Is Gary 7 really Doctor Who?

[Trekwatcher]

Christopher said:

Trekwatcher said:
I think there is a difference between inspiration and ripoff. Both are discrete entities. Inspiration seems to involve using old ideas to make new ones, or to use them in a new way. Sci-fi is ripe with what I consider to be genuine ripoffs, where someone essentially takes someone else's ideas and transports them wholesale to another story as a means of avoiding the difficulty of the creative process.

Maybe that's true, but it's incredibly obnoxious and insulting the way so many people default to the assumption that any and all similarities are grounds to accuse people of plagiarism. It's also usually based in profound cultural illiteracy, because the similarities they're pointing out are things that many, many earlier works of fiction have already used. (Like the absurd argument mentioned in another thread about whether Star Trek or Doctor Who used "Vulcan" as the name of a planet first. Neither one of them was first, by a good century.)

As a tiny kid it was obvious that things like 1978's Battlestar Galactice, or 1980's Battle Beyond the Stars were both flagrant ripoffs of many things from Star Wars (which itself had clear, ACKNOWLEDGED, influences in Kurosawa's work, 1930's serials, etc).

That's a bizarre distinction. How did Star Wars "ACKNOWLEDGE" its use of imitation any more clearly than those other things did? They were all blatant homages to earlier works to the same degree. I mean, it's not like there was anything remotely original about Star Wars.

Besides, this has nothing to do with the original thread. Even the people pointing out similarities between "Assignment: Earth" and Doctor Who are not claiming that the similarities are as blatant and imitative as what you're discussing here. So even if the "ripoff" shibboleth were applicable to what you're talking about, it certainly wouldn't be applicable to Gary Seven or the Doctor.

I appreciate your comments, and recognize that as a writer you must wrestle with these issues.

Still, the distinction is not bizarre at all. Look, even in 1977 Lucas openly talked about being affected by 1930's serials, Kurosawa, etc. The Kurosawa/Japanese influence is also apparent and documented by people like Ralph McQuarre (spelling?) in the pre-production work on Star Wars. But in the 1970's, 1930's serials and films about feudal Japan were not big sources of interest to most people, and most people in the west had never seen a Kurosawa film. I.e. Lucas was not trying to capitalize of something that was "hot" and acknowledged his source material.

Conversely, by 1978 scifi was of great interest to studios to make $$$$$ off of. Hence, to me, 1978's BSG and the dreadful Battle Beyond the Stars were genuine ripoffs, meant to capitalize on the acute marketability and popularity of scifi, and to turn a quick buck off of very unoriginal properties that mimicked Star Wars as much as possible. Remember how popular "Jaws" was in 1975? Interesting that in 1977 "Orca" was released, about a man battling a killer whale. Same ripoff problem.

Nobody expects everyone to come up with a whole new idea every time, but if it is too close to something else, both conceptually and, often, temporally, then the ripoff alarms start to go off.

 

[DWF]

Christopher said:
I am so damned sick of the word "ripoff." It's a total misinterpretation of the creative process. It's not theft, it's influence. All creative works are influenced by their predecessors. In science fiction in particular, there is an ongoing dialogue between different creators as they explore, elaborate upon, and critique each other's ideas. It's ignorant, mean-spirited and insulting to call it "ripping off" when it's an accepted and beneficial part of the process. After all, it's ludicrous to assume that a whole new concept, such as the sort that science fiction uniquely explores, can be thoroughly examined in only one work of fiction. On the contrary -- it's a tribute to one author's creativity when others are inspired enough by it to pick up on his/her concepts and explore their further ramifications.

Except that ideas get ripoffed al the time or just reused, as Peter DeLuise said once in a Stargate SG1 commentary the French use the term "homage" the English use the term "aliteration" and Americans use the word "ripoff" but I do think that in end it's the same thing.

 

[USS KG5]

The Laughing Vulcan said:
If we're talking ripoffs, let's talk sentient holograms and Red Dwarf, positronic androids and Asimov, Requiem for Methuselah and Forbidden Planet, The Inner Light and It's a Wonderful Life, Remans and Buffy The Vampire Slayer's ubervamps?

It's like shooting fish in a barrel. With a howitzer.

