one desire, to win the lottery. Every week he prays and prays that he’ll win the lottery, but he never wins so much as a single dollar. Finally he cries out in despair, “God, I’m a good man. I’ve spent my whole life serving You. Why won’t You let me win the lottery just once?”
A voice from the heavens answers him, “Meet Me halfway on this one. Buy a lottery ticket!”
quote: I'm not going to see The Village. It's by the guy who made Sixth Sense. And even though the promos make it clear that the movie doesn't care about the characters in it -- the protagonist is a village, not an individual, apparently -- it's still all about making Orson sweat and scream, and I can do that at the gym with a prepaid membership.
Now anyone who has seen the movie knows that Card’s description isn’t even close to being an accurate depiction of it. The film is in fact character driven. It centers on Lucius and Ivy, not on the Village. And it has been widely panned by horror mavens precisely because it just isn’t scary.
The one point Card gets right is that the movie was marketed as he describes, but any adult American should have known better than to accept that as definitive.
In his August 8 piece , Card is no longer claiming that the movie is scary or that it doesn’t care about its characters, but he still won’t take the necessary step of buying that lottery ticket:
quote: I didn't see The Village, but I did get a detailed synopsis of the story from my brother. And as I read his synopsis, I grew more and more furious.
Not since The Bell Curve came out have I seen so much discussion about a work that a critic makes of point of saying he has not actually perused. Unlike the instance of The Bell Curve, which some people deliberately avoided because of what they felt were repugnant undertones to it, there is no reason Card couldn’t see the movie if he’s going to insist on criticizing Shyamalan about it.
So did Shyamalan plagiarize Haddix? Card considers it a given (“It is simply impossible to believe that M. Night Shyamalan did not take his movie from Haddix's book.”) But impossible is too strong a word here. There are various possibilities:
1. Shyamalan consciously ripped off Running out of Time directly. 2. Shyamalan borrowed from Haddix unconsciously. 3. Shyamalan, knowingly or not, used an idea he originally heard in another work or conversation, but that source could be traced back to Haddix. 4. Shyamalan and Haddix were both influenced by another work or works. 5. Shyamalan independently came up with an idea that has occurred to other writers.
There are of course additional possibilities, but these will do for starters.
1. is of course inane though not impossible. But Shyamalan is intelligent enough to know what would happen in such a case. Unless you believe that Shyamalan wanted to be sued and publicly humiliated, it’s hard to credit 1.
I suspect that 2. is something many people would find likely, though in that case I don’t see what all the indignation is about. Numerous writers have accidentally rewritten other people’s works. It’s not something to be proud of, but it has happened to the best of them.
4. or some blend of 2., 3., and 4. is IMO very likely to be the explanation here. Contra Card, Haddix did not invent the “It’s later than you think” twist in 1995. As one poster noted, Piers Anthony’s Race Against Time beat Haddix to the post by 20 years, and you don’t hear Anthony making noise about suing her. Philip K. Dick’s Time Out of Joint is another sf example of this device being used that predates both Haddix and Shyamalan.
5. is not likely to be a complete explanation though it is of course a partial one. Undoubtedly parts of Shyamalan’s story were 100% original with him and other parts of it weren’t. Since this is 2004 A.D. and not 4004 B.C., this is no surprise. A lot of ideas have been used before. That doesn’t mean they’ve been used up. What you do with the general idea of young people living in the present laboring under the belief that they’re really living in the 19th century is what the story is, not the setup itself. John Grisham can’t sue everyone who writes about a lawyer falling afoul of the mob for plagiarism (and the countless authors who used that setup before him can’t sue him, either).
Although to be accurate, of course Grisham could sue, Anthony could sue, Haddix could sue. Anyone can sue anyone for anything. You can sue Shyamalan because you think seeing his movies made you sterile. You can sue; you just can’t win.
