From personal experience and discussion with other informed voices in the film community, I’ve developed a shorthand set of thumb rules: ten film commandments, my decem praecepta. This series of articles breaks down what I’m on about.

Continuing on:

“8. Thou shalt not plagiarize thy inspirations.”

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Although it’s been said (many time and many ways), the musings of Ozzy Osbourne may be my favorite: “We’re all thieves.” Everything is derivative, but ideas and inspirations can be recombined, reworked, and interpreted differently; the hero’s journey of one writer won’t be the hero’s journey of another. The trick, of course, is disguising an inspiration long enough to distinguish it from the source (spoofs and intentional homage not withstanding).

It’s no secret that F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu began as a failed attempt to secure the film rights for Dracula; when he was denied, the director tweaked names and added his own mythology, including direct sunlight being deadly to vampires. Hilariously, this weakness was later exploited to defeat the count in later incarnations, including the 1979 film starring Frank Langella. Similarly, modern zombies were created for Night of the Living Dead by George Romero infusing Haitian Vodou “zonbi” details with pseudo-vampirism, long before Robert Kirkman added “everyone’s already infected” to the lore with “The Walking Dead.” Each incarnation added its own unique ingredient before blazing a new path.

When too many identical plot points of one film are peddled as wholly original for another, it’s feels both deliberate and disingenuous. Take the strange case of Ferngully, The Last Rainforest, where a young man (just doing his job) becomes better informed (because of a loving native woman) of the irreversible damage his for-profit employers are doing to the land of an indigenous people, prompting him to stand against former co-workers to stop a gargantuan nature-destroying machine from devastating the forest. Did you recognize it’s also the same plot as Avatar by James Cameron? The filmmaker reportedly offered Ferngully by name to investors for his blockbuster idea, so the similarities don’t seem accidental (not to mention how Harlan Ellison was awarded a writing credit to every Terminator film).

There’s an entire subgenre of intentional rip-offs running concurrently through on-demand services pitched as “kind of the same thing,” and not just Sharknado clones. Can’t afford to take the family to see Paranormal Activity? Why not rent Paranormal Entity instead? Is the reboot of Pet Semetary in theaters out of your budget for a family of six? Pet Graveyard has you covered! Once in while, these low-budget hacks take on a life of their own, the way Gremlins gave birth to Critters (introducing Leonardo DeCaprio in his first screen role for the third film). Unfortunately, audiences will get a Ouija House and Dolly Dearest for every Ouija: Origin of Evil and Child’s Play film.

Pop culture films are full of intentionally borrowed references: Ready Player One celebrating its inspirations, Free Guy spoofing them, and Space Jam 2 feeling like a two-hour Warner Bros. commercial. However, if you’re making a sweeping space opera costing hundreds of millions of dollars pitched as your own thing, there should be enough original material so viewers can’t make a drinking game recognizing every borrowed reference, even if you’re calling it Rebel Moon.

Disclaimer: these are my opinions; feel free to articulate your own. 💀

Up next:

“9. Thou shalt not grift unreliable narrative.”

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