Why is it that so called rip-offs are often hardly anything like the original?
We've all seen it haven't we? Someone comes up with a new idea, and the moment someone notices a slight similarity, to something else it becomes concrete evidence that not only did the writers steal this scene from the other movie, but in fact, they blatantly copied the entire movie - in such a subtle way they made sure to not include any other similarity - how cunning!
I'm not denying that writers don't intentionally "copy" things from other medias, of course they do sometimes, and even then it's not an out and out rip-off; take Necron's speech at the end of Final Fantasy IX for example - Square didn't steal from George Lucas hearsay, but rather decided to use a line they liked as a tribute to the movie, and most of the DreamWorks movies have tons of scenes that are remodelled versions of classic movies, inserted for a "joke".
However, the things I'm talking about are when someone notices a subtle similarity from one thing to another, and accuse the second item of stealing everything from the first one. Not just the one thing that's the same, but the whole thing is now a rip-off, because they say so. The Lion King Vs The White Lion is undoubtedly one of the most famous examples of this among fans of animal-based animations (such as myself), however, while I do notice that the first picture comparisons (the one with each lion on a cliff) do look similar, and the fact that apparently in the early stages The Lion King lions were white, does seem a tad suspicious, however those who have actually watched both "Lions" will see that, even with similarities, calling The Lion King a rip-off is absurd.
First of, yes the movie is about lions, so was The White Lion. Quick! Call the lawyers!!! Everyone knows that Lions are copyright protected items of Tezuka Productions! Oh, wait... they're not? So, we can all make movies about Lions if we so choose to? Okay fine. Done. Secondly, we have the have the fact that The White Lion has a character named Kimba, while Simba is a character in The Lion King (come on, you remember that scene in The Simpsons right?) that is a little more suspicious, and it almost seems like Disney wanted to be caught, I mean all they did was change one letter, but no, I'm sorry. It's a coincidence - "Simba" is merely the Swahili word for "lion", and before you write this off as Disney covering they're tracks, I'd like to point out that the majority of TLK characters had Swahili based names, which either means that Disney based the entire script on covering up they're plagiarism, or it's all one big coincidence that the two characters rhymed. Also, if you believe the former, what exactly are you inferring? That Disney was both clever enough to go to extreme lengths to hide the fact they stole something, and stupid enough to plant a huge clue that they did so with the character's name?
The pictures that the site I linked to are a bit of a reach as well. Yes, the first one looks practically identical I will admit, but the others are just overreaching. The second shows the similarly named lions standing side to side with an older lion (I think, their respective fathers), a similar scene I guess, but to call them identical? Come on! The third comparison is just a comparison to the similarly named lions - to be honest, they look nothing like each other, and all the article has managed to do so far, is show how little Kimba looks like a Lion. All the other scenes are a stretch to say the very least, although I do notice some similarities, I personally think that they are coincidental. How exactly is a scene where, an adult lion threatens to kill another adult lion by forcing him to fall of a cliff in anyway a rip-off from a scene where a... deer? Threatens to kill a younger lion by doing the same thing? It's similar yes, and the article points out a family based similarity, but it's a stretch, the same goes for the infamous stampede scene as well, yes, TWL had one and TLK had one, but they use different characters, and animals do stampede, it happens guys. Next it's going to be something stupid like "oh, one movie portrayed this animal, and that animal as enemies, so did this movie - it's got to be a rip off!"
And yes, the spirit in the sky thing does look similar, but that's a bit of a trope anyway.
The only thing that makes it slightly suspicious claim to have not known about TWL at the time, and yet, one of the actors initially thought he was hired to act in a movie version of TWL, and once again the Lions were going to be white, when the story was first decided. So maybe Disney aren't being entirely honest, but I don't think there's a conspiracy involved. Either the actor never told Disney of his misapprehension, or Disney leaned of TWL after they came up with the first draft of TLK, and made the decision to make them regular lions to avoid any problems - if that is the case though, why the hell don't they just say it?!
Bottom line is, it takes more than a few minor simularities to bring the lawyers in.
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Originally Posted by MJN SEIFER
