Plagiarism in Star Trek

[Crayz9000]

Alright, this is the thread to debate whether something you saw on Star Trek is plagiarism, coincidence, or a homage.

To start it off:

STVOY 02x28 "Persistence of Vision"
Telepathic alien race called the Botha. Singular is Bothan.

STVOY 02x13 "Prototype"
The androids in this episode act very similar to Battlestar Galactica's Cylons in some respects. In addition, their power cores operate on -- I kid you not -- "flux capacitance." Hm, I wonder when Doc Brown will be along...

DS9 - Season 7
In one episode concerning the Breen, Kira dresses up in a Breen environmental suit so that she will not be noticed. This costume looks almost identical to Leia's "Boushh" costume in RotJ.

DS9 - unknown
Another Deep Space Nine episode features an alien race called the B'omar. This name is remarkably similar to the B'omarr Monks of RotJ.

Have fun.

[Master of Ossus]

DS9: Entire Dominion War= craptacular version of the B5 Shadow War.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Tinker, Tailor, Doctor Spy:

The alien Sonosornssp) look and have almost identical sounding names to the Sontarons from DR Who.

[RedImperator]

STVOY 02x28 "Persistence of Vision"
Telepathic alien race called the Botha. Singular is Bothan.

Coincidence. "Bothan" isn't exactly a difficult vaguely alien sounding name to come up with. Though one of the writers could have heard it in ROTJ, forgotten it, and then pulled it out of his subconscience later. Accidental plagarism.


STVOY 02x13 "Prototype"
The androids in this episode act very similar to Battlestar Galactica's Cylons in some respects. In addition, their power cores operate on -- I kid you not -- "flux capacitance." Hm, I wonder when Doc Brown will be along...

Cylonish androids...eh, couldn't tell you. Never saw BG. "Flux capacitance" probably a joke by one of the writers--homage, then.


DS9 - Season 7
In one episode concerning the Breen, Kira dresses up in a Breen environmental suit so that she will not be noticed. This costume looks almost identical to Leia's "Boushh" costume in RotJ.

Borderline. Could be an unintended resemblance, could be one of the costume designers is a SW fan, could be the producers though the Boushh costume looked cool and decided to copy it.


DS9 - unknown
Another Deep Space Nine episode features an alien race called the B'omar. This name is remarkably similar to the B'omarr Monks of RotJ.

Coincidence. The B'omarr monks are pretty obscure outside the SW fan community.[/quote]

[SCVN 2812]

Has it ever occurred to you that it is not outright plagorism and in fact actually a nod towards great sci-fis that have come before it?

And how is the Dominion War even remotely similar to the Shadow War? There was no where near the disparity of capabilities between the Dominion and the alliance that there was between the Shadows and the Army of Light. Not to mention the resolution of the Dominion War bore no resemblance to the resolution of the Shadow war with the sole exception of the Dominion returning to the Gamma quadrant and leaving the Alpha quadrant, while the Shadows went "beyond the rim."

[Crayz9000]

Has it ever occurred to you that it is not outright plagorism and in fact actually a nod towards great sci-fis that have come before it?

You'll note my use of the word homage in my original post. If it confuses you, your friend is Webster's Dictionary.

[tharkûn]

I'd go with coincidence or homage. Everything mentioned is relatively minor. There are only so many exotic soundly alien names, and given the thousands of sci-fi universes out there they are bound to overlap.

Now I've seen very little BG, but what aside from being robots and some basic similarities in makeup do they have? I don't recall any plot similarites.

The Breen costume is older than the Kira incident. If its a copy, I'd go with homage because it did look cool originally.

As for the dominion war, umm what similarities do you see, ones that aren't reproduced in few thousand other places?

[Sea Skimmer]

The only one I think is actual plagiarism is the Breen suit. Those are direct copies. Everything else I think is unintentional, I'd call my self a hard-core Star Wars fan any day and some of the stuff mentioned I've never heard of.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I guess there aren't very many Dr. Who fans out there

The appearance of those guys with names and coustumes looking soo much like their Dr. Who Counterparts Let me show you:

DR. Who Sontarans
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/ali ... rans.shtml

Voyager Tinker, Tenor Dr. Spy
http://www.leola.fslife.co.uk/ep124b.htm

now does anyone else besides me not see the glaring simularities including names

[Raziel]

I guess there aren't very many Dr. Who fans out there

The appearance of those guys with names and coustumes looking soo much like their Dr. Who Counterparts Let me show you:

DR. Who Sontarans
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/ali ... rans.shtml

Voyager Tinker, Tenor Dr. Spy
http://www.leola.fslife.co.uk/ep124b.htm

now does anyone else besides me not see the glaring simularities including names

If that isn't a direct copy, then I'm either blind or stupid.

