Eilir writes “Author Contemplating Lawsuit Over The Village
Apparently there are enough simlarities between the M Night Shyamalan film and Margaret Peterson Haddix‘ book, Running Out of Time (1995), published by Simon & Schuster and nominated for the Edgar Award, that fans wrote the author asking if she had sold the rights to Disney, who produced the film.
I haven’t had a chance to look at either. Here’s a summary (and another) of the book and a question guide. Likewise, here are summaries for the movie.”
huh
First Roger Ebert’s Answer Man column makes it sound like Night copied the Twilight Zone– now this. I’m starting to think that there really aren’t any new stories.
Give him a break
When all these bad 70’s TV shows turn into movies, I also wonder – are there no new stories left?
Yet, all stories are based on an earlier works. You could argue all mystery novel detective is ‘based’ on Sherlock Holmes, or love stories come from Shakespeare. Just because M. Night Shyamalan takes the ‘creepy village’ story and turns it into a movie doesn’t make him a bad writer, or deserving of a lawsuit.
(I haven’t seen the movie, so I’m not going to comment on the story being good or bad. I’m sure its better than Starsky & Hutch though…)
No more new stories…
I remember once, in an English class, we discussed the basis of stories. I can’t remember everything that came up, but I do remember that we came to the conclusion that there almost all stories come from one or more of the same ideas. Stuff like man vs nature, man vs man(kind), boy meets girl, and hometown boy makes good. And if you think about it, almost all stories have one or more of these things as a basis. For instance, Star Wars is very much hometown boy makes good while Sleepless is Seattle is classic boy meets girl. So in a sense, there are indeed no new ideas for stories and movies.
I think it was Robert Heinlein who said that there are only three types of stories: Boy Meets Girl, The Little Tailor, and The Man Who Learned Better.
Meanwhile I have no idea if Shayalaman lifted the idea from a novel. However I think if he’s guilty of that then Haddix is guilty of lifting the “nameless horror” and the “creature in the dark” idea from H. P. Lovecraft who is probably guilty of swiping it from someone else.
Re:No more new stories…
What is the little tailor story? I recognize the other two.
Re:No more new stories…
I think (and correct me if I’m wrong) he means a story where a weaker character goes up against seemingly insurmountable odds and wins.
Re:No more new stories…
Absolutely correct. It comes from the fairy tail of a little tailor who killed seven flies with one swat. When he tells someone he killed seven in one blow, they think he’s making reference to a problem the village is having with an evil giant. So they think he means that he killed seven giants in one blow. Thus he gets thrown into combat against the giant and manages to win through wits and cunning.
Disney did this with a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Same premise and everything.
Re: There is nothing new under the sun…
Actually, you could more accurately say that all detective stories are based on Edgar Allen Poe’s Auguste DuPin stories, which was a huge inspiration on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work.
And almost none of Shakespeare’s plots were original–they were all borrowed. But since there are no truly new ideas, artistic creativity is not really about devising a totally original plot ex nihilo, but in how you express or reinterpret an established idea. The ancient Greek dramaturges based their plays on myths and historical events. So the audience already knew the plot going in. Creativity was how he expressed and interpreted those established events.