I'm not sure how fair the term "rip off" is for all of those, though in the case of the first one you might well have a point.

In most cases though you are talking a similar source - holograms were hardly a new thing in sci-fi in the late 80s for either show, the term "Positronic Android" for data was a deliberate tip of the hat to Asimov, Forbidden Planet was based on Shakespeare, It's A Wonderful Life owes a massive debt to Dickens and the Remans and Uber-Vamps are both based on the original and classic Nosferatu.

As another poster said the word "Rip-Off" is over-used on the Net.

 

[Kryton]

DWF said:
Except that ideas get ripoffed al the time or just reused, as Peter DeLuise said once in a Stargate SG1 commentary the French use the term "homage" the English use the term "aliteration" and Americans use the word "ripoff" but I do think that in end it's the same thing.

Interesting...you'd think the English would know that alliteration is using a series of words that start with the same letter, such as "Fantastic Four Film's Fabulous Flubs".

What a bunch of morons the brits must be.

 

[DWF]

Kryton said:

DWF said:
Except that ideas get ripoffed al the time or just reused, as Peter DeLuise said once in a Stargate SG1 commentary the French use the term "homage" the English use the term "aliteration" and Americans use the word "ripoff" but I do think that in end it's the same thing.

Interesting...you'd think the English would know that alliteration is using a series of words that start with the same letter, such as "Fantastic Four Film's Fabulous Flubs".

What a bunch of morons the brits must be.

It was Peter Deluise who being silly like usual in a SG1 commentary and I think I got the word wrong I meant allusion my fault.

 

[Shadow94]

Gary Seven wasn't examined that I can remember, and even if he was medical knowledge of a Time Lord/Gallifreyan physiology would have been completely unknown, which is why Gary Seven said he was only a human that was trained on another planet that would have made it a lot easier for him to get away with his comment.
My reasons for believing that Gary Seven is a Time Lord/Gallifreyan.
1. Has a Sonic Screwdriver device.
2. Has a companion, (Isis the cat woman).
3. Appeared when Earth was in trouble of Nuclear War.
4. Was not affected by Vulcan Neck Pinch-strong nerves.
5. Is from a planet that came hide itself from others.
6. Was beamed on the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 while traveling through space, which has happened to The Doctor on some occasions.
7. Has knowledge of different species in the Universe and has knowledge of Time Travel.
8. Can talk to his companion Isis the cat when she is in cat form.

 

[Maurice]

Star Wars was heavily and obviously influenced by The Hidden Fortress (I spotted this right away when I first watched the latter). If they'd seen it, a lot of people who rail about "ripoffs" would be apoplectic about how much Lucas borrowed from it...not that Kurosawa seemed to mind.

 

[Greg Cox]

Coming to the party rather late, I know where Christopher is coming from. The word rip-off, with its implication of deliberate plagiarism, does tend to get thrown around way too freely on the internet. Here's the way it too often works:

Fan sees new movie about a vampire mermaid. Fan remembers reading a book about a vampire mermaid a few years back. Fan instantly jumps to assumption that the movie-makers must have stolen the idea from that same book. "Rip-off!"

Whereas, in fact, it's entirely possible for more than one person to come up with idea of vampire mermaids. In fact, as I type this, I have no doubt that somebody somewhere is writing the great American vampire mermaid story. Probably several somebodies.

And chances are, vampire mermaids are a time-honored trope of aquatic Gothic literature dating back at least as far as a 17th century Finnish poem that later inspired a half-dozen popular Lithuanian operas before popping up in an obscure 1927 pulp novel that inspired a largely forgotten silent movie starring Theda Bara in a scaly bathing suit . . . .

In other words,the "stolen" idea is often an very old one that's been used by countless writers, poets, cartoonists, and movie-makers over the years.

Actual plagiarism is far less common.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

McCoy takes detailed scans of Gary, and determines that he is human. If Gary had been any other species, McCoy would have said so.

 

[Avro Arrow]

A necro'd thread that's nearly seven years old? Is that some kind of record or something?

 

[TheSubCommander]

OMG
Rip Off=ZEITGEIST!

 

[T'Bonz]

Don't post in a thread that has been dead for so long. Start a new thread if so inclined.