Popular Movies Stole Plots From Other Movies

Unfortunately many of our favorite movies from our childhood and adulthood are films that have strongly borrowed ideas or even scripts from original films. However due to their success or the companies making them, there was nothing that could really be done about it. There are quite a few films these days that take a similar path and here are 6 of some of the most well-known titles that utilize scripts and ideas from previous films.

Alien

Arguably one of the greatest horror films of all time arguably stole its plot and content from a 1958 movie called It: The Terror From beyond Space. The comparisons between the two films are fairly uncanny in some situations, some action sequences and even some scenes were almost directly copied from the 1958 film. There have also been rumors that Producers have admitted to having to watch that original film on set to ensure they weren’t copying it too closely.

Star Wars Saga

George Lucas made no secret that Star Wars was by any long stretch of the imagination an original story idea. There’s a Princess, a Young Hero, The Old Wizard and a Masked Villain, that’s a fairly generic set of fantasy characters. However, The Hidden Fortress is a movie that George Lucas heavily inspired his work on. Not only did that film feature these aforementioned character stereotypes but it also had a princess hidden in plain site like princess Amidala, a story told by two bumbling characters like C3PO and R2D2. In fact, in A New Hope, an officer is about to mention ‘The Hidden Fortress’ just as Darth Vader famously force chokes him by the neck.

Fast and Furious

Many over the years have compared Fast and Furious to the likes of Point Break which utilizes a fairly similar storyline to that of Fast and Furious, the original film. It touches on the idea of being accepted into a gang and then falling for one of the women within this gang. It also touches on the idea of the gang then turning out to have some questionable motivations which cause the main protagonist to question their own morals. However, Fast and Furious ended up getting around 26 films and Point Break unfortunately only one.

Toy Story 3

The third Toy Story film is a film that will always be remembered as the end of an era for many people. Many young adults watched the original Toy Story with a passion as kids and were thrilled with how Toy Story 3 handled Andy going to College and leaving the kids behind, a metaphor for many kids leaving their teens and childhood behind and going off into the big wide world. A film called The Toaster was a film based on the same idea. Household appliances came to life and as a boy went to College, they experienced some scrapes and troubles trying to reunite themselves with him to go to College with him. The story is likely so similar because many of the team that worked on the original Toaster film worked on Toy Story 3.

The Lion King

There was once a Japanese title called Kimba which played on the role of a white lion who had to prove himself as King. With some scenes taken almost directly out of this old Japanese title, it was questioned as to whether The Lion King was a copy. The fact that Simba started off as a white lion in concept didn’t help the idea either. However, after realizing that Disney were far too big of a company for the original makers of Kimba to fight, they took the copying as a compliment instead of trying to fight it.

Avatar

There are many that suggest that Avatar is a film that essentially got so much attention because of how long it was in production and how much money it cost to make and then raked in. However, the story of the colonizer who falls in love with a native is a story that is widely recognized as a Pocahontas idea. The beloved children’s film was a Disney classic and really pushed racial boundaries for its time. However, in a time where race isn’t as big of a problem, James Cameron decided to go for weird blue Aliens and humans instead.