Plagiarism in Star Trek

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2002-08-28 01:23pm

I definately agree on the Sontarans issue. That's just too blatant to ignore or dismiss as an homage.

What makes it worse is that the Sontarans are quite well known, as they appeared quite frequently in Doctor Who's 80s seasons.

They might as well have just copied the Daleks or Cybermen.

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What I really don't get is how the Breen design got green-lighted in the first place. Most designers (and the production's lawers) try their best to avoid designs that are too close to those that already exist. Like how the original "Linear Falcon" was considered too similar to the Eagles from the then-recent TV series Space: 1999 to be used for the Millennium Falcon, so they finished the model to be used for the less-prominent Rebel Blockade Runner (which is only in about 3 scenes in the first 5 minutes) and made the current Falcon design (which was also a rush job).

Now, if they gave the Breen suit goggles instead of the visor, everything would be alright. But no...

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-08-28 02:46pm

Crayz9000 wrote: 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.

Ick.. Galactica is ripped off SW how? Find me a ship in star wars (original trilogy), that resembles a cylon base star

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2002-08-28 02:48pm

NecronLord wrote:Ick.. Galactica is ripped off SW how? Find me a ship in star wars (original trilogy), that resembles a cylon base star

Re-read my post, more carefully this time. I was saying that BG is not a ripoff of Star Wars, although some have claimed that.

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-09-02 11:57pm

Necron-Lord... the Battlestar Galactica design philosophy is similar to that found in Star Wars. Not the exact shape. SW presents ships with mostly large, slab-side areas with minor rough detail, banded by small openings and seams that are clustered with hordes of little bits & parts. As opposed to Star Trek, where most ships have the appearance of smooth, polished glass and plastic...

But as for out-and-out "ripoffs", I'd go with Deep Space Nine being a total copy of Babylon 5 in its entirety. It is known that when Joe Michael Starczynsky first wanted to produce his show he came to Paramount with the idea of a Space Station with a jump gate nearby through which all sorts of troublesome aliens come. The station eventually gets caught up in a war where it is at the juncture of all the action. Paramount turned him down then months later-- surprise, surprise-- hunched out the DS9 turd-- remember those awful opening seasons? Deep Space 90210? They put the show together on the fly and had nothing to back it up. JMS brushed it off with sarcasm at his panel discussion at San Diego Comic Con back in 1995, but it was clear he felt robbed...

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-03 12:30am

I think of an homage as a word or phrase that is inserted into one's own work in order to call attention to a past work. It can also be a background character, or a background alien. For instance, the back-and-forth between the ET and SW films is not plagiarism, but is instead an homage. Neither ET, nor SW, was using the other one as an original idea, and the homage was not of particular importance in either one of them. On the other hand, had SW suddenly used a Jedi ET to start walking around healing people's cuts and phoning home in its own little sub-plot, that would have been an example of plagiarism. Any time that you create a plot or a part of a story that is based on someone else's design, that becomes plagiarism, especially if the reference is not instantly recognizable by a majority of people.

Thus, I think that the Breen suits are an example of plagiarism, but the ship at the start of Enterprise is more of an homage, if it was even remotely based off of an ISD.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2002-09-03 05:08am

I've got the BattleStar Galactica annual somewhere and they as much as say that they wanted to make Star Wars for the small screen if that counts for anything.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2002-09-03 05:10am

Crayz9000 wrote:
NecronLord wrote:Ick.. Galactica is ripped off SW how? Find me a ship in star wars (original trilogy), that resembles a cylon base star
Re-read my post, more carefully this time. I was saying that BG is not a ripoff of Star Wars, although some have claimed that.

Ummm.. I dunno, I just found that Colonial Viper resembles X-Wing so much..

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2002-09-03 05:35am

Whoopsss. ... I'm not accusing Crazy9000 that he claimed BG is SW ripoff. My point is I think Colonial Viper may be X-Wing ripoff.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2002-09-04 11:32pm

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Whoopsss. ... I'm not accusing Crazy9000 that he claimed BG is SW ripoff. My point is I think Colonial Viper may be X-Wing ripoff.

Yeah, that was my initial impression of the Viper, too. (But X-wings don't have a Turbo button!)

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-09-05 12:00am

{Snip} JMS brushed it off with sarcasm at his panel discussion at San Diego Comic Con back in 1995, but it was clear he felt robbed...

The only reason he didn't out and out sue Paramount was it would have held up Babylon 5. He was pissed!!

