The Wachowski brothers did not write the Matrix !!

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-02-12 11:47am

Durandal wrote:
Stofsk wrote:Is anyone really surprised?
Uh ... yeah, actually.

Ah. I suppose my problem is that I never really enjoyed the Matrix movies, and as such wasn't surprised to hear they were ripoffs of someone else's ideas.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-02-12 11:53am

Tsyroc wrote:I think in the case of Harlan Ellison and the Terminator that he's actually credited on the film now.

He is in the books now at least, for the first one anyway.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-02-12 12:40pm

Tsyroc wrote:I think in the case of Harlan Ellison and the Terminator that he's actually credited on the film now.

Yes, he is. If you follow the end credits, he's there. I don't know about the sequels.

PrinceofLowLight · Post by **PrinceofLowLight** » 2004-02-12 05:57pm

This makes perfrect sense. It wasn't just the quality of the films. They were in two completely different styles. The only thing they had in common was the direction (bullet time) and the actors.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-02-12 09:45pm

Stormbringer wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:If there's an idea making a lot of money at the moment and becoming very popular, sooner or later someone will claim they thought it up first. I believe this Sofia also claimed to have done The Terminator before James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd.
No, that was Harlan Ellison, and he did win that suit. And with good reason as well.

In The Terminator's credits it said: In Acknowledgement of the works of Harlan Ellison. I heard that it was similar to Ellison's The Outer Limits.

How similar were they, exactly?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-02-12 10:40pm

RedImperator wrote:So does this make the Wachowskis look better for not actually writing The Matrix, or worse for reading it and still stealing it?

Well this perhaps explains why at least the first The Matrix was watchable and somewhat fun, but the other two were contrived turds.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-12 10:43pm

YT300000 wrote:In The Terminator's credits it said: In Acknowledgement of the works of Harlan Ellison. I heard that it was similar to Ellison's The Outer Limits.

EDIT: My apologies:

Some aspects of the story were sufficiently similar to two episodes of the TV series, The Outer Limits—both episodes written by Harlan Ellison—that Ellison pursued legal action against Cameron. Cameron settled out of court and an acknowledgment of Ellison's work was placed in the film's credits. The episodes in question were called "Soldier" (which involves a specially-trained man sent back in time to assassinate a rival) and "Demon With A Glass Hand" (concerning a time traveler who suffers memory loss and relies on a computer chip implanted in his body to give him information about his mission). There is also some similarity between the concept of Skynet and the evil intelligence featured in Ellison's short story, "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream".

zombie84 · Post by **zombie84** » 2004-02-12 11:48pm

Personally this seems like bullshit to me.

Every successful movie, especially sci fi, has someone accusing them of plagiarism--from Star Wars to Alien to Terminator to the Matrix. And they're always bullshit.

I dont know if this is the same case, but recently there was an ex-girlfriend (or some sort of aquaintance) of one of the W Bros who slapped a suite claiming plagiarmism on the Matrix script, but the W Bros collected rough drafts from 1994 and earlier. Given the obvious sources of inspiration from Anime, cyberpunk, etc. i dont see how its even possible to claim plagiarism.

Really this stuff happens all the time. It makes me sick whenever i see these law suites because its just people who want to make money. Nothing is unique, every work of art is based off someone elses, and unless your willfully stealing someones work before they can publish it i dont even think these things should be allowed to occur.

This woman may be right all along, but unless there is absolute 100% hard proof, i'm very skeptical. Likely, it'll settle out opf court, like all these cases do.

And Harlan Ellison was being a bitch, like most of these types of people. Terminator contains a lot of similarities to some of his work, but its a far different film and is unique unto itself; artists are free to borrow bits and pieces and rearrange them the way Cameron did.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-02-13 06:39pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:EDIT: My apologies

Uh... apology accepted, I guess.

[size=0]What was that about?[/size]

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » 2004-02-13 07:46pm

Comosicus wrote:As far as I remember, Matrix was launched in 1999. Why waiting so long before filling the lawsuit. To wait for more money to come first?

In a lawsuit like this, it takes time to gather all of the evidence. And you had better be sure your evidence is tight, because Hollywood lawyers breed like bacteria, and the studio can hire about 200 of them to defend this case.

Cornelius · Post by **Cornelius** » 2004-02-13 09:32pm

Hmmmm.. SO THAT's why the rest of them were so bad after the first.