The same is true of Haddix, which is why saying that she and her publishers are considering suing doesn’t give this claim any added credibility. Considering filing suit has no restrictions whatsoever. And not to be too cynical, but from a publisher’s point of view, simply getting the claim out there may be the whole point of the exercise. Any publicity is good publicity.
As for OSC, I don’t see why he doesn’t just break down and see the movie. Either that or stop repeating hearsay.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Excellent post, Thaale. Welcome to Hatrack.
I liked the movie, and I plan on buying Haddix's book to see for myself.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I just bought it. Hopefully in the next few days I'll have time to read it.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
The Village scared me. But I'm like OSC-- I'm terrified exactly when the director wants me to be.
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
Me too Scott. I'm putty in his hands. I'm the perfect audience member in a Shyamalan film...and I think I have a lot more fun than everyone else that wasn't scared, or figured out the plot twists from the beginning.
This also might mean that I'm rather dim though...I'll just ignore that thought.
Excellent post by the way Thaale. Have you read the book yet Icarus?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I got it home last night at 10:30!!
I've read the first two chapters (in between grading, lesson planning, and preparing for Back to School Night), but I want to save my judgment for when I've read the whole thing, so stay tuned to this space!
Posted by kacard (Member # 200) on :
quote: Shyamalan has battled a copyright lawsuit brought by a Pennsylvania screenwriter who claimed the plot from the 2002 film “Signs” mirrored his unproduced script “Lord of the Barrens.”
Well that would be interesting to know more about. But I hope Card isn't going to sue over TSS/Lost Boys. If he stole that idea, he apparently went through adequate alteration of the story. So that would seem to break, rather than establish, a pattern.
I've heard of people who can forget details of books and stories. I'm not one of them, but considering that the works of OSC form the majority of works of fiction I've read, it may not be too surprising. And yes, I'm claiming I've only read about 40 different works of fiction in my life.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote: Plot of Haddix’s ‘Running Out of Time’ parellels [sic] the film
*snicker*
Actually, I saw that report. When I read the OSC article, I googled Shyamalan "running out of time" village Haddix to find out more. This and another article came up in several different variations. That's what made me want to see for myself.
[ August 30, 2004, 10:23 PM: Message edited by: Icarus ]
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
You're just showing off how you know how to spell that dude's name.
I just noticed, he also goes by his middle name quite often. Now the conspiracy wheels are turning. :strains: does anyone have some WD-40?
[ August 26, 2004, 11:09 PM: Message edited by: pooka ]
Posted by Sugar+Spice (Member # 5874) on :
Has anyone ever seen 'Stir of Echoes'? This film came out the same year as the Sixth Sense and shares the little boy sees ghosts all the time motto. Not only that, but the dénouement shares a lot with Lost Boys too.
However, it was based on a book by one Richard Matheson, apparently written about fifty years ago. Go figure...
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Just finished the book. Tonight I'll try to post some comments.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Or maybe a couple of days later . . .
Okay, I've seen the movie and read the book both in the last couple of weeks or so (and I had never read the book before.) Other people in this thread have already commented on the differences and similarites, so I won't be adding much to that conversation, but I wanted to get a basic "feel" for myself of whether any stealing felt deliberate or not.
Aaargh. There be SPOILERS below. Consider yerselves warned, ye scurvy lot. (Sorry. Boning up for 9/19. )
Key Similarities:
Apparent nineteenth century village is really a phony, set in modern times.
A character must leave to find medicine.