He has always maintained that it was Paramount that did the ripping off not the Star Trek people themselves. They had a rough outline of B5's story arc and characters. JMS alleges that they used this to "guide" the trek producers into creating a set up almost exactly like B5's. Given how similarly the two series worked out, I'd say the Paramount people (if not the Trek producers themselves) used those materials to try to undercut B5.

Given all the dirty tricks Paramount pulled on the B5 people, I would not be suprised if Paramount did knowingly rip off B5.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2002-09-05 06:39pm

Master of Ossus wrote:I think of an homage as a word or phrase that is inserted into one's own work in order to call attention to a past work. It can also be a background character, or a background alien. For instance, the back-and-forth between the ET and SW films is not plagiarism, but is instead an homage. Neither ET, nor SW, was using the other one as an original idea, and the homage was not of particular importance in either one of them. On the other hand, had SW suddenly used a Jedi ET to start walking around healing people's cuts and phoning home in its own little sub-plot, that would have been an example of plagiarism. Any time that you create a plot or a part of a story that is based on someone else's design, that becomes plagiarism, especially if the reference is not instantly recognizable by a majority of people.

Thus, I think that the Breen suits are an example of plagiarism, but the ship at the start of Enterprise is more of an homage, if it was even remotely based off of an ISD.

True in ET there are SW action figures in Eliot's bedroom and ILM created and therefor owns the right to use the ET creature with Stephen's permission and since Lucas and Speilburg are really good friends it wasn't a problem. They also have 2001 Space Pod in Watto's junkyard

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-05 07:54pm

Actually, looking back at my post, I think that part of the reason the Breen costumes are so obviously plagiaristic is that they were designed to be passed off as an original idea. When people see a species in science fiction, it is reasonable to assume that it is an original idea of that show or the writers/creators or whatever, especially if it is integral to the story like the Breen were. The Breen were not meant as an allusion to anything. There was no reason why their costumes should have appeared so similar to the Boush disguise. And while most viewers who saw them will instantly recognize ET and know that he is there in the background as an homage (much like the Yoda costume from ET), it cannot be assumed that people will recognize Leia's disguise, particularly since it has been modified slightly in a shameless attempt to pass it off as an original idea.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2002-09-05 10:00pm

Crayz9000 wrote:
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Whoopsss. ... I'm not accusing Crazy9000 that he claimed BG is SW ripoff. My point is I think Colonial Viper may be X-Wing ripoff.
Yeah, that was my initial impression of the Viper, too. (But X-wings don't have a Turbo button!)

BTW and FYI, I read once in a website that you can make a Viper model from Micromachines X-Wing.

starfury · Post by **starfury** » 2002-09-05 10:36pm

Whoopsss. ... I'm not accusing Crazy9000 that he claimed BG is SW ripoff. My point is I think Colonial Viper may be X-Wing ripoff.

they are so similar that If I recalled from a website, that george lucas sued the company the made Battlestar galatica as I recall.

alot of people still thought of it as a X-wing ripoff.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2002-09-06 12:54am

starfury wrote:
Whoopsss. ... I'm not accusing Crazy9000 that he claimed BG is SW ripoff. My point is I think Colonial Viper may be X-Wing ripoff.
they are so similar that If I recalled from a website, that george lucas sued the company the made Battlestar galatica as I recall.

alot of people still thought of it as a X-wing ripoff.

He sued them cause they used special effect trickes and equiptment that ILM had patented with out permission.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-09-07 04:56pm

Stormbringer wrote:Given how similarly the two series worked out, I'd say the Paramount people (if not the Trek producers themselves) used those materials to try to undercut B5.

Of course the ultimate irony here is that the half baked B5 ripoff known as DS9 was, in more than a few ways, better than the original...

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2002-09-07 05:33pm

SPOOFE wrote:
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?

No doubt Foundation just dredged it up from their computers (maybe Paramont weren't paying them enough to do new rendering)

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2002-09-07 05:38pm

Mr Bean wrote: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

Well he ripped the plot and most of the characters straight out of The Hidden Fortress for a start.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-07 10:56pm

Vendetta wrote:
Mr Bean wrote: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
Well he ripped the plot and most of the characters straight out of The Hidden Fortress for a start.

Hardly. The source for both of them was mythology, particularly the King Arthur series. That is also why so many of the elements of SW seem similar to TLotR (Tolkein was actually a Beowulf scholar), and why B5 has many elements in common with both Tolkein and SW. If you start from a similar source, there are certainly going to be parallels. In fact, the way that all three of those series were written, they were MEANT to have parallels with mythology.