I am getting tired of people using the term "ripped-off" on these boards. Do you really think imagination comes from a complete vacuum of experience and thought? I tell you what - find a person that has never read a book, never watched a movie or TV show, and has never listened to a song, and ask that person to write a story. You know what they will come up with? "Huh?" would be the extent of it because they have nothing to base anything on.
Every single thing we see and hear in any form of entertainment is based on something that came before it. Imagination is built by experiencing as much as you can and then asking "what if" to see where you can take it. There is not one single book, movie, or TV show that is not in one way or another based on one or more sources that came before it. That is not ripping anything off. I remember how fun it used to be trying to find references in whatever I enjoyed. When watching Star Wars I looked at how Lucas borrowed from Dune to create his stories. When I watched Equilibrium I thought "how great is it to take The Matrix and place it in a Fahrenheit 451 dystopian future instead of a computer's hard drive." Without John Carter of Mars we would not have super heroes. Without The Time Machine we would not have The Terminator. Without Lord of the Rings we would not have Dungeons and Dragons. Do you get it yet? Every single book I have read (and I read over 100 a year) I have been able to find the stories they were based on either directly through the author's interviews or simply by using logic and sifting through my memory. Nothing can be created in a vacuum. Nothing!
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