There’s a little piece on Pop and Politics about a woman who claims her screenplay was ripped off to make both the Terminator and Matrix trilogies:
“According to Stewart, if she wins all of the damages and compensation she is asking for, she stands to win over a billion dollars…. Stewart also plans on distributing movies and music with a spiritual message, donate to several churches, build a sound studio, and help her son with his rap career.
Stewart would also be able to release ‘The Third Eye’ as a book, which she is unable to do now, as the book is physical evidence in the case. She also has another story ‘Soul-less,’ which she will develop into a film. She believes that ‘Soul-less’ could out do the popularity of ‘The Matrix’ and ‘The Terminator.’ “The saga continues,: she says.
She doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about matching the success of the other films and confidently declares, “A master will keep creating.”
Which I agree wholeheartedly with, and as such I’d be a lot more confident of her claim if she ever actually created anything else. See, when Harlan Ellison sued over who created Terminator, he actually had, y’know, a track record. A few Hugos and Nebulas. Screenplays. Things that were published both before and after. And that’s one big reason why he won.
I am reminded of the George S. Kaufman anecdote related by Mark Evanier:
George S. Kaufman wrote or co-wrote a staggering number of successful plays. After almost every one, some failed playwright would crawl out of the woodwork and sue Kaufman for plagiarism, charging that somehow Kaufman had seen and purloined some unproduced work.
In each case, the claimant was so lacking in funds that Kaufman could have had his lawyer maneuver to run up the court costs, thereby forcing the plaintiff to drop the suit for lack of funds. This, Kaufman refused to do. He knew he was innocent and wanted to have a court say so. So no such tricks were employed and every time he went to court, he won on the merits of his case.
But of course, he was annoyed at having to go through the suits at all, and his annoyance led to a fantasy. It was to invite all the litigants to a gourmet dinner. Around a huge table, he would serve them fine food and fine wine. Then, when the dishes were cleared away, he would stand and proclaim, “I asked you all here tonight because I would like to ask each of you a question.”
He would point to the first person and ask, “You say you wrote Of Thee I Sing. What else have you written?”
Then he’d look at the second and ask, “You say you wrote The Man Who Came to Dinner. What else have you written?”
Then the third: “You say you wrote Stage Door. What else have you written?”
And on and on around the table…
I caught a certain amount of grief about this when they were first considering covering the story over at Cinematical. I said don’t bother, she’s a crank. They said, but why isn’t anybody covering it? That’s the story! I said no, she’s a nut. It’s like giving equal time to creationists in an evolution debate, there’s nothing there. Drop it. They didn’t.
(Via Making Light.)
Back in 1995, I wrote a comic book script for a course I was taking, in which I called the cyberspace world by the name “The Matrix.” Maybe I should sue as well? 🙂
Or maybe William Gibson should sue us all for using the term “cyberspace” (invented for the novel Neuromancer, which, oddly enough, was written on a typewriter)?
// Back in 1995, I wrote a comic book script for a course I was taking, in which I called the cyberspace world by the name “The Matrix.” Maybe I should sue as well? 🙂 //
Someone else beat you to it, There was a Doctor Who serial in the 70’s where the Doctors old enemy, The Master, traped him in a virtual reality type world (I don’t believe the term virtual Reality was around back then), called “the Matrix”. I’ve always wondered if the people behind the movies were aware of that Doctor Who story.
That’s right! The Matrix from that Doctor Who episode. That must be where they stole it from! 🙂
Then again, there are the psionically-resonant crystals of Darkover, that gave the members of the Great Houses their power – the Matrix Crystals…
…and matrix algebra…
…and Dot Matrix, in “Spaceballs”…
And who’s gonna get sued over the Toyota Matrix?
🙂
Sorry, my question would be “what else have the Wachowski brothers written?” No blockbusters before or after that I know of. And I must say their Matrix sequels went quickly downhill.
This doesn’t mean the woman suing is telling the truth, but your yardstick for measuring doesn’t do a very good job of figuring out who is telling the truth here.
Before? Bound and Assassins. After? V For Vendetta, a comic book line, and sheperding the ongoing Matrix wackiness (video games and MMORPGs) which’ll keep anybody busy.
I, of course, predate you all with my MarchTrix…
Well she believes that she is in the right but I am dubious at best. How many times have good ideas come to two people at the same time? I can’t even count the number of times someone has claimed to have created Space Cases but apparently these sorts of people are serial litigants.Studios have lawyers who have to deal with this all the time. Lucas films has 3 of them and all they and their staff deal with is people claiming that Lucas either ripped them off with Star Wars or some idea or concept that he used in Star Wars.
