i know the story to the trilogy. Still don't like it. With the exception of the first one. That one was "sci-fi excellence".

Except for the fact that they didn't know that it would be so successful. It was not a franchise at the beginning. They had the funding to make one movie. They got the money (and most likely the idea) to make the second and third movies based off of the first's box office success.

I enjoyed the first, and think it's a good movie. The second and third, however, just didn't grab me. They had their moments which I thought were cool, but I don't normally go into movies to try and "get" some deeper meaning. As long as I enjoy the movie at face value, then it wasn't a waste of my time. While I wouldn't call the second or third movies a waste of my time, I saw them once, and that was good enough for me. I have watched the first multiple times, however, simply because I believe it is a more entertaining film to me.

Perhaps you should take a look in the mirror if you call people close-minded and ignorant just because they don't agree with you about something.

I see no similarity here, those were films - she submitted a script, which they used and didn't pay her. Also I thought someone else had already sued james cameron for the terminator, the problem is that the themes in both films are pretty common in sci fi

I don't think that it is clear that she submitted anything or they stole anything... yet.

Innocent until proven guilty.

Yes, peoples ideas, stories and scripts are stolen all the time... On the flip side of this, people who have made a lot of money on their films are often accused of stealing when this didn't...

At this point, all we have is a statement from a woman who has made some claims. Are they valid claims? I all for, "Let's wait and see."



By the way, I have the business card of a gentleman who claims to be the VP of Time Warner... who has the rights to re-make The Wizard of Oz and will be doing so with Steven... you know, Speilberg. He dropped by my suite at the American Film Market wanted to see if I was interested in some of his other projects... There are a lot of wackos in this industry and it is with good reason that people take these claims with a large grain of salt.

Completely agree with that just wanted to point out the differences between the case in point and the examples you used.

Also I found out it was Harlan ellison who successfully sued James Cameron because he claimed terminator was lifted from his stories "Demon with a Glass Hand" and "Soldier". This makes me skeptical about the validity of this story

No, the Wachowski's made the first movie with two sequels already planned. They actually altered the first movie to make it work even if there were no sequels in case it flopped. When the first movie did do well, they began producing the sequels (which is more of how they wanted the first movie to be like).

Read my post wiseguy, I didn't call people ignorant and close-minded because they didn't enjoy the movies, I called them ignorant and close-minded because they hated the movies for the wrong reasons. Many people hated the movies because they didn't understand them and didn't WANT to understand them. Just read some of the opinions on the Internet as to why the sequels were "bad." Most of it is based on information about the movies (especially plot details) that is simply wrong. Check out the Matrix threads on this very forum...over half of the replies are saying the sequels sucked because of a misunderstanding of the plot and the refusal to be corrected. I even recall one person saying that Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions sucked because "in the first one, Neo beat Smith, but now Neo can't beat Smith!!! Man these movies are bad!"

That's a great example of saying the movies are bad based on false information and a complete misunderstanding of the story. When I corrected the person, they would not accept the real plot. That's ignorance. If you simply hated the sequels, that's fine with me, but don't base it on false information else your opinion is invalid.

-Lasereth

as for the differences between written screenplay and finished film... I do see the difference but ultimately it comes down to the same issue...

A stolen idea or story.

It is one thing to remake a film, for example La Femme Nikita and Point of No Return. Money exchanged hands for the rights to the film. However, in the examples I gave above, the American filmmakers claim that they were inspired by the original film.

I am postive that Tarrantino didn't give a cent to Ringo Lam (or the rights holders to the story behind City on Fire).


That said, I also recognize the difference between her (allegedly) submitting a script to the Wachowski Brothers and them (allegedly) stealing her ideas.

Update for anyone who gives a shit ...

Link - http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/matrix.asp

I should also have instinctively looked it up on Snopes. I knew it was bullshit from the beginning, as hinted by my original post in this thread.