Case dismissed! Discovery and Tardigrade game "not similar"

[Blamo]

Well now, there's a reach.

How so? Quite few of the articles (including in the national geographic) on Tardigrades in Space also mention it's official TARDIS abbreviation. Someone then makes a game about a Tardigrade people get into to travel the universe.

It's far less reaching than believing a professional TV writer "ripped off" a very obscure indie game in development. And by "ripped off" I mean "was slightly influence by", since no one in Discovery steps into a Tardigrade to travel the universe.

Somebody should sue someone else.

My point is that the articles on tardigrades fired up the imagination of a lot of sci-fi writers.

 

[cultcross]

From the Orville premiere episode:



It's pretty obvious that TV writers and other people that create entertainment got inspired by all the tardigrade articles and features that came out around 2014.

Orville possibly not the best argument against plagiarism being rife on TV

 

[Mudd]

Orville possibly not the best argument against plagiarism being rife on TV

Plagiarism is a word that means something. Otherwise TrekBBS would just as accurately be called PlagiaristBBS.

 

[BillJ]

Orville possibly not the best argument against plagiarism being rife on TV

Since Star Trek was built on plagiarizing other properties (*cough* Forbidden Planet *cough*) during its' creation, how come everyone is so hard on The Orville for having similarities? Could it be because it is beating Discovery at being Star Trek?

 

[cultcross]

Surprising that it was you two who didn't like that joke

 

[Gepard]

Surprising that it was you two who didn't like that joke

It's not a joke. This is serious business.

Grrrr.

 

[BillJ]

Surprising that it was you two who didn't like that joke

Even in humor, there is truth.

 

[DaveyNY]

To me, "The Orville" is right in line with "Family Guy" (McFarlane not withstanding), but being a much softer riff on today's entertainment.
It's aimed at Sci-fi in general, but with Star Trek (and at times Star Wars), being a specific target.

It more than verges on a weekly basis as parody, with a definite passion and appreciation of the subject matter, so I don't consider it "plagiaristic" or a "rip-off" at all.

 

[Rahul]

Finally got around to watching ANT-MAN AND THE WASP last night and, hey, tardigrades!

Just something in the zeitgeist, maybe?

Thing is: "Ant-Man & Wasp" is a shrinking movie. It showed real-life Tardigrades in their natural environment. You can't claim copyright for real life things. The makers of "The Revenant" can't claim ownership of the concept of "bear encounter in the wild".

What makes this particular case special are the freakinglish close similarities in the changes of the real-life thing:

1. Exact match in size of supersized Tardigrade: Like, both Tardigrades are enlarged to the exact same size: Around 2m in height. Tardigrades are microscopic beings. If you'd enlarge them for a story, they could be anything from fist-size to space-wale size. That they have the exact same, enlarged size is suspicious.
2. Blue-ish Color of Tardigrade: In all other media, wether Ant-Man, that Neil-de-Grasse-Tyson bit, or webcomics, Tardigrades are usually depicted as flesh-colored. That change alone doesn't mean that much. But it's suspicious that all the visual changes are similar.
3. FTL-capability: That's really the big one. "Tardigrades in space" is one thing. Using specifically Tardigrades as a means for faster-than-light-travel is pretty unique, no matter how much everyone here tries to downplay this. It would be one thing to have the Tardigrade as part of a machine (Frank Herbert says hello), but that specific image of having a lone Tardigrade floating in space zapping into hyperspace - that's really freaking unique!
4. The blue sparkling: This is really the icing on the cake, and what made me think this guy has a case: Not are just all the relevant content changes the same. They even LOOK the same. The visuals are 100% identical, like a life-action adaptation of an animated content. Even if there are slight alterations in the exact technicalities of the backstory (mushroom spores...). That shit doesn't look coincidental.

Now, any two of these changes at the same time wouldn't be suspicious. And if I'm completely honest, I really don't see that much similarities in the characters of the video game and the show. And a lot of the other aesthetic similarities (blue overalls, dark grey corridors) are super generic sci-fi tropes and make more a case for both sides being pretty unimaginative in most regards.

But yeah, all these similarities regarding the Tardigrade do raise an eyebrow. Not any of them alone, but the combination of all of them.

