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Post by Vits on Feb 2, 2021 11:43:17 GMT
I ask because cartoonist Adam Ellis wrote a series of tweets accusing a short film called KERATIN of copying one of his works (his name isn't listed in the credits). He showed a bunch of screenshots, including one of an e-mail where the directors had asked him to help promote the short (after it had been completed). What's worse: The short has just won an award. An award for its screenplay! It now has over 600 1/10 user reviews on IMDB. All of them were written today or yesterday and they mention the accusation. For years, the site has had problems with the trivia section of each title. Anyone can send whatever information they want and it usually gets accepted without double-checking ( here's an example). Yesterday, this short had over 20 entries that mentioned this controversy but phrased a little differently. Luckily, they "cleaned" it. Now, there's only 1 entry. Now I'm torn. I don't support stealing other people's art, but I also don't support review-bombing, especially if you haven't even seen the movie. Sure, if I were to watch the short, I would reduce points for the theft regardless, since it's connected to the quality of the script, but what about other aspects? I feel like there are many places and platforms where you can protest against wrongdoings like this, so there's no need to use a site like IMDB to do so. |
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Post by Ass_E9 on Feb 2, 2021 16:56:46 GMT
Plagiarism offends me more than trolling, as long as the latter isn't at the level of intending psychological damage.
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Post by Harmless elf on Feb 2, 2021 21:04:21 GMT
I used to plagiarize a lot in highschool, I would just copy and paste right from Wikipedia. I was not my teacher's favorite student.
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Post by marth on Feb 2, 2021 21:29:47 GMT
Both are bad, but in my book, plagiarism is worst than trolling.
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Post by Prime etc. on Feb 2, 2021 21:56:39 GMT
One time in high school this guy gave me a copy of an essay he wrote for a class--and someone who was a bad student and hadn't done the assignment in our class, took the essay, put his name on-and submitted it to the teacher.
When it came time for handing it back, the teacher said to him as she gave it back, "very good Stuart, or whoever wrote it."
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Post by lowtacks86 on Feb 2, 2021 22:28:40 GMT
I dunno, some of the best movies have been straight up plagiarisms (Toy Story was a straight up ripoff of The Christmas Toy with Brave Little Toaster thrown in)
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Post by politicidal on Feb 2, 2021 23:35:00 GMT
I would say that plagiarism is worse, but trolling like that can become so obnoxious that they're about equal. It's stuff like that which makes websites like IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes make their sites less user-friendly.
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Post by Vits on Feb 2, 2021 23:38:09 GMT
I used to plagiarize a lot in highschool, I would just copy and paste right from Wikipedia. I was not my teacher's favorite student. One time in high school this guy gave me a copy of an essay he wrote for a class--and someone who was a bad student and hadn't done the assignment in our class, took the essay, put his name on-and submitted it to the teacher. When it came time for handing it back, the teacher said to him as she gave it back, "very good Stuart, or whoever wrote it." Ironically, these 2 posts feel like trolling.
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Post by Vits on Feb 2, 2021 23:39:26 GMT
Toy Story was a straight up ripoff of The Christmas Toy with Brave Little Toaster thrown in No, it wasn't. Oh, no... It's only a matter of time before someone mentions that silly THE LION KING/KIMBA THE WHITE LION myth.
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Post by lowtacks86 on Feb 2, 2021 23:46:15 GMT
Toy Story was a straight up ripoff of The Christmas Toy with Brave Little Toaster thrown in No, it wasn't. Oh, no... It's only a matter of time before someone mentions that silly THE LION KING/KIMBA THE WHITE LION myth. "No, it wasn't." It has nearly indentical plots and premise, the toys come to life when no one is looking, they have rules about not being spotted by humans, the main character is worried about being usurped as the favorite one by a space themed toy that doesn't seem to realize it's a toy. Are you seriously gonna tell me that's just a giant coincidence? I suspect the only reason Disney wasn't sued is because they own both properties. "Oh, no... It's only a matter of time before someone mentions that silly THE LION KING/KIMBA THE WHITE LION myth." It has a few similar shots and a similar named character, but that's about it. Certainly no where near the comparable to what Pixar did (ripping off the basic plot and premise).