[Tsyroc]

I thought the whole premise for DS9 was ripped-off from B5 and given
the "Trek" treatment.

Still it had more differences from B5 than a lot of superhero comics/characters have from each other.


The biggest rip-off in Trek was that whole Species 8742 (or whatever, it's too close to my zip code for me to remember it right) two parter. It was way too close to the Vorlons/Shadows of B5. Even that cheesy catch phrase.

I imagine that a lot of it might have been done on purpose since the effects group on Voyager at that time had previously worked on B5. Also, since the later episode with Species 8472 (??) really wussed them out and then they went away to never be seen again I think that perhaps they were done taking shots at B5. It may have also been intended as an homage, or perhaps they bailed on the idea because it was too close to B5?

[SPOOFE]

The biggest rip-off in Trek was that whole Species 8742 (or whatever, it's too close to my zip code for me to remember it right) two parter. It was way too close to the Vorlons/Shadows of B5. Even that cheesy catch phrase.

What about the fact that one of those "singularities" looked almost idential to a B5 jump gate?

[Tsyroc]

The biggest rip-off in Trek was that whole Species 8742 (or whatever, it's too close to my zip code for me to remember it right) two parter. It was way too close to the Vorlons/Shadows of B5. Even that cheesy catch phrase.

What about the fact that one of those "singularities" looked almost idential to a B5 jump gate?

Deffinately. I was thinking that when I posted forgot to include it.

[Lusankya]

DS9 - Season 7
In one episode concerning the Breen, Kira dresses up in a Breen environmental suit so that she will not be noticed. This costume looks almost identical to Leia's "Boushh" costume in RotJ.

Could just be because it seemed like a good way to design an environmental suit. After all, if we assume that these creatures want their environmental suits to be uncombersome and effective, then most will look reasonably similar for humanoid species.

[Raxmei]

What about the S8472 superlaser? The special effect is the ANH superlaser with wavy bits added.

[Cpt_Frank]

Yep, the look of S8472's bioship cluster is a 1:1 rip-off. It's just too obvious.
And, as we recently had in another thread, in the enterprise intro there is a starship with thruster banks very similar to an ISD's.

[seanrobertson]

DS9: Entire Dominion War= craptacular version of the B5 Shadow War.

I can't agree here...I think the Shadow War was immensely deeper
and more interesting, though it did suffer from a rather insulting
deux ex machina, what with the Shadows and Vorlons being kicked off the playground like little kids. It wasn't half as bad as DS9's cop-outs (Prophet
intervention, Ma Changeling's stunning change of heart and surrender),
though. Lorien's character, who was a big question for awhile, really
helped make the sudden resolution more workable.

That covers the "endings"...what about everything in between? I don't
think they're all that similar at all. The pace of the two series' wars
is clearly different, and I felt the focus was a good bit different too.

Take, for instance, the way baddies were treated on the two shows. I thought DS9 had the best villian, Gul Dukat. The Shadows made
for a far more terrifying race than, say, the Cardassians or
Jem'Hadar, but until Dukat went insane, he helped put a "human"
face on the enemy: sometimes tender, acting out of ego but
also in what he regarded as the interests of his people, he functioned
on many more levels than the ever-sinister Mr. Morden, the
always untrustworthy Ulkesh, or the brain-washed humans the
Shadows tinkered with (e.g., Anna Sheridan). Dukat's character
was trampled on after Ziyal was killed, but I do think some of his
better bad guy qualities resurfaced in the so-called Final Chapter.

Same said for Weyoun--far deeper character than his B5 counterparts
unless you count Londo (I don't, but that's me). Jeffrey Comb's
performance was probably second to none on DS9.

I mention these two guys because of the old journalist adage of
what interests people most, the "why." I could understand why
the guys running the Dominion did what they did, and better yet,
at least the aforementioned two weren't always snarling and spitting
venom just for the sake of being bad. The Shadows really had no
such motives, not to the extent one could relate. Their puppets made
excuses about the ideology war, but that was little more than propaganda to disarm Sheridan. They were out to exterminate anyone they
felt was unworthy, which is out and out evil regardless of their purported
motives (and thus somewhat one-dimensional).

Now, if you said the Borg-Species 8472 war was a knock-off of
the Shadows and Vorlons (if only in form), I'd agree. But I think
there are too many differences to make many hard comparisons
between DS9's war arc (something Berman was itching to do
for a long time, but Roddenberry always said, "If they want space
battles, screw 'em! That's not what ST is about") and the Shadow
War. There are a number of superficial similarities but it's *far* from plagarism on DS9's part.

