posted
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...
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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a choice to withdraw from nineteenth century society or twenty-first century reality, the adults of the village have withdrawn, and their deceit of their young in the name of protecting this isolation is present regardless of the temporal setting.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 . . . )
posted
More on my impressions on Running Out of Time another day--I ended up writing far more than I thought I would already!
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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.
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."
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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.
posted
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.
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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.
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posted
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.
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posted
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.
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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 Posts: 2689 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
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.
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posted
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.
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posted
The guy who funded the village, ostensibly as a living anthropology or sociology exhibit, advertised for volunteers.
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posted
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".
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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. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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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
posted
(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.
posted
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.)
posted
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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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. ![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
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