That character is a plucky/tomboyish teenage girl
Differences? There are plenty, but it all comes down to one big one that is specifically relevant to the question of infringement. (And I wish to not infringe on Hazen, who already said most of this): In The Village, this revelation comes in the last five minutes or so, and is, in my opinion, a throwaway plot element. It's just Shyamalan saying "Betcha didn't see this coming!" I mean, does it really change much about the plot? Whether they made a choice to withdraw from nineteenth century society or twenty-first century reality, the adults of the village have withdrawn, and their deceit of their young in the name of protecting this isolation is present regardless of the temporal setting. It's there for the frisson, but it doesn't really add a lot. In Running Out of Time, the revelation comes in chapter two or three, and is central to the plot. Running Out of Time is not primarily about life in the village, but about a fish out of water: the story pretty much begins with the revelation, and is about the central character's atttempt to face twentieth century reality without the tools a twentiethy-century teenager would take for granted. Instead of five minutes standing outside a fence outside the preserve (and a character who is blind mind you), you have sixteen chapters or so with the protagonist actively traveling the outside world and trying to figure out modern society and technology (she had to telephone people several times, use a flush toilet, ride a public bus, and buy stuff using modern money). . More minor differences in the plot include the fact that the deception in Running Out of Time is much more elaborately carried out, with actors who come in and out of the village with "news" of the outside (c. 1840) world, faked elections, etc. In Running Out of Time, the primary purpose isn't so much escape from the modern world (though that is certainly a motivation on the part of some of the villagers) as a living anthropological study—or at least, that is what appears to be going on at first. The protagonist of Running Out of Time is younger than Ivy in The Village, and there is no character that parallels Lucius. (I think this is significant because I think it's very debatable whether or not Ivy is even the central character of The Village. For the last half hour or so, she is, but for the first half of the movie, it seems to me to clearly be Lucious.) And, of course, there is no parallel for the whole "monsters" plotline of The Village.The Village also does not have a primary antagonist like Running Out of Time, being instead more of a sad commentary on how desperately some people would wish to escape their reality. Running Out of Time, on the other hand, has definite baddies. And at the end of Running Out of Time, the village is raided and disbanded and the parents are fighting to regain custody of their children, all in the modern world, while at the end of The Village there is every appearance that the village will go on. None of this proves that the similarities between the two works are not theft, but it does, I think, go to show that this statement is simply not correct:
quote:. . . the movie is, point for point, based on award-winning author Margaret Peterson Haddix's 1995 young-adult novel Running Out of Time.
I would also disagree with this statement:
quote: With The Village, however, Shyamalan has gotten cocky. The changes are relatively slight. The resemblances are overwhelming.
I would say the changes are significant, and that the resemblences are also significant, but less than overwhelming.With regard to the slightness of the changes and the overwhelmingness of the similarities, I am reminded of the Catholic doctrine of transubstatiation. According to the doctrine all things possess substance, which is what they are deep down inside, and accidents, which refers to their external characteristics. That there are similarities between these two works is indisputable. Card believes that they are similarities of substance. I would say that the substance of The Village is a story about people who are desperate to hide from the real world–and that theme is made clear time and again long before we know when the story is really set–and what they are willing to sacrifice to isolate themselves from it. The central mystery is not the temporal setting of the village, but the nature of the monsters that keep them trapped. (If you wanna get all lit major on us, the symbolic meaning of the monsters as well. . . . ) Believe it or not, escape from the real world is not a central theme of Running Out of Time; it is an issue for at least one of the characters, but it is not why the village was created. I see the substance of Running Out of Time as a story about a girl thrust into an environment that is familiar to us readers, but totally alien to her. It is also a story about mad scientists and greedy powerful people. So I would say that the similarities here lie in the accidents, not in the substances. Which doesn't answer the question: is it theft? I clearly don't think Shyamalan can be accused of stealing the entire story, but did he decide to lift just some plot elements, and place them into his own similar story? That's a harder question to answer definitively, if not an impossible one. Here is my take on it. Let's take the similarities one at a time:
Surprise! You don't live where/when you think you do! It's been done before, long before Haddix. Heck, Star Trek TNG has done it. And let's not forget The Truman Show, which is in many ways closer in substance to Running Out of Time. I reckon this idea is public domain by now. If he stole it, he doesn't need to apologize for it.
Drugs--We need drugs . . . To me this is the most damning point, along with . . .
