Written By: Ken HulseySource: WENN
Actress Keira Knightley has just signed on to play a clone alongside Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan, in Mark Romanek's upcoming sci fi thriller "Never Let Me Go".
The film is set to center around Knightley's character, who grows up in a boarding school with no contact or knowledge of the outside world until she (and her fellow clones) discovers her sole purpose for existing is for organ donation.
Wait a tick, that sounds familiar.......
Hey! The plot for this one sounds almost identical to the 2005 movie, "The Island", which starred Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as clones who were raised for organ transplants.
I will say it yet once again.......there are no original ideas anymore!
I mean geez, I could see if the two films were somewhat similar, but in this case they sound almost identical.
Production on "Never Let Me Go is scheduled to begin in April in London and Norfolk, England.
Lawsuits to follow soon after...........?
Well, ignoring the "no original ideas" nonsense (There were three silent film versions of DRACULA, so remakes and ripoffs have been around forever. Hell, the original GODZILLA was an admitted knock-off of KING KONG and THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS!), there likely won't be lawsuits here. The filmmakers are undoubtedly aware of all the legal problems Michael Bay and THE ISLAND folks ran into when the makers of the 1970s cult classic PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR (with the exact same storyline) successfully sued them for copyright infringement. No one's ever going to try this "cloned, sequestered and harvested for parts" plot again without proper legal clearance. Besides, NEVER LET ME GO is based on a best-selling Japanese novel which came out the same year as THE ISLAND>
ReplyDeleteWell I admit that the lawsuite bit was mentioned in jest.
ReplyDeleteYou do bring up some very good points! I think the problem is in my use of the word "original", I would have been better served to say 'creative.'(ideas)
Now I have talked to several directors, and they all echo the same feelings that if you don't go into a major Hollywood studio with an idea for a movie that either has been done before (I think this explains this new movie) or is based on a comic book or toy, than you will be shown the door.
Now idependent film makers have been able to produce these 'creative' films because they make them outside the Hollywood umbrella.
Come on! You do have to admit that "Never Let Me Go" sounds pretty much like a direct copy of "The Island"?
It does, just as THE ISLAND was a direct copy (and the courts agreed) of PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR. My defense of remakes and knock-offs wasn't really a defense of this particular story (though part of me would like to see this tale told well), but rather just frustration at the common misconception that Hollywood somehow ran out of original ideas recently. It's always been part and parcel of the movie business to recycle what works, from the earliest days of the silent era. For some reason, though, fans in the internet age seem to believe that the film industry used to generate all sorts of original and visionary ideas all on its own, but have now gotten lazy and unimaginative.
ReplyDeleteI don't know anything at all about copyright law and intellectual property, but I do know that I'd be far more likely to line up for a thousand rampaging copies of Kiera Knightly than Ewan McGregor.
ReplyDeleteClone or not, biodiversity is a good thing.