Now unknowns can get a comic book published and turned into a movie. Happened to my friend Lowell who was so proud when Aircell published his “Men in Black” comic book way back when. The art sucks but the story was a good one and eventually it was turned into a movie so now he owns his own house and car and has time to write.
Speaking of Harlan suing (or not — i think they gave him an acknowledgement pretty much as soon as he asked them) — What Harlan on about was merely “furniture” — the super-scientific war in the future and the time-traveller sent back to save the world. Yes, these are important, but they’re not really the story.
Actually, i always thought that the real story of the film owed a lot more to a Phil Dick story called (i think) “Second Variety”.
(And “The Running Man” — at least King’s original novel — is pretty much a knock-off of a Sheckley [i think] story, while i’m thinking of such things…)
// Speaking of Harlan suing (or not — i think they gave him an acknowledgement pretty much as soon as he asked them) — What Harlan on about was merely “furniture” — the super-scientific war in the future and the time-traveller sent back to save the world. Yes, these are important, but they’re not really the story. //
I kinda agree. If memory serves Harlan didn’t win a lawsuit, just threatened one and the producers settled and gave him a credit. Cameron has stated for years that he did not copy Ellison’s work and he was mad at hell that the studio decided to settle and give him a credit and payment, (without consulting him). When I finally got around to reading the original Ellison stories, (I had seen the Terminator first) I really didn’t see them as that simular exept for the “funiture”. I’m not sure if it had gone to court that Ellison would have won his suit.
Speaking of Harlan Ellison, I always thought The Matrix owed a lot to I Have No Mouth Yet I Must Scream. Moreso than The Terminator. There have been lots of time travel stories, but not so many malevolent AI screws with humans in an environment it completely controls stories.
Yeah, I agree that The Terminator was significantly influenced of Philip K Dick’s Second Variety (which even more clearly influenced a third-rate sci-fi movie called Screamers).
PKD has a whole lot more to his credit in this than Ellison. PKD’s works have been used again and again in blockbuster science fiction films, all with similar themes. Namely:
– the relationship between man and machine (The Terminator series / The Matrix)
– the nature of individual identity (Total Recall / Blade Runner)
– what is Man/humanity (Blade Runner / The Matrix / Screamers)
– what is Reality? (Blade Runner / The Matrix / Dark City)
PKD did not just ocassionaly write about these themes, as any number of other authors did. These themes were absolutely central to virtually all of his work. You could say he was obsessed with them. And, arguably, PKD addressed these themes more thoroughly, deeply, and provocatively than any other science fiction writer.
Now these themes seem to have struck a chord with a huge segment of the sci-fi reading/watching audience, and Hollywood (and Ms Sophia Stewart) are cashing in.
But it wasn’t just the themes that these movies took from PKD’s work, but often the plots and characters as well: Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and Screamers were all directly taken from PKD’s work, and there he was duly given credit.
While the characters and plots of The Matrix and Dark City aren’t taken from PKD’s work, their themes certainly bear his mark, as you can see from my enumeration of them above (and as is obvious to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Dick’s work).
In The Matrix there is an additional Gnostic theme, that of the world/reality as either evil or a prison. Dick was heavily influenced by Gnosticism, and consciously incorporated Gnostic themes in his work. So, again, it’s not surprising to see this as the central theme of The Matrix, since it was influenced by Dick in many other ways.
It’s really sad that Dick isn’t getting credit for this (nor for whole host of derivative science fiction and pop-culture ideas and icons), and that not only are giant Hollywood movie studios, shitty actors and directors making billions off of his works and ideas while PKD lived his whole life in poverty, but that some unknown, third-rate hack like Sophia Stewart (who wrote her novel some twenty or thirty years after PKD, a very prolific author, wrote most of his best work) can come along and claim to be the originator of something which clearly owes more to PKD’s work than any other author.
You’re exactly right, Mike Weber.
Sheckley told me he had called King awkwardly, to ask why Running Man was so close to his story, I believe, “The Prize of Peri”. Bob knew King had been a fan of his stories and Sheckley also liked King. Bob said King said he couldn’t remember if he’d ever read “Peril”. Apparently it was an unsatisfying call and they had to leave it at that. He thought King felt bad and must’ve ripped him off by accident. It happens.