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?
Hangover 2 was basically Hangover 1, and I assume Hangover 3 was as well. Still pretty good
The Avengers are technically a rip off of the OG Justice League.
Also, OG Silent Hill to OG Resident Evil.
I guess you could say the OG Avatar rips off Disney’s Pocahontas.
F. W. Murnau wanted to make a cinema adaptation of ‘Dracula’, but didn’t get the permission. So he shrugged, changed some details, and made the 1922 ‘Nosferatu’.
Guess what, the original Dracula wasn’t affected by sunlight. That whole trope of the vampire genre comes from ‘Nosferatu’.
The Magnificent 7 and A Fistful of Dollars are just Seven Samurai and Yojimbo but westerns.
Speaking of Kurosawa, ‘Ran’ is based on ‘King Lear’, and also “includes segments based on legends of the daimyō Mōri Motonari”.
Willy’s Wonderland is a way better Five Nights at Freddie’s than the actual Five Nights at Freddie’s.
Rent is based on La Boheme, it never tried to hide it. The character have almost identical names and they swapped tuberculosis with AIDS and it’s 100 years later.
I always wondered if La Boheme hit as hard in the 1890’s as Rent did in the 1990’s.
Imagine if instead of AIDS, it was now fentanyl addiction?
Not quite the same, but: more than a few classic films are remakes. The 1959 ‘Ben-Hur’ is a remake of the 1925 film, which itself was the second cinema adaptation of the novel, after the 1907 film.
After Michael Crichton’s Westworld bombed, one of his friends recommend he explore the same themes with dinosaurs instead, so he wrote Jurassic Park.
I think there’s also an important distinction to be made here, especially for many of these examples.
Ripoffs - “a usually cheap exploitive imitation”
Homage - “something that shows respect or attests to the worth or influence of another”
I think many of the examples of “good ones” would like be homages, rather than ripoffs.
You’re going to get into the blurry distinction between a ripoff and a tribute or an homage.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier has a lot of Three Days of the Condor, but is that a ripoff, or an homage?
Ditto Star Wars and Hidden Fortress.
Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More were uncredited remakes of Yojimbo and Sanjuro, and as I recall Kurosawa was pretty annoyed, so that probably counts as a ripoff.
Oreo cookies came out four years after Hydrox cookies, and I’d say they surpassed the original.
Is Rick and Morty a cheating answer?
Didn’t twilight start as a fan fiction?
Not Twilight itself, but 50 Shades of Gray started as a Twilight fan fiction
Would that fit OP’s question of “actually pretty good” though?
You know more nickle back songs than nirvana.
“Pretty good?” You’ve heard of the movie. It must be pretty good even if we haven’t watched it.
Popular != Good
Good is a matter of opinion. If a lot of people are enjoying it. Yes it’s a good movie. I don’t like the movie but my opinion isn’t everyone’s opinion
A lot of people thinks Shakespeare was pretty good
Twilight zone! There are different run of the series. Many reimagined stories from the first run, some better than others, as is such with the first run. There are stale episodes by today’s standards.
The Dog Man books are great and many are based on classic novels like A Tale of Two Kitties, Lord of the Fleas, Brawl of the Wild, Fetch 22, etc. They are among the best kids books I have ever read.
