Did Hollywood steal the Matrix and Terminator?

[parallax1]

A load of crap. She doesn't even understand Star Wars.....

I found it interesting that she claims the FBI was investigating yet posted no correspondence with them nor did she post any documentation of a settlement offer from Warner. Oh, and where is the court documentation showing that the court was against a settlement as well. Everything in that article is "alleged" or "claimed". That's the reason you don't hear anything about it. Just look at the booksandwords.com website.....

As far as the page with the comics, how do we know where that came from or when it was created?

Of course this is just my opinion on the matter and I could be wrong....but I would be surprised.

[CuCuy]

If I remember correctly, Ellison only won against Cameron because the entire concept of Skynet, a defensive computer network that goes sentient, was copied word for word from I Have No Mouth And Must Scream or Demon With A Glass Hand (I forget which)...

It was "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream".

...Ellison does have a rep for being a bitter little man who spends more time making life difficult for others than creating new work.

I'll grant you that the guy has a great deal of apathy towards Hollywood, and for good reasons. While he is no Steven King or John Grisham in terms of cranking out new works, he is among the most prolific writers around and manages to release enough short story collections and essays to keep this fan happy.

[Nilfennasion]

I had a funny feeling it was IHNMAMS. But then, some sources say that The Terminator and its sequels (especially the first sequel) have severely plaigarised both.

As far as the crank thing goes, that was the rep given to Ellison by Hollywood, so it tends to reach the public's ears more easily. I have no doubt, myself, that he is a very prolific author in spite of whatever level of truth that rep has. His writings are among the most often-sourced, legitimately or otherwise, in science-fiction theatre. There is even a contingent that wants to see a remake of City on the Edge of Forever that is more in line with what he intended (of which I am a part simply because Roddenberry's universe is too sterile for me).

Obviously, the issue of who owns what and the thin line between tribute/plaigarism is not going away anytime soon. But I think a lot of these complaints would go away if those making the later version would stop for five minutes and say "I was influenced by... go and see/read it".

[CuCuy]

There is even a contingent that wants to see a remake of City on the Edge of Forever that is more in line with what he intended (of which I am a part simply because Roddenberry's universe is too sterile for me).

Ellison had his original "City On the Edge of Forever" script published around 10 years ago and the best thing about the book was the opening essay. He spoke of fandom's reverence for Roddenberry and said how they treat him like he was "******* Prometheus". The essay alone is well worth the read if you ever see the book in a store.

[Nilfennasion]

Indeed, I never understood what Roddenberry's appeal was. There is a great article on rotten.com that sums it up somewhat, but even that is not a lot of help. His fantasy image of the military in which officers can ignore orders as they see fit was so boring and blasé that even in instances where it was done well, such as Star Trek VI (by other writers, no less), it was a joke.

Indeed, when Roddenberry was alive, there were only two Trek films made that I thought were any good. One I have already mentioned, the other being a feature-length sequel to Space Seed, which was a better episode than usual for Trek. So if Ellison writes that Trekkiedom is a load of blind worship, I kind of have to agree. Science fiction works best with rules and order, after all.

It is a pity Ellison is so against the film industry. I am sure there is someone out there who would be happy to work with him rather than against him. Hell, give him the rights to do a Wing Commander script. I have the film they did make of that game on DVD, and comedy does not get much more unintentional.

[ofbarea]

That's funny, I always thought that a lot of the ideas / elements of "The Matrix" were a rip-off of William Gibsons "Neuromancer " - maybe he stole them from "The Third Eye"!!

Some scenes in Matrix were almost copied from “The ghost in the shell”.

[donpedro]

Well... I did not read all of the posts, but I would have to add something to this discution. One point of view is missing... Many people can come up with same idea without stealing them from somebody else. I came up with idea of Matrix when I was 16 (almost 20y. ago) during some ideological discution with friends. And trust me... I never read it in any book before. If there was a way how these "studios" could have listen to our discution, I could suit them too

Anyway.... Moving pictures in photoalbum (Harry Potter movie) appeared in my dreams when I was around 12...

[Nilfennasion]

Once you make a "hard" copy of something, you have a copyright (at least according to the advice I received from a writers' group). So if someone other than me shows up with a novel or screenplay that depicts Dwarrow using catapults to fling raw sewage at Orcs as the greenskins attempt to take down a Halfling village, you know who will be suing. *laugh*

Of course, the similarity would have to be that close in order to have a case. Violations of copyright with creative ideas are hard to prove.

[donpedro]

The point is... With more then 6,500,000,000 people, there is high posibility to create or think of same idea

[adam]

Ideas are not protectable. In a copyright infringement suit like this the court will look at both stories recognizing full well that either could have been created independantly, and that there may be hundreds more out there like it. That is not the question. The question is if the latter of the stories has some elements in it that lead to the conclusion that the author actually looked at and copied sections from the former, not verbatim but in substance. You really have to parse the language and find similaries that go beyond broad ideas and beyond mere coincidence.