What comic books, movies, and TV shows are blatantly copycats or rip-offs of previous comics, movies, or shows, but despite being a copycat or rip-off, are still pretty good?
What comic books, movies, and TV shows are blatantly copycats or rip-offs of previous comics, movies, or shows, but despite being a copycat or rip-off, are still pretty good?
Ad Astra (2019) is Apocalypse Now (1979) but in space.
Avatar (2009) is Dances with Wolves (1990) but in space.
‘Apocalypse Now’ is based on Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella ‘Heart of Darkness’, in which the events happen on the Congo river.
The video game Spec Ops: The Line is essentially both stories, but set in Dubai after a cataclysmic sandstorm.
I remember reading that one of story shooter games had a particularly great mission where the player descends on a city from the surrounding elevation or somesuch. And I’ve heard multiple times recently that ‘The Line’ is quite outstanding with its story and gameplay. Is it the same game, by any chance? I don’t think there’s any elevation near Dubai, so probably not, but just to make sure.
I don’t remember of any particularly great mission descending onto a city, there are some segments that could fot the description, but honestly Spec Ops: The Line is not memorable for its gameplay, it’s just average and it’s meant to be, the point of the game is in the story. Although I think that playing it now might not be as impactful as when it first released and every other game was a third-person shooter, but it still I strongly recommend it.
Yeah it’s hard to get the same feeling now compared to back in the day when everything was a beige military shooter.
The story is still good but I think that meta layer of “I do this constantly in games and don’t think about it” won’t hit the same way for people that didn’t grow up at the time. A bit sad.
Back when Avatar came out, I heard someone call it “Fern Gully with better graphics.”
There was a YouTube trend of making Avatar trailers with the audio but then using the graphics for movies like Fern Gully and Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001).
Avatar is absolutely not Dances with Wolves. It is Pocahontas. Throw in a couple musical numbers and it’s real close to being a shot-for-shot remake of the Disney movie.
Another example of the ‘gone native’ plot line in the wake of Dances With Wolves. Pocahontas had the advantage of Dances With Wolves coming out first. So it smoothed some of those edges.
Where does Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai fit into this?
Sure, same general premise, but the structure is very different between them. In Dances with Wolves, Dunbar is basically abandoned by his people and slowly assimilates into the local village. By the time Dunbar’s people return in the third act, they’re no longer his people at all. In Pocahontas and Avatar, Smith and Sully are part of an active and present colonial force, wind up on generally friendly terms with the locals, start dating the chief’s daughter, and wind up with a strong case of conflicting loyalties, having to pick between their people and their lover’s people when the fighting starts.