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Post by Prime etc. on Feb 3, 2021 0:38:35 GMT
Ironically, these 2 posts feel like trolling. haha well the other one reminded me of the story
It was hard to cheat in my day we didnt have the internet so one had to copy out of books which meant reading the books
I used to write cheats on erasers and rulers though I could do 3 font writing scale
too small for the average teacher to read.
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Post by Vits on Feb 3, 2021 0:48:24 GMT
It has nearly indentical plots and premise, the toys come to life when no one is looking, they have rules about not being spotted by humans, the main character is worried about being usurped as the favorite one by a space themed toy that doesn't seem to realize it's a toy. Are you seriously gonna tell me that's just a giant coincidence? I suspect the only reason Disney wasn't sued is because they own both properties. It has a few similar shots and a similar named character, but that's about it. Certainly no where near the comparable to what Pixar did (ripping off the basic plot and premise). I mentioned T.L.K. because it's mentioned a lot in conversations like this, but also because a lot of the same arguments apply to your example (and Disney was accused of copying K.T.W.L. so why wouldn't they be accused of this one too?). No one owns the concept of inanimate objects. In fact, THE CHRISTMAS TOY was produced around the same time as Pixar's first short. The company then made 3 more shorts before its feature film debut. All these projects were about similar topics. Does that mean the Pixar writers were lazily rehashing their owns scripts? No. Writing a story is a process. Certain ideas come to your head because they're the natural progression of other ideas. If you write about toys who come to life, you would need to add a rule about staying hidden, in order to explain why we don't see them move in real life. In a story, you need conflict. What possible problems can toys go through if their lives revolve around what a human does with them? Parents usually buy new toys for their children on a regular basis. What if the story is about how the dynamics in the collection change? You've already written a story about a toy being afraid of a naughty toddler (TIN TOY) and a story about a toy who feels jealous of the other ones (KNICK KNACK). Why not use them again but adding a spin? And if you make 3 sequels, you'll probably repeat some of these ideas yet again, since your concept has limitations. I mean, even if you manage to make the toys leave the house, they still won't go anywhere they'd like. You've also written a story about a toy who wishes to do other things (RED'S DREAM). If you don't want to repeat exactly that, you can stay in that lane of giving these objects existential crisis. Say, what if one of them doesn't know they're a toy? It would be easier to believe all this if the characters in THE CHRISTMAS TOY looked the same, but they don't. While we're on that subject, Woody and Buzz are what they are as a commentary on how people's interest on the western genre shifted to sci-fi in the 60s/70s (something that was confirmed in TOY STORY 2). In THE CHRISTMAS TOY, the protagonists are tiger and a doll. Is there any meaning behind that choice? Also, I must point out that magical rule: A toy will be frozen forever if they're caught by a human. Surely something so pivotal to the plot would be copied as well?
