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Post by lieden on Aug 24, 2010 6:41:48 GMT 1
When you say it tried to pass certain aspects as originality, what do you mean exactly? A work on its own cannot really make assertions as to its content; did anyone on the concept/development team make such claims? In the end, the appraisal of something as original or not depends largely on how well versed the audience is in the particular genre. For example, I hadn't seen Contact and had no idea the relays were influenced by similar, in nature and origin, transport devices in it; but I could have related them to the (man-made) warp gates within the Solar System in Cowboy Bebop. Still, I cannot reliably say either of the latter hasn't been influenced by some older work! So I suppose that, if someone is in the mindset of dissecting a fictional universe down to its influences, there won't be too much originality left. I'll take your advice then; remain cautious as to my own influences, stick to what is necessary, give tribute where it's due, and try to keep things integral. By the way, Mass Effect's core novelty appears to be, well, the mass effect itself. I would be interested in finding out if that bit is original!
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Post by lieden on Aug 24, 2010 6:50:43 GMT 1
Heh; re-reading Cowboy Bebop's summary on wikipedia, I came across the character summary of Jet Black, a former ISSP officer and the owner of the Bebop. Once called "The Black Dog" by his fellow officers for his relentless nature, he left the ISSP after becoming fed up with the corruption and red tape of the organization, and turned to bounty hunting as a way to pursue justice. Despite the ability to have it replaced, he voluntarily bears a cybernetic arm as a reminder of what happened when he rushed into trouble without looking first. (emphasis is mine).
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Post by Knightfall on Aug 24, 2010 10:42:58 GMT 1
You're right and you're right. It is a very odd path that artist have to walk to stay fresh and original. Mass Effect did some great and interesting things, and played with a lot of science to create a story that really feels unique. My hangup with the whole mass relay thing is that it was such an integral part of the first game, so much so that without it, the entire story falls apart. That was the big, ending twist of the game, and I specifically remember being blown away by it when I first played through it.
But realizing that it wasn't original, and that someone just saw Contact (or read the book, I dunno) and transplanted it in there, without even bothering to switch up a few things, just smacks of laziness, which is never a word I ever associated with BioWare's writing.
You don't want your entire story to be built on the foundation of someone else's work. It wasn't really plagiarism, but they tread as close as they could possibly get with that, I think.
This is all really just a personal outlook. I was reading a book the other day called Retribution Falls, and I swear that it was just Firefly in book form. I mean, the author really did not try and change anything, just enough that it isn't recognizable at first glance. It even has a wise cracking captain, one engineer, one doctor, a crew with a past they're trying to outrun on a ship that's seen better days. Fun read to be sure, but I'll be darned it that book is a show of integrity.
But this is all stuff that you don't have to worry about; you really, really have to go out of your way to make something that isn't yours. If you see yourself making another Star Wars or Starship Troopers, you'll know.
And now I want to watch Cowboy Bebop. =D
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Post by lieden on Aug 25, 2010 8:31:08 GMT 1
I don't think it's actually that difficult to copy a concept from other settings! For example, try imagining a world that's half a desert of searing temperatures, yet which some people actually have to cross, or at least venture in. You start thinking up some kind of protective gear... and you can very easily end up with the concept of stillsuits Frank Herbert used in Dune. Or you think some kind of aircraft -- it would have to be capable of VTOL -- there you have it again: Ornithopters. Which reminded me: Thresher maws are very like the Sandworms in Dune. Bah. I guess I need to stop this sort of dissecting, because there's seemingly no end to it. Cowboy Bebop: I whole-heartedly recommend it, it is one of my favourite animated series, together with Ergo Proxy.
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Post by jklinders on Aug 25, 2010 14:50:35 GMT 1
Oddly enough the story of Dune has so many parallels with the true life story of T E Lawrence it's not even funny. It was like the desert campaign of Briton vs Turkey in WW1 was transposed into the future with a few twists. If Herbert was not at least inspired by it I'll eat my non-existent hat. ;D
This is why I do not get too hung up on originality. If even one of the great masterworks of sci-fi is derivative of real life history then there is no real hope for originality.
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Post by lieden on Aug 25, 2010 21:43:25 GMT 1
Jklinders, that one had never occurred to me! Granted that the culture of Arrakis' natives is unabashedly Arabic. Fighting against an empire... lone foreign (white) man uniting and mobilising tribes... yes, I can see it. There is truly no hope. :p
Now I am going to work on a new race, which was inspired by some white goats solemnly observing me over a fence, during my trip on my native island. :p
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Post by jklinders on Aug 25, 2010 21:50:45 GMT 1
Just substitute oil for The Spice and it adds a whole new layer of copying from history. Is there ever any real originality?
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Post by lieden on Aug 26, 2010 4:54:07 GMT 1
In the end, we all have to write about what we know.
