Recycled plots


So, I was casually watching this and one episode seemed like a direct remake of that very bad movie untraceable ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0880578/ ). This thing copied that movie to the point of imitating the editing and camera work.

I watched another episode and then the human cop dude talks about falling in freezing water, and uses a quote directly hauled from the movie Titanic. (about how falling in freezing water feels like a thousand needles).

Can writers simply do this without giving credit?

reply

Yeah, I'm sure no one else ever described falling into icy water that way. It is such an original way to describe it.

I do not have attention deficit disor...Ooh, look at the bunny!

reply

No wonder this show is in bad shape if they lack the originality to describe something without using the same words from a 17 year old movie, or copy the entire plot of a very, VERY BAD movie. That movie untraceable is terrible.

I also saw an episode with some kind of bullet that chases you or something once shot without losing momentum and falling to the ground while changing directions in mid air. The concept of a smart bullet exists even today and yet they act like people are going to be surprised 40 years from now with the fact that a bullet has some kind of guiding system. But something that chases you throughout the city? that's just pretty stupid, maybe a small missile with some means of propulsion, it remembered me of that cartoon bullets from the Roger Rabbit movie.

I wasn't expecting Asimov level of science fiction from a tv show, but come on dude...

reply

@TimmyAnn
This post made me laugh and spit my water all over my monitor. :) I guess this person doesn't like the show, eh?

I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one-John Lennon

reply

Are you still laughing now?

reply

Actually the Wall is a recycled plot point of the forbidden zone from Terra Nova.

reply

Do you mean the forbidden zone from Planet of the Apes?

With great power comes great responsibility.

reply

I kinda see what the OP is saying, some of the lines/and plot devices were a tad cheesy but overall the show was good.

Not like I love you

reply

I could handle some cheese and even some plots that were not that original. Even the concept of the show, a cop with a robotic humanoid partner is hailed directly from an old Asimov's novel: Caves of Steel, but if I can go to jail for like a million years and have to pay a gazillion dollars for downloading a single pirate mp3 you, the entertainment industry, can not plagiarize an entire movie not only by copying the plot but almost every scene shot by shot and call it an episode and make some ad revenue.

Screw them!

reply

He told the falling in freezing water story in episode 3. That was the one where they ripped off the entire plot of Die Hard. And in the same episode, when he pretended he had a bad connection and hung up on the Captain, he quoted Han Solo. "It was a boring conversation anyway."

I haven't gotten any further than episode 3, so I'm undecided as to whether or not I like the show. I like the two main characters, but so far I feel like the writers are phoning it in.

Plus it has that distinct feeling of "Fox is messing with a sci-fi show, trying to force it to be a vanilla police procedural again." Here's a hint Fox, you know what I absolutely don't want to watch? Yet another police procedural. Don't promise me sci-fi and give me CSI.

reply

And in the same episode, when he pretended he had a bad connection and hung up on the Captain, he quoted Han Solo. "It was a boring conversation anyway."


There are numerous hints toward, references to and direct quotes from a number of shows and movies.
Given the frequency and blatancy of such, I believe this was very much on purpose, to please those fans who get the jokes.

reply