. . . and we need to send a kid to get them! That's pretty specific. As for needing medicine, that a pretty easy dilemma to come up with for a phony antique village in modern times. Sending a kid is an obvious choice for a YA novel . . . but why did Shyamalan do it? Well, one could argue that it's not the same, because Ivy seems to be older than Jessie (the protagonist of Running Out of Time). Then again, I'm not positive what passes for marrying age in The Village. The justifications for sending Ivy—she won't figure out what's going on, because she's blind, and none of us who know what's really going on can go, because we swore an oath and if we go back on it, even to save a life, we will all melt or something—are beyond shaky. Then again, Shyamalan does seem to like putting young protagonists in danger in his films. I dunno; the jury's still out on this one. Night, you got some 'splainin' to do.
♫Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me. When will my reflection show who I am inside?♪ Have you ever noticed that all female YA protagonists of action-adventure stories are tomboyish? Of course it's a generalization, but a really prissy girl just wouldn't tend to get herself into these kinds of situations.
I can't say for sure, but the core similarities aren't quite enough to convince me that Shyamalan ripped off Haddix. And I strongly believe that if Haddix and Simon and Schuster try to sue, they will not win. Frankly, I don't believe they will sue, but they will talk about it because it draws attention to their novel. . Heck, it got me to read it. . (hmm . . . I wonder why hard carriage returns don't work in the paragraphs after lists . . . )
[ August 31, 2004, 03:38 PM: Message edited by: Icarus ]
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
More on my impressions on Running Out of Time another day--I ended up writing far more than I thought I would already!
Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
quote:The justifications for sending Ivy—she won't figure out what's going on, because she's blind, and none of us who know what's really going on can go, because we swore an oath and if we go back on it, even to save a life, we will all melt or something—are beyond shaky. Then again, Shyamalan does seem to like putting young protagonists in danger in his films.
I suspect that the second possibility is closer to the truth. The only way he could scare us again with the monsters is to have someone who wasn't sure that they didn't exist face them. But you are right, having them send Ivy is a plot hole.
[ August 31, 2004, 12:42 AM: Message edited by: Hazen ]
Posted by Taalcon (Member # 839) on :
quote:She saw “The Village” last week but declined to discuss her opinion of the film. “Let’s just say that I saw the same similarities that other people have pointed out,” she said.
To me, this sounds like, "Yes, similiarities are there, but telling people how different the movie and my book really are would hurt my case, so I'm staying mum. Plus I kinda liked it. Can't get that out, either."
Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
But here is a problem:
Can she still film her book? Will movie made from her book be thought of as original or will most movie goers think it is a rip off of The Village? What about Hollywood? She had it optioned out. Are they ever going to bother now? Does this decrease the value of her property?
I have actually seen what kind of changes occur in a script adapted from a short story, as Taalcon knows. I don't mind these changes. And I've written short stories that I then dramatically rewrote so that, while there were similarities, the changes made them almost different stories.
How about authors that actually get paid money for the rights to their material, and then the movie bears little resemblance to the published work: Lawnmower Man comes to mind, and I haven't read Ella Enchanted, (I will soon) but my 11 year old daughter claims that the story is almost completely different from the film. I, Robot is another one, so very different from any story that Asimov wrote that it couldn't even claim to be based on, but merely inspired by the works of Asimov because it did contain characters and some of the unique hallmarks of Asimov's robot stories.
[ August 31, 2004, 12:06 PM: Message edited by: AmkaProblemka ]
Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
From what I've heard, the Bourne series has little to do with the book.
As to whether Running Out of Time can be filmed, I'd say it probably could, if they gave it a few years. Village wasn't a big enough hit that everyone would still remember it three years from now. On the other hand, Running Out of Time didn't sell that many copies, and it is a little old, so it probably wouldn't have been adapted anyway, though I don't follow movies that closely so I can't say for sure. For all the movie people in here: What's the oldest novel you've ever seen adapted that wasn't a giant hit?