Now it's completely, 100% possible that both sides came to the same concept at the same time independantly. Lots of things have been invented at the same time during history. But even in this case, the one who was "earlier" usually got recognition & compensation if someone else used the same specific idea after him, even if he came to it independantly.

So yeah, I'm not exactly rooting for this guy (or against CBS for that matter), but as someone highly interested in creation of artistic content, this lawsuit really is kinda' interesting in how they are going to deal with it, and especially how much a unique "idea" you can come up with is really worth.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Tardigrade was originally going to be a crew member, so the enlarging would have already been conceptualized on the Discovery side.

Blue-ish Color of Tardigrade:

It's only blue because of the shows lighting, the actual CG model is a dark brown. You can see this easily in STO and with Eaglemoss's model.

 

[thribs]

Just give the chap a few bob. No need to drag it out.

 

[Mudd]

Surprising that it was you two who didn't like that joke

I prefer observant and funny. Go figure.

 

[Jinn]

Exact match in size of Supersizing of Tardigrade: Like, both Tardigrades are enlarged to the exact same size: Around 2m in height. Tardigrades are microscopic beings. If you'd enlarge them for a story, they could be anything from fist-size to space-wale size. That they have the exact same, enlarged size is suspicious.

Well for any story yes, but Discovery needed the tardigrade to be human-sized because it started out as a monster thingy in the USS Glenn, so space-whale-size would be impractical and fist size not scary enough. Unless... Also, it was originally planned (or at least thought about) to join the Discovery crew, so being about human-size was required for practical reasons.

The Tardigrades tardigrade has to be human-sized to hug them when it teleports.

Blue-ish Color of Tardigrade: In all other media, wether Ant-Man, that Neil-de-Grasse-Tyson bit, or webcomics, Tardigrades are usually depicted as flesh-colored. That change alone doesn't mean that much. But it's suspicious that all the visual changes are similar.

Here's a pic of the tardigrade in a room without blue light and it doesn't look blue at all.

FTL-capability: That's really the big one. "Tardigrades in space" is one thing. Using specifically Tardigrades as a means for faster-than-life-travel is pretty unique, no matter if everyone here tries to downplay this. It would be one thing to have the Tardigrade as part of a machine (Frank Herbert says hello), but that specific image of having a lone Tardigrade in space zapping into hyperspace - that's really freaking unique

Fair enough, that is pretty unique.

The blue sparkling: This is really the icing on the cake, and what made me think this guy has a case: Not are just all the relevant changes the same. They even LOOK the same. The visuals are 100% identical, even if there are slight alterations in the exact technicalities in how it works in each medium.

I think the blue spark thingy is from the "Inside the wormhole" video, right? The actualy tardigrade teleportation sequence doesn't feature blue sparkles at all, it just sorta "blue pixels" the teleported character in the teaser. So, the visual similarity between the Discovery blue sparkling is similar to a scene entirely unrelated to the tardigrade. (In fact it reminded me more of a certain Trek wormhole...)

 

[cultcross]

The Tardigrade was originally going to be a crew member, so the enlarging would have already been conceptualized on the Discovery side

Not to mention 'human scale' seems the logical choice if one is increasing something in size. See all the species of Xindi, for example, that are essentially animals made up to human size. It's a touch disingenuous to suggest they just picked that size at random from a wide variety of possibilities.

And blue sparkles? Blue sparkles are probably the most common sci-fi effect of the last thirty years, and Trek uses them as a go to all the time. Transporters, wormholes, energy beings. The Equinox aliens, which arguably are a close match to the Tardigrade thematically, appeared through blue sparkly effects.

 

[Rahul]

Well for any story yes, but Discovery needed the tardigrade to be human-sized because it started out as a monster thingy in the USS Glenn, so space-whale-size would be impractical and fist size not scary enough. Unless... Also, it was originally planned (or at least thought about) to join the Discovery crew, so being about human-size was required for practical reasons.

The Tardigrades tardigrade has to be human-sized to hug them when it teleports.

Here's a pic of the tardigrade in a room without blue light and it doesn't look blue at all.


Fair enough, that is pretty unique.