Sean
Analyst http://www.babtech-onthe.net/

[seanrobertson]

Yep, the look of S8472's bioship cluster is a 1:1 rip-off. It's just too obvious.
And, as we recently had in another thread, in the enterprise intro there is a starship with thruster banks very similar to an ISD's.

I don't know that it's a rip-off of an ISD's engines, though. That ship
was based on a conjectural model for the S.S. Valiant IIRC.
On ENT, the distribution of the engine nozzles is more like an ISD's
than on what Mike Okuda made for the Trek _Chronology_, but
does Frank McQuarry-like arrangement of a few nozzles plagarism
make?

There are some serious rip-offs elsewhere in Trek, of course:
bioships that look like squids and the Ferengi Marauder. I'm
sure there are many more.

Sean
http://www.babtech-onthe.net/

[Spanky The Dolphin]

It's Ralph McQuarrie, not Frank.

And I believe the ISDs were designed by Joe Johnston, anyway.

But it's too similar for my tastes.

[SCVN 2812]

If I had the time or the will, I'd go back and watch a bunch of old pre-Wars sci-fi flicks and start pointing out every single thing that even remotely looks like something in Star Wars and screaming that the SW design team stole it.

If somebody makes a successful or even just an underground classic movie and you're working on a tv show wouldn't you feel even a slight desire to give a nod towards you're favorite movie, maybe a little something tossed in there for the hardcore sci-fi fans unknowing that these same fans will be shredding your integrity like rabid wolves? Or maybe just forgotten the whole thing and just a tiny bit unknowingly surfaces and you think, "hey that's a good idea" and not even know where you got it from.

Homages are pretty common in sci-fi and if you actually bother to check around you find a lot of them are really homages and nothing more. It might interest you to know that a design for the Borg Sphere was redone because the torpedo launcher made it look too much like the Death Star.

[Vertigo1]

Scifi rips off of itself all the time. Thats just the way it is.

[Master of Ossus]

There is a difference between plagiarism and parallelism. For instance, both Star Wars and B5 have many parallels with mythology. Because of this, they also parallel much that goes in in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. They are not plagiarizing, however, because both GL and JMS clearly acknowledge their sources (as did Tolkien), and both of them clearly update the stories that they tell. Thus, while loosely based on things, they are not plagiarizing.

I am getting kind of tired of SCVN taking every criticism of ST as a personal affront. It often leads him to take up indefensible positions. I would also very much like it if he would be so kind as to not take every criticism of ST as hypocrisy, when it clearly is not. There is a difference between basing something off of something else and plagiarism. This seems obvious to me.

[Mr Bean]

Acutal lets let you SCVN put your money where you mouth is, Go right on ahead, Watch every single Pre SW Sci-Fi and I want you to build for me a nice list of everything GL stole, Go on no one's stoping you, If your so bother by this then you should take the time to back up what you say

[Crayz9000]

If I had the time or the will, I'd go back and watch a bunch of old pre-Wars sci-fi flicks and start pointing out every single thing that even remotely looks like something in Star Wars and screaming that the SW design team stole it.

Look, I'M NOT SAYING THAT HOMAGES ARE BAD! I started this thread exactly because of that kind of comment -- THIS THREAD IS FOR DEBATE AS TO WHETHER OR NOT something is plagiarism, I.E. a direct ripoff rather than being influenced by something!

In MY OWN OPINION, I'd say that Kira's Breen costume and the Sontarans qualify as plagiarism, while the other, more insignificant references, like "Bothan" etc. would qualify more as homages.

You want another example? Take Battlestar Galactica. While the ships may resemble Star Wars ships in the way that their hulls are designed, they are not direct ripoffs of Star Wars designs. Therefore, it is more of the case of the show's designers liking the way that Star Wars ships looked, and designing their own, original ships along those lines. Another thing that prevents BG from being a ripoff of Star Wars is its plot, which is completely different from the plot of the Star Wars movies.

Sheesh. I didn't realize that we had non-Village Idiots who are this dense.

[starfury]

I am getting kind of tired of SCVN taking every criticism of ST as a personal affront. It often leads him to take up indefensible positions. I would also very much like it if he would be so kind as to not take every criticism of ST as hypocrisy, when it clearly is not. There is a difference between basing something off of something else and plagiarism. This seems obvious to me.

me too, it seems he often in response to a simple reply never let go the chance to often bash other sci-fi, remenber Ossus, his remark on minbari wasting energy vs tactical starfleet "snipers".

that is really getting to me.