Let's Talk About Pixar Ripoffs ...?

Pixar's Feature Films
#1

Just came across this and it didn’t seem to fit well with the Dreamworks ripoffs thread. I’m not familiar with most of the blog author’s original discoveries. If you indeed are familiar, it might provide for a lively discussion:

open.salon.com/blog/scott_mendel … dio_around

This is kinda an equal time thread.

I’ve never seen Little Monsters, which was produced in 1989, five years before the famous lunch where Monsters, Inc. was born, and starred Fred Savage who was about a year into The Wonder Years tv show. This movie was seen by only about 150,000 people during its theatrical release. Now I suppose it was accessible via tv itself afterwards. The dvd came out in 2004.

Read about it here:

answers.com/topic/little-monsters-1

The monsters came out from under the bed, not the closet. There were staircases in the monster’s universe to get from one kid’s room to the next, not a labyrinthine airport luggage type of conveyor belt shuffling about closet doors. There was a leader and a bureaucracy. There didn’t appear to be any sort of idea that the presence of kids would destroy the universe. There wasn’t any sort of energy crisis. There was the idea that some kid’s would be and needed to be turned into a ‘real’ monster. There obviously was a conflict in the monster universe, not surprising. It was not an animated feature. … I don’t have access anymore to Fred Savage, who passingly knows me(he once giggled at me from the backrow of a classroom, and it wasn’t on the tv show), and might provide some insight here since he is now a successful director of Disney and Nickelodeon features.

#2

Good on you for bringing this up. I love Pixar, but I’m still able to discuss suspicious similarities between Pixar films and prior stories and also be level-headed about it.

Monsters coming from children’s closets isn’t exactly a new idea, and neither is toys coming alive. In the A Bug’s Life commentary John Lasseter (I think it was him…) openly said that it was inspired by the The Magnificent Seven.

However there’s been accusations of plagiarism against Andrew Stanton with Finding Nemo. Apparently a French guy came up with a story about a clownfish in 1995 called “Pierrot Le Poisson Clown”. I can certainly see the similarities.

PS Were you Fred Savage’s teacher?!

#3

Thought up in 95. Didn’t publish until 2002, 4 months after Nemo came out. Unless Pixar can read minds, Nemo was original.

Don’t forget people who claim Wall-E is a rip-off of Johnny 5. And there was also a lawsuit against Pixar for Mike" Wazowski design. I forget how that turned out. It’s in the Pixar Touch book. Also worth nothing is there’s a character in Pee-Wee’s playhouse that is very similar too. So either Pixar and Pee-Wee ripped off this artist, or it’s just a very simple design which many people may unknowingly emulate.

youtube.com/watch?v=EM6akEO_XV8

#4

See - a full 1907 years before Nemo came out. Ohhh, you meant '95. Well ok then. :stuck_out_tongue:

But if that is true the it seems as if that man was trying to squeeze money from Disney, I guess. But with 5 of Disney’s lawyers on the case, he didn’t stand a chance.

#5

Very interesting article, DarkHand. Thanks for posting it and bringing this topic up.

This actually brings to mind the infamous Lori Madrid and Stanley Miller cases against Monsters Inc. that was described in The Pixar Touch, an excellent book I had the opportunity to read last year during the holidays (and which I recommend Pixar fans to read, cos’ it offers a less biased, read: more saucy, history than the coffee table book To Infinity and Beyond, which I skimmed through).

If I recall, Madrid sued the creators because the plot beared similarities to a children’s book she wrote, stuff like the monsters being scared of the kids, and how Boo in particular looked like her character.

Miller on the other hand, took Pixar to court because the two protoganists, Mike and Sulley, looked like the two main characters of a comic he created (especially the one-eyed Sulley). They even called in an expert on “one-eyed monsters in literature and history” to cross-examine and stuff like that.

Personally, I think it’s not impossible that one of the Pixarians may have read any of these sources at one point or another, and may be subconsciously influenced, but I think they’re above blatant plagiarism. There was a great quote by Mr Price which went along the lines of “Art was not created in a vacuum”, and the hard thing about creative work nowadays is that there’s been a whole body of work that has been done before you, that it’s not hard to create something truly unique that has not done before, whether intentionally or not.