I think the blue spark thingy is from the "Inside the wormhole" video, right? The actualy tardigrade teleportation sequence doesn't feature blue sparkles at all, it just sorta "blue pixels" the teleported character in the teaser. So, the visual similarity between the Discovery blue sparkling is similar to a scene entirely unrelated to the tardigrade. (In fact it reminded me more of a certain Trek wormhole...)

Thanks for linking the two "Tardigrade"-game teasers!
They really highlight the similarities - but also make clear those are really the only similarities.

Yeah, they obviously didn't make an unlicensed adaption of his game. Discovery has no connection to ancient egyptian gods, nor have I heard anything about a multi-dimensional mushroom in the game. And yes, I'm aware of the Interview where they were talking about their concept for a Tardigrade crewmember. But do we know if that was their original idea? Or that they simply thought about changing the tardigrade to a crewmember, and then decided not to? In a court they would have to lay down where their start- and where their end-point creatively was. In a mere interview, they can say whatever they want (like they envisioned the klingons always to have had hair).

And yes, if they were ripping off the guy - then exactly after they saw these two teasers that you linked. That's really all the connection between the two. He made a trailer with a really weird idea. And somebody saw it, and incorporated that weird idea in their own work.

Nothing more. But also - nothing less.

And that core idea is so, so similar, it's really stressing on disbelief to say there is no connection between the two:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

As I said: Any single one of those similarities alone can be completely coincidental. But the FTL-one is a real BIG and unique one. And that everyting else matches as well is corrobating the connection. Even if any one similarity alone could have a logical explanation, the culmination of all of them is really damning.

 

[Rahul]

Really, I'm operating under the assumption that this was either an accident, or a super unlucky coincidence (for CBS), while admittedly currently definitely more leaning toward the former.

IMO it's less of a case of seeking "fault" on any side. But what interests me really is the discussion of what's a single concept worth, and how ownership of something as flingy as an "idea" - especially such a really weird one - can be aknowledged and compensated for.

 

[Longinus]

I want to tell an anecdote, I swear this is true.

Years ago I was planning a new setting for our Dungeons & Dragons games. This was before the Game of Thrones TV show was a thing, but the Song of Ice and Fire books existed, I hadn't read them though. I came up with this island that had medieval pseudo-European kingdoms on it. Seven of them. They had once been part of one realm, but then it had shattered after a huge war. In the north there were monsters and barbarians; these seven kingdoms were protected from them by this huge wall, built between mountains. It was always manned by knights. There was also an ongoing undead menace, albeit that was not related to the wall. In the south there was this continent with a warmer climate. On it lived people with more middle-east inspired cultures.

My SO who had read the Ice and Fire books, was like, 'dude, I really need to tell you something...' when I explained my setting concept...

Truth is both me and Martin were riffing on the same source material, the European and specifically British history. There were seven Saxon Kingdoms which were eventually unified into England and there was famously Hadrian's wall on the border of England and Scotland, and in Roman times and early middle-ages Scots and Picts were seen as barbarians. And of course the undead area common fantasy trope.

Now my setting was just for our personal D&D games, so any similarities to existing settings didn't really matter, but had I tried to publish it everyone would have obviously thought that I was ripping off Martin.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I pointed this out in the last thread on this subject but apparently it needs saying again.

Ripper isn't blue. He's jet black. Discovery uses a ton of blue lighting and it reflects bluish on him in some scenes (but not in others). But the blue lighting is not restricted to only scenes featuring the tardigrade.

 

[urbandefault]

No big deal, but a pet peeve: the term is copyright, as in the right to copy, not "copywrite."

Nothing personal. It's a common misspelling, since people can easily assume it refers to "writing," not rights. Just trying to nip it in the bud before it spreads throughout this thread.

THANK YOU.

 

[gblews]

From the Orville premiere episode:

It's pretty obvious that TV writers and other people that create entertainment got inspired by all the tardigrade articles and features that came out around 2014.

It would not surprise me in the least if The Orville writers put these lines into the episode in a show of of solidarity with DSC writers. After all, they're in the same business with the same exposure to claims frivolous claims of plagiarism.

If so, nice. Thanks, Seth!