I wish Harlan Ellison would just die already...

[Yminale]

Of course. But from what I've read they didn't take an idea and put a spin on it. They just outright stole from Ellison with little variation at all.

I've read "Repent Harelquin" and it's nothing like "In Time".

Except for the whole time traveling soldiers from the future, I also don't think there is any similarity between "The Terminator" and "Soldier"/"Demon with a glass hand". Maybe Ellison should give credit to Mark Twain for stealing the idea from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

 

[Myasishchev]

What is the first story involving time travel to the past? It can't be Connecticut Yankee.

Well, hell, according to Wikipedia the only one that predates it is a very close contemporary, "The Clock That Went Backwards" by Edward Page Mitchell. There's some ancient stuff with forward time travel, but time travel to the future is pretty trivial. I mean, I'm doing it now. And now. And now. And...

I've never read it, but it does have a great line on the first page: "A genealogy is a stupid thing." Indeed. Actually, wow, this guy came up with a lot of stuff (invisible people, FTL travel, cyborgs) in the 1880s, and I'd never even heard of him... I feel like Elijah Snow here.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I love Harlan Ellison (despite his behavioral problems ) for both his talent and his activism. He's a strong proponent of creator's rights in an age where people think creators should give everything away for free on the Internet (and if it's not given away, they'll just steal it). He doesn't suffer fools gladly and he has no patience with low standards; while I disagree with him at least half the time, I admire his convictions.

It's also ironic that he gets so little respect from the current generation. He was the original "dark and gritty" writer of Science Fiction. Of course, he did it in a literate, sophisticated, creative, adult manner-- not like the Beavis & Butthead crap we're subjected to these days.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Interested parties may wish to read the full account by David Brennan of the situation with respect to The Terminator, allegedly from Harlan Ellison's perspective, given at http://www.dvdvision.fr/jco/Ellison.htm:

...

In addition to those casual warnings of similarities from unnamed persons, Ellison also was told by a friend of his,Tracy Torme, that, while visiting the set for The Terminator, he had asked Cameron where he got the story idea. According to Ellison's account of Torme's statement, Cameron replied, “Oh, I ripped off a couple of Harlan Ellison stories.”

...

The final clue that he might have a case for plagiarism came when Ellison wasn't invited to the press screening for The Terminator. He said, “Now, I get invitations to everything and anything, but for some reason, I never got an invitation to the screening of The Terminator.” According to the science fiction news program Prisoners of Gravity, Ellison was able to sneak into the screening by posing as film critic Leonard Maltin's assistant. Upon first seeing The Terminator, Ellison said, “It was not my desire to find a similarity. I was sitting in there thinking, 'Please don't let it be.' But if you took the first three minutes of my Soldier episode and the first three minutes of The Terminator, they are not only similar but exact. By the time I left the theater, I knew I had a case against someone who plagiarized my work.”

So, Ellison and his attorneys then contacted Hemdale (the financiers of The Terminator) and Orion (the movie's distributor) to discuss a payment or settlement, with the obvious threat of a lawsuit in case none was offered. And soon after this initial contact, Ellison's complaint received even more support.

“About a week after my attorney contacted Hemdale, I got a call from the editor of Starlog magazine. ....It turned out Cameron had given an interview to Starlog and, after I began inquiring at Hemdale, [The Terminator producer Gale Anne] Hurd sent Starlog a legal demand to see the interview.” According to Ellison, Gale Anne Hurd then modified Starlog's article on The Terminator. She omitted a quote from Cameron in the article that read, “'Oh, I took a couple of Outer Limits segments.'” The reason that the Starlog editor had contacted Ellison was to provide him with the original version of the article, the one without Gale Anne Hurd's editing. Said Ellison, “At this point we went to Hemdale and to Orion and we said, 'I'm afraid we got him with the smoking gun. Now do you want to do something about this or do you want us to whip your ass in open court? We'd be perfectly happy to do it either way.'” Between the account of Tracy Torme and the Starlog interview, the attorneys for Hemdale and Orion quickly realized that they wanted no part of a lawsuit, by Ellison's accounts. “They took one look at this shit and their attorneys said, 'Settle.'”

...

Based on this, and other sources I've run across and been exposed to, it seems that the issue here was not merely that there were subjective similarities between The Terminator and Harlan's Outer Limits episodes.

That's why at this juncture I think the prudent thing is to let the present situation play out before rushing to judgment.

---

Oh, and this thread's title is in extraordinarily poor taste.

 

[RJDiogenes]

The Terminator was one of the most obvious rip offs in history. All they'd have to do is show the movie and the two episodes in court and that would be the end of it.

Nice to have a confession, though.

 

[Belbo]

Sounds like Niccol somehow managed to unlearn his lesson from The Truman Show ("make sure the author's dead before you rip him off").

 

[Jan]

Hmm, I found those for the Nook from a company called ereads, does anyone know how legit they are? I try to just stick to legitimate publishing companies.

They're legit. EReads is regularly mentioned on Harlan's website as being a source for some of his books.

The idea that writers own concepts is just anti-creative. Every creative person should be allowed to take an idea and put his own spin on it and create something new.

Sigh...Do I need to trot out Harlan's truism that (paraphrasing) you don't have a right to an opinion; you have a right to an informed opinion. Ideas cannot be copyrighted. It's the execution of the ideas that's copyrighted. And when that execution is cribbed, that's when Harlan sues. And wins.

Sounds like Niccol somehow managed to unlearn his lesson from The Truman Show ("make sure the author's dead before you rip him off").

I was thinking more in terms of the Twilight Zone episode "Special Service".

Jan

 

[TremblingBluStar]

^ No, because in Logan's Run (book and film) nobody lives forever.