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Post by lowtacks86 on Feb 3, 2021 0:57:26 GMT
It has nearly indentical plots and premise, the toys come to life when no one is looking, they have rules about not being spotted by humans, the main character is worried about being usurped as the favorite one by a space themed toy that doesn't seem to realize it's a toy. Are you seriously gonna tell me that's just a giant coincidence? I suspect the only reason Disney wasn't sued is because they own both properties. It has a few similar shots and a similar named character, but that's about it. Certainly no where near the comparable to what Pixar did (ripping off the basic plot and premise). I mentioned T.L.K. because it's mentioned a lot in conversations like this, but also because a lot of the same arguments apply to your example (and Disney was accused of copying K.T.W.L. so why wouldn't they be accused of this one too?). No one owns the concept of inanimate objects. In fact, THE CHRISTMAS TOY was produced around the same time as Pixar's first short. The company then made 3 more shorts before its feature film debut. All these projects were about similar topics. Does that mean the Pixar writers were lazily rehashing their owns scripts? No. Writing a story is a process. Certain ideas come to your head because they're the natural progression of other ideas. If you write about toys who come to life, you would need to add a rule about staying hidden, in order to explain why we don't see them move in real life. In a story, you need conflict. What possible problems can toys go through if their lives revolve around what a human does with them? Parents usually buy new toys for their children on a regular basis. What if the story is about how the dynamics in the collection change? You've already written a story about a toy being afraid of a naughty toddler (TIN TOY) and a story about a toy who feels jealous of the other ones (KNICK KNACK). Why not use them again but adding a spin? And if you make 3 sequels, you'll probably repeat some of these ideas yet again, since your concept has limitations. I mean, even if you manage to make the toys leave the house, they still won't go anywhere they'd like. You've also written a story about a toy who wishes to do other things (RED'S DREAM). If you don't want to repeat exactly that, you can stay in that lane of giving these objects existential crisis. Say, what if one of them doesn't know they're a toy? It would be easier to believe all this if the characters in THE CHRISTMAS TOY looked the same, but they don't. While we're on that subject, Woody and Buzz are what they are as a commentary on how people's interest on the western genre shifted to sci-fi in the 60s/70s (something that was confirmed in TOY STORY 2). In THE CHRISTMAS TOY, the protagonists are tiger and a doll. Is there any meaning behind that choice? Also, I must point out that magical rule: A toy will be frozen forever if they're caught by a human. Surely something so pivotal to the plot would be copied as well? "No one owns the concept of inanimate objects." I never said anyone did, if that was the only thing they had in common I never would claimed it was a ripoff (the idea of toys coming to life had already been done well before Christmas Toy), but that is only one of the "coincidences" that when combined when others and look at the overall bigger picture and using inductive reasoning, I think you can make a feasible case for plagiarism. Again, do you really believe it was just a huge coincidence that both movies featured outerspace themed toys that didn't realize they were toys and the main character was worried about being surplanted by it? Imagine if you were the producer of "Christmas Toy" and you just saw Toy Story, be honest what would be your reaction? Can you at least concede that "Christmas Toy" may have at least been an influence? Also do you think "Brave Little Toaster" wasn't an influence as well? (Lasseter worked on both).
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Post by jamesbamesy on Feb 3, 2021 1:01:37 GMT
Plagiarism. It just makes the person at fault downright unoriginal. At least trolling can be a bit amusing at times depending on how they do it and how often they can do it.
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Post by Vits on Feb 3, 2021 11:19:43 GMT
Again, do you really believe it was just a huge coincidence that both movies featured outerspace themed toys that didn't realize they were toys and the main character was worried about being surplanted by it? Have you ever seen that cartoon where Bugs Bunny plays the piano while there's a mouth inside? There's another short like that starring Tom & Jerry. They have many more similarities than these 2 toy movies, and I'm still inclined to believe they're coincidences. That being said, in order to have a concrete answer, we'd have to research the timeline of both productions step by step. In fact, from what I know, TOY STORY went through some re-writes, and that's why so many writers were credited (including Joss Whedon of all people). Imagine if you were the producer of "Christmas Toy" and you just saw Toy Story, be honest what would be your reaction? Oh, I wouldn't tell people not to make accusations in the first place. That way, there can be an investigation. Not enough evidence against T.S. and THE LION KING has been found, so... Can you at least concede that "Christmas Toy" may have at least been an influence? Of course I can, because influence and plagiarism are 2 completely different things. No plot is 100% original. Everything comes from somewhere else. In fact, I'm sure you can pinpoint scenes from T.S. and tell me "This reminds of X" (X being a movie that has nothing to do with toys). Also do you think "Brave Little Toaster" wasn't an influence as well? (Lasseter worked on both). It can't be considered an influence, let alone plagiarism, if the same person worked in both. I mentioned before how certain ideas showed up in different Pixar projects. Actually, plenty of their feature films share similarities story-wise or character-wise. That's just how the creative process works when you make a career out of it.
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Post by PreachCaleb on Feb 3, 2021 16:28:30 GMT
So then there is no problem. Cool.
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