I did some checking at Amazon to see how popular here books were, compared to Ender's Game. Running Out of Time is in the 4000s in sales rank. But it is benefiting from all this publicity. A few of here more recent Shadow Children books are from 5000 - 10000. But all of her older books are in the 10,000 - 70,000 range. Compare that with EG, which, without any extra publicity, stands at 3556. And EG is a decade older than Running Out of Time.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote: I'd say it probably could, if they gave it a few years.
I would agree with this simply because, if Truman Show didn't make this book unfilmable, The Village isn't going to do it.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Thanks for reading that Icarus. Though in the end it convinces me that Night probably has done something shady. After all, the latest filming of The Count of Monte Cristo was a wholly different substance from the book.
Posted by Taalcon (Member # 839) on :
I truly doubt M Night has read the book. He's written officially sanctioned adaptations before - remmeber Stuart Little (the first one)? He wrote the screenplay for it.
If anything, M Night's films display heart and ethics. I refuse to believe that the person who wrote those films with the dialogue he wrote would have intentionally stolen the ideas.
--
So if he didn't, and it still DID make her book unfilmable - is that really his problem? I'd feel bad for her, sure, but it's not his fault. She should've gotten a better agent, 's all Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
People can pretend to be other than what they are. As a general principle and not saying Night did this. Artists in particular, unless you are Ayn Rand, have to come up with a universe of morally complex people.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
So I finally saw "The Village" and I'm wondering how the village in Haddix's Running out of Time got started. Who are the adults in the town and how are they induced to participate?
I think the plot hole behind Ivy going to get the medicine is not so much her going, as all the adults in the town assenting to continue the masquerade that required it at the end. Also, the fate of her supposed escorts.
Posted by Fiber (Member # 6836) on :
Anybody ever watched 12 monkeys and 6th sense back-2-back?
fibroid
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
The guy who funded the village, ostensibly as a living anthropology or sociology exhibit, advertised for volunteers.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Yesterday I was recalling that "Frontier House" came out way back in 2002 and could have been an inspiration for "The Village". The time frames of the two stories are pretty different. I don't know why Haddix chose the first part of the Nineteenth century, but it would seem that the characters in the Village shot for 100 years prior to when they began their commmune. (This assumes Lucius, who was the only baby at the time they began, is at least 20). Or maybe they just wanted to be pre-electrical lighting etc.
Something that struck me as odd at the beginning was that the cemetery fence looked like a product of the industrial age. But then the dates on the headstone indicate otherwise.
Anyway, I think there is a pretty big difference between 1840s and 1870's. In between there you have the Gold Rush and the Civil War, the railroad to the pacific. By the 1890s, where the film ostensibly starts, it would be the gilded age and most the country was in the thrall of new technology. So they already give an odd impression of being Amish or something. If you think about it.
Of course, the thing my husband mentioned as being quite odd is the utter lack of religion. Which is explained at length, but it does "stick out".
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote: So they already give an odd impression of being Amish or something. If you think about it.
*nod*
This struck me as well.
Posted by Avatar300 (Member # 5108) on :
quote:John Grisham can’t sue everyone who writes about a lawyer falling afoul of the mob for plagiarism
Why would the mob be angry at a lawyer for committing plagiarism? He asked innocently.
[ September 12, 2004, 09:55 PM: Message edited by: Avatar300 ]
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
quote: He's written officially sanctioned adaptations before - remmeber Stuart Little (the first one)? He wrote the screenplay for it.
This is enough to make me think he should be punished, and punished severely. I hated that movie! And I really hate the fact that I've run into so many young people who haven't read the book but say, "No, but I've seen the movie" when I bring it up. It's not the same thing, and in this case, it's not even close enough to get the plot from. Posted by ArCHeR (Member # 6616) on :
quote:Antz is clearly derivative of A Bug's Life, and it is pretty much scorned.
Antz and A Bug's Life were made at about the same time, just like Deep Impact and Armegeddon. I liked both Antz and A Bug's Life, however I hate Armegeddon to death, but the fact remains that their plots are only similar when boiled down to one or two sentances...
The same applies for Night's films. But hey, I sided with George Harrison on My Sweet Lord...