What difference does that make, though? In both movies, people are given a limited amount of time to live. In both movies, the main protagonist is the enforcer of society's rules. In both movies, the main character rebels and is on the run.

I'm not saying everything in the film was taken from Logan's run, but I wouldn't be shocked one bit to find out this film also has an underground rebellion movement the main character has to make contact with who are searching for "sanctuary".

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I wonder what JMS thinks about all this. I seem to recall he was recently working on a screen play based on '"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman'.

 

[JarodRussell]

The Terminator was one of the most obvious rip offs in history. All they'd have to do is show the movie and the two episodes in court and that would be the end of it.

Nice to have a confession, though.

I wonder why Michael Crichton never sued, because there are just as many similarities to Westworld.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

I wonder why there isn't as much hatred directed toward George Lucas, who would sue the pants of anybody he felt was profiting off of anything remotely resembling Star Wars.

 

[JarodRussell]

I wonder why there isn't as much hatred directed toward George Lucas, who would sue the pants of anybody he felt was profiting off of anything remotely resembling Star Wars.

Well that's probably because he's more remembered for fucking with the Original Trilogy and the prequels. Which goes back to my point about Ellison at the beginning of the thread.

 

[Jan]

I wonder what JMS thinks about all this. I seem to recall he was recently working on a screen play based on '"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman'.

The screenplay was completed. One expects that it's his option and screenplay referred to as a third party in the lawsuit.

Jan

 

[Lindley]

Ellison may be a litigious, cranky old git, but he's kind of charming once you get past that.

 

[23skidoo]

Ellison may be a litigious, cranky old git, but he's kind of charming once you get past that.

I used to find him annoying, especially how he just wouldn't let City on the Edge of Forever go (heck, he wrote a whole book ranting about it). But I find as I get older I'm identifying with him more and more. A writer friend of mine says he's gone from criticizing Harlan to agreeing with him almost every step of the way.

And you have to admit, Harlan has been screwed over a few times. The whole Starlost thing is exhibit A. I have fond memories of the show, but as you read more about it, you find you can't blame Harlan for taking his name off it. City on the Edge of Forever? Yeah, I could see him being mad about having his story rewritten, and being frustrated that he wasn't allowed to tell certain stories for TV in 1967. His case might have been stronger had Roddenberry's revisions rendered it into something like Spock's Brain rather than into arguably the single most acclaimed episode of TOS.

If Ellison - or any writer - can prove plagiarism (and there has to be a difference set out between plagiarism and homage or inspiration) I say go for it. They're certainly not alone: see, for example, the George Harrison incident where the writers of "He's So Fine" caught up with him because of his song "My Sweet Lord" sounding too similar. Chuck Berry went after the Beatles for "Come Together" sharing riffs with "You Can't Catch Me" too.

Alex

 

[Mysterion]

I wonder why there isn't as much hatred directed toward George Lucas, who would sue the pants of anybody he felt was profiting off of anything remotely resembling Star Wars.

Well this is just my opinion, so don't necessarily give it any more credit than that.

I believe there is a certain segemnt of fandom, mostly trekkies, who loathe Ellison simply becuase he has said "bad things" about Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry. Harlan Ellison could discover/invent a cure for every disease known to mankind (a few others that hadn't been contracted by anyone yet) today, and these idiots would totally dismiss Ellison because their feeling have been hurt.

(I've seen a similar trend toward Roger Ebert, David Gerrold, and JMS to name but a few.)

These people clearly need to grow up, pull their heads out of their third point of contact, and realize that it is okay for people other than themselves to have views or opinions that might not agree with their own narrow and cloistered worldview.

And BTW, it seems Ellison just won another Nebula Award. What a talentless hack, huh?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Chuck Berry went after the Beatles for "Come Together" sharing riffs with "You Can't Catch Me" too.

Lyrics, not riffs. Specifically, the line "Here comes old flattop." Which led, in a long and roundabout way, to John Lennons' Rock and Roll album.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I believe there is a certain segemnt of fandom, mostly trekkies, who loathe Ellison simply becuase he has said "bad things" about Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry.

Perhaps there are fans who loathe him for that reason alone. I am not one of these fans. I don't care if he says bad things about Trek - he does that about everything, so it's not like he's singling Trek out.

My attitude is this: Harlan Ellison is not worth the emotional energy it would take for me to hate him. He is irrelevant. Tolerable, at best. As I said, I like his work, but I have a "Meh" attitude of him as a person.

In any case, for every fan who hates him for anything he says, there are those who love him no matter what he says, who think he's *always* right, and will accept anything he says and does without question. Which do you think is worse?

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I wish Harlan Ellison would just die already...

Ah, the splendors of the internet where any Tom, Dick and ass can sling vitriolic shit like a monkey at the zoo.

 

[Kegg]

George Lucas gets far, far more hatred on the internet. The recent explosion over his latest tinkering with the original trilogy being just another example of that. This is perhaps due to exposure - there are simply more people on the internet who have watched Star Wars than who know who Harlan Ellison is.

Anyway, I can't really blame Ellison for being this angry or litigious on this subject. American copyright law is not an enviable thing so far as writers are concerned, and he's been on the recieving end of that stick a few times. That someone else demonstratably ripped off your stuff is, if provable in court, one of the few valuable cards they can play.

Besides, the truth is science fiction films have taken wholly uncredited riffs and 'influences' from sci-fi literature for decades. Ellison just happens to be one of the people who calls film out on it and is willing to go to court over it.

I want Ellison and Ray Bradbury to fight it out to the death in the Thunder-dome for the title "Bitterest Old Man in the Universe". I suggest the use of the soundtrack from "Amok time" as the theme.

So the winner here is Theodore Sturgeon?