You can read a summary of that chapter in this online article:
Animation is Built on Plagiarism

Even Up, as mentioned in Dark Hand’s article, may have been influenced by the urban legend of Danny Deckchair. Personally, I think it looks more like Howl’s Moving Castle (and it’s a well-known fact Mr Lasseter’s a huge fan of Mr Miyazaki). :wink:

#6

Well, there do certainly seem to be similarites between Little Monsters and Monsters, Inc., though I haven’t seen Little Monsters myself. And the similarities between Cars and Doc Hollywood are striking. But as thedriveintheatre has said, there’s no such thing as a truly original story nowadays- everything’s been done at least once. And I just can’t see the head people at Pixar knowingly copying a story they’ve read or a film they’ve seen because their ethos is all about being unique and original. It was an interesting blog journal to read though, so thanks for the link, DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver. I guess with this sort of thing, it’s technically impossible to say whether the film was knowingly copied or not, but I think I’m happy to give Pixar the benefit of the doubt in all the cases mentioned (though I’m still rather shocked at just how similar Cars and Doc Hollywood are…)

#7

Ridiculous.

Even not as a Pixar fan, it is. These similarities are only apparent unless you POINT THEM OUT, and this person forgets that those points are normal story lines, in a lot of different works. They’re all vague points, too, so a lot of different story and character traits could fit. Like the Watchmen one. The movies, aside from being superhero films, could not be more different. Unless you narrow it down to certain character traits, well yeah, there are going to be similarities.

And God, Doc Hollywood isn’t the only one to use this kind of storyline, either. How many movies, if you think about it, are about a snobby guy getting stuck in a small town and learning his lesson? Leaving that aside, the two movies are VERY different. Sure they both have a pretty love interest, but so does 95% of movies altogether.

And while some of the scenes are similar, it is kind of the generic character development story. (Examples: Zenon, a girl from a space station gets sent to Earth, falls for a boy, and learns about life, etc. There’s another DCOM like that too, except the city boy gets stuck in a small town) And it very well could be Cars was a remake. Like that one blogger said, did West Side Story come out and say that is was a remake of Romeo and Juliet? No. It just is.

#8

DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver - As others have stated, interesting article. It’s inevitable, though, that Pixar would be blamed for “ripping off” someone else’s story idea at some point, and, undoubtedly, the company has been influenced by various sources, including authors and film-makers. Story-wise, there are only about seven plot-lines in existence, right? And character traits, demeanors, personalities, and even profiles/looks are bound to be emulated eventually, be it accidentally or purposefully.

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Pixar’s “tribute” to the Looney Tunes cartoon, Feed the Kitty, yet. This is one of the only times that I really didn’t… appreciate something that Pixar did in that they deliberately stole a segment from a short and incorporated it into their own film. (For those who don’t know, I’m referring to the moment where Sully believes that Boo is being crushed to death in the garbage compactor.) Although, even that “rip off” didn’t bother me too much, although I wish they had thought up their own idea for that sequence instead.

Up always reminded me of James and the Giant Peach, for obvious reasons. Instead of a peach supported by seagulls, it’s a house uplifted by balloons. That’s pretty much the only similarity I can think of between the two films at the moment, though.

– Mitch

#9

In one sentence, no matter where the idea comes from, subconciously or not, Pixar finds a way to make the story and universe their own and do an amazing job at it, every… single… time! :smiley:

#10

RachelCakes1985 - no, I was making an announcement of unusual nature.

In regards to the flimsy comparison of Wall•E to Idiocracy: the latter’s screenplay was written in 2004, which was then passed around, and filmed during the same year, I believe, then released in 2006. Of great interest tho, is that it was co-written by the same guy who wrote Tropic Thunder and Madagascar2. I found none of these movies very funny, which is a common pattern amongst them. Idiocracy does have some funny moments, but most of those jokes are found amusing by guys who are only a couple levels smarter than the denizens of the movie.

Why the blogger even made this comparison, I can’t figure out. Wall-E, first conceived in 1994, was expanded on before Idiocracy’s screenplay was even written. When act2+3 were largely dumped in pre-production to bring in ‘real’ humans, this was still before Judge’s film was released.