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Post by jklinders on Aug 26, 2010 13:20:28 GMT 1
I may not have come off that way but that was part of what I was getting at on the previous page. But it's not just what the writer knows, it's also what the audience knows. Even the most out there sci-fi is usually grounded in something familiar. Keeps the writer sane and the reader turning pages. That's why it is maybe a little harder to innovate in this medium because going too unfamiliar is off putting to even the most understanding of readers.
Not an easy line to follow. Going too different gets you punished. Firefly, a cult hit that had terrible ratings and did not even get through the first season. Really expensive to make, sunk by the fact that much of the audience was going WTF? Oh and Fox sucks too. Why do things like this happen? Because the audience does not have a sweet clue what it wants. They tell people "why don't they write anything new and fresh?", when what they mean is "why don't they make Andromeda with this actor and that budget?".
So instead of Firefly I have the newest regurgitated terrible "unreality" TV. I blame people for not having one sweet clue concerning what they want to see. They claim to hate the shows too, but they tune in anyway. DRECK!!!
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Post by Battlechantress on Aug 26, 2010 17:33:00 GMT 1
FOX basically wanted that show ("Firefly") to fail. None of the episodes were shown in the order that they were supposed to be seen. I'm still amazed Whedon let them anywhere near "Dollhouse" (though that show was definitely not as good).
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Post by jklinders on Aug 26, 2010 18:40:20 GMT 1
You take the network that will carry you. Fox sucks but they are airing his stuff. The devil you know right? The Train Job did a pretty good job of bringing the show and the characters out, no where near as good as the pilot ended up being of course...
Fox screwing it up was a textbook example of exactly what I meant about going off in different directions though. The setting scared them off because it was weird. They didn't like the whole western angle, they did not like the horses. They probably thought there were too many characters. This is not just because they are stupid, it's because it was too far outside the norm. It sucks but that is how the media goes. Unless you OWN the station you are at other people's mercy. Wheden makes this all abundantly clear in the DVD commentary. Same applies to books, just replace the TV producer with the Editor.
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Post by lieden on Aug 26, 2010 20:21:40 GMT 1
You think FOX found Firefly too radically left, with Mal and crew going renegade against the Alliance? :p Because I can't quite imagine an audience that would be baffled by any aspect of Firefly. Too many characters? The ensemble cast of Heroes was much larger. The Western angle, if anything, probably made the whole setup more familiar to a US audience. Bah! Ranting territory for me here, because Firefly is my favourite sci-fi live action TV show.
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Post by jklinders on Aug 26, 2010 21:00:47 GMT 1
You think FOX found Firefly too radically left, with Mal and crew going renegade against the Alliance? :p Because I can't quite imagine an audience that would be baffled by any aspect of Firefly. Too many characters? The ensemble cast of Heroes was much larger. The Western angle, if anything, probably made the whole setup more familiar to a US audience. Bah! Ranting territory for me here, because Firefly is my favourite sci-fi live action TV show. Fox the entertainment channel should not be confused with Fox news. They are actually under different ownership and the entertainment channel is pretty...out there with some it's content. This is the same station that championed The Simpsons a show that the right would loved to have go down in still birth. You really cannot go by names alone in the monstrosity that North American TV has become. ;D
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Post by Knightfall on Aug 26, 2010 21:07:07 GMT 1
Firefly is a favorite of mine, too.
I remember when it started airing; there were little black and white advertisements printed out and stacked at a local Wendy's. It's claim to fame was that it was "From the Creator of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer," and I can STILL remember that that instantly turned me off of watching it. I really didn't like Buffy at the time. Couple that with showing it out of order, it was a mess from the get go.
I finally got hooked when I saw Serenity on DVD. I was so sad, because not only had I not supported Firefly when it came out, but I didn't even give Serenity a shot when it was in theaters. In fact, no one did:
Production Budget: $39 Million Worldwide Box Office Gross: $38 Million
It just barely broke even with DVD sales, but not enough to convince Universal Studios that they should go ahead with the other two sequels that Joss has lined up to film.
Personally, I think Serenity's failure to catch an audience lies with Joss, because he really just would not compromise where it mattered. He gave us a story that would really only have maximum impact if you were a Firefly fan, and then compromised on other little things to make it work. I still don't know why Mal and Simon were suddenly on bad terms with each other at the start of the movie,when Simon had already saved Mal, Kaylee, and Zoe's life during the series. Stuff like that. It sounds silly to say, but Joss should have kept it simpler, allowed the characters to breathe more, then put them in danger in the sequel. There was just too much going on. =/
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Post by lieden on Aug 26, 2010 21:22:30 GMT 1
Fox the entertainment channel should not be confused with Fox news. They are actually under different ownership and the entertainment channel is pretty...out there with some it's content. This is the same station that championed The Simpsons a show that the right would loved to have go down in still birth. You really cannot go by names alone in the monstrosity that North American TV has become. ;D Ahh, my bad, I didn't know a thing about that. I figured it was a branch of the same channel. Knightfall, it was more or less a similar case with me; first watched Serenity on DVD, and came across the series a long time afterwards, perhaps even after 2008. It was ancient history by then. Pity, really.
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