And on the legal side, couldn't Night say he was inspired by the Piers Anthony work, just like she did?
Edit:
Woah. I just double checked my facts, and all four of the example movies were made in 1998. IT was the year of twin movies
[ September 22, 2004, 10:47 PM: Message edited by: ArCHeR ]
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
(Spoilers for a whole bunch of books, movies, and who knows what else.
I'm reminded of Babe vs. Gordy scenario. When those two films came out the same year, Gordy got a rep as being a cheap rip-off of Babe that a rival studio had hurriedly cranked out in response to Babe's success.
In reality, Gordy was a project nearly three decades in the making. Tom Lester, cousin Jake from Green Acres, had been shopping around the concept for Gordy for a long time--the inital idea had come from working with Arnold Ziffell, the pig on Green Acres. Getting the movie made was his ultimate dream, and he finally got the picture greenlit with the original producers of Green Acres.
So the roots of this one ran deep, but in everybody's mind it was a quick, cheap knockoff.
Who plagarized who? The folks that made Gordy, since Babe came out first? The folks who made Babe, since Gordy had been shopped around longer? Dick King-Smith, who wrote the book Babe was based on back in 1987?
So where do you cross the line between similarity and rip-off? One of our own commented that Nightworld: Lost Souls is a shameless rip-off of Orson Scott Card's novel Lost Boys. But somebody else claims on the same page that the storyline exactly follows To Kill a Mockingbird.
I haven't read Haddix's book, but I have seen The Sixth Sense, and The Villiage and I've read Lost Boys and Running Out of Time.
I'm actually more keen on the Sixth Sense/Lost Boys connection than most. Kinda like Amka said, a one line synopis of each would be exactly the same (Man is helping boy who sees dead people, and in the end, he turns out to be dead), the only difference being who the pronoun "He" describes.
The similarities really, really do look bad between the Haddix book and Night's movie. There could be a case there, and as much as I love and respect what Night is able to do, I was still anxious to read his defense.
When I saw The Village I asked the friend I saw it with if he'd figured out any of the twists. He said he had--sort of. He'd run through the Twilight Zone-style scenarios in his mind, and come up with a list like:
They're on an alien planet
They're tiny in a cage
They're in the present
They're in the future
They're in a computer program
Etc, etc. In the Turkey City Lexicon, these are called "Jar of Tang" stories (As in ". . . they were really just microbes living in a jar of Tang."). There really are a limited number of scenarios, so when you pick one, you're going to have picked one somebody else did.
Besides, parallel ideas come up all the time.
Dave Wolverton once told me about how he came up with the idea of bears making an evolutionary breakthrough, but discarded it as silly. A couple years later, Terry Bisson won the Hugo with "Bears Discover Fire."
I also seem to recall Card saying he wasn't going to be able to write his Pastwatch book on Adam and Eve after having read some book or other that dealt with all the same issues and themes so perfectly--although I can't seem to find where I read it.
So I don't know.
Posted by Mazer (Member # 192) on :
I usually discount out-of-hand anything OSC says about an artist that he demonstrates or admits to a bias against. He often pans some of my favorite work, (Kevin Smith, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, Shymalan, etc,) and so often gives glowing reviews to stuff I find almost unwatchably formulaic, (Hugh Grant, etc,) that I just have to assume that it it is one of life's big Ironies, that my favorite author seems to hate everything I enjoy.
So, Maybe MNS is a thief, but he is about the only person that makes movies that genuinely disturb/scare me.
Oh and (Off topic) the post above reminds me that I really really really want to get another Pastwatch book. Almost as much as I want more of the sick little monkey from Mayflower. (Prolly my fave char outside the Ender series.)
[ October 03, 2004, 12:31 AM: Message edited by: Mazer ]
Posted by ArCHeR (Member # 6616) on :
What he said. Except about Pastwatch.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Sadly, the sick little monkey won't be at the center of the next book. Oh well. The good news is that Rasputin will likely be just as interesting a character.
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