I haven’t seen Cars yet, or the new Watchmen. …This thread reminds me of George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’, with which he was successfully sued by the makers of ‘He’s So Fine’ because the first 3 notes, the major hook, are identical. It’s all a reminder that we have to be careful, but we do forget about 80% of what we have viewed or read in 3 months. How do you test to check if your work is original? You show it to 600 people, at least, maybe thousands, in pre-production and hope you can get your film out before someone tries to scoop you. Actually, this is unrealistic, who is going to do this?

Beginning with the Cyclops… that was funny.

I once gave away an idea that had been swimming in my head for 20 years, to an editor of a book that was about to come out in the paperback edition, and there 3 months later was what I had told him. The author originally had a different theory than mine. Whether he had told the author, or whether the author had thought my idea up on his own or ‘borrowed’ it from some other discussion, I can’t be sure, but it sure was ‘fishy’. This book, which is packed with a lot of other good ideas, is probably the most important non-fiction book of this generation.

#11

Even more incriminating, the 1895 novel The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. Far in the future the Earth is ruled by idiots.

#12

Baloney. I don’t see any what they call “uncanny” similarities. If you got 10 animators to draw a representative clownfish, I bet the one Mr. Stanton picked from the ones his animators presented would be in the more creative part of that bunch. Nemo’s eyes are closer together, looking more human. Nemo has a diminished fin. His jaw is wider than his temple, the other fish looks weird. Nemo has teeth, the other fish doesn’t and has some sort of beak. Here are some representative pictures of real clownfish that have similarities to the two pictures in that link:

aquaticimages.com/search/ind … tepsize=12
acclaimimages.com/gallery/ … -4003.html
acclaimimages.com/gallery/ … -5142.html
animals.nationalgeographic.com/a … efish.html
congo-pages.org/ET/DIVE%20TI … wnfish.jpg

Now this one is my very favorite of the hundreds of pictures I scanned:

fineartamerica.com/featured/clow … smart.html

Case dismissed…

#13

Judging by the tone it didnt seem this guy was out to do an all out attack on Pixar. Some of these ‘similarities’ seemed way too broad to be considered a rip off, especially when he makes some obscure reference to something almost nobody has ever seen. Toys coming to life and monsters under the bed (or indeed, in the closest) arent new themes.

I got confused about the Watchmen/Incredibles thing. Surely he meant the Watchmen comic, not the movie, right? I mean, the Incredibles came out 5 years ago. But I cant really compare since I’ve never even heard of Watchmen till this year. Actually I cant compare anything he mentioned, since I never saw any of those other things. And yeah, one could argue that everyone borrows ideas from other people, be it TV, movies, songs, books, whatever. But I think Pixar puts their own spin on things, no matter how much of the story was ‘inspired’ by something else.

#14

lennonluvr9- I think it was in reference to the Watchmen comics, though the film is basically exactly the same thing. It’s pretty well known that The Incredibles took influence from Watchmen- even whilst watching the movie, not having read the comics, I recognised the reference to superheros being killed because of wearing capes (which obviously was written in the original comic). And yes, very basically, the storylines are similar, though aside from the whole superheros going into retirement and other more obscure references, they’re worlds apart. The Incredibles, most notably, focuses on family life in a way that Watchmen (the film, at least) certainly does not.

#15

Reading of the article I find myself amused. People only really agree with the “Doc Hollywood” comparison, and not shockingly Cars is Pixar’s least-liked film (although I much prefer it to at least a couple of others I could name). It seems to me people are more willing to except these weak comparisons when the film in question is one they don’t like. The Doc Hollywood formula had been done before Doc Hollywood and was simply repeated in Cars. Monsters scaring children is as old as human beings telling stories. We’re all dooming ourselves (WALL-E and Idiocracy, although this ignores that the anti themes in WALL-E are merely backstory and not the point of the film) has been around for a long time, perhaps most prevalent since after the first A-Bombs. Heroes becoming outcasts and vigilantes? Didn’t we see that in Batman stories before Watchmen ever came around? Like I said, people are only really willing to accept these, it seems, for the films they don’t like as much. And even then most of them will brush them off as coincidence, which to be blunt, they are. There are only so many stories and everything else is variation on those stories. Getting “back-to-the-basics” is no more Doc Hollywood’s copyright than it is Cars’.