MovieChat Forums > The Discovery (2017) Discussion > Straight lift from Chuck Palahniuk's Hau...

Straight lift from Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted

posted 8 years ago by kjamespatrick
7 replies | jump to latest

Sorry to burst the bubble but this "original" concept is far from that. Taken from Chuck's sublime collection of short stories, where the grand conclusion is astronauts discovering dead celebrities alive and living in eternity on Venus, the people of Earth immediately start killing themselves to get there.

Very disgusted that Charlie McDowell thinks he can pass this off as his idea when it's copied so many elements from Chuck's book.

Some of us read.

[–] Greyzombie 8 years ago

Playing the role of Devils Advocate here, but have you seen the movie?
Granted, I've read Haunted and I came here just to voice the similarities, but you sound so angry.
So sure.
Just checking. I'm interested in seeing the movie, regardless of anything.

[–] kjamespatrick 8 years ago

I think anger is the pinnacle of negative emotion, this post was more of a shaking of the head.

Chuck writes beautiful prose and his work deserves screen credit beyond Fight Club, so to see people straight ripping him off without credit is disappointing, because if it can happen to Chuck, god knows how many smaller artists this is impacting.

[–] Doubletapp 8 years ago

Maybe it was his inspiration for it. I've read Haunted, and they are SIMILAR, but not the same. Either way it made me interested in the movie and that's the whole point right?

I am a sheepdog

[–] WilliamUK 8 years ago

Nice. I'm not much of a reader (real life crime stories and such) but I just know I've got to read this now.

[–] kjamespatrick 8 years ago

A truly wonderful book.

[–] Steve-684 8 years ago

KJam, I don't know about this. I agree that the concept isn't necessarily original, but why should that matter? I myself had a similar, but different, take on the concept...I never wrote it out, but if I did, would I be wrong to do so?

Oftentimes, we all come up with ideas that probably have been done before. I have yet to see a story about a YouTube-like site that gets videos from the future or the past, but I've always had that idea in the back of my mind -- if I wrote it out now, would I be wrong, knowing that others must already have beaten me to it? Or what about an IMDB site that shows films from the future -- can I do that one? Someone must have beaten me to that as well.

I do agree, this couldn't have been the first time someone has thought of this (actually, let me say it obviously wasn't, as you mentioned -- and I will have to check that book out, thanks for mentioning it). But, just my opinion, I don't think it invalidates the movie.

[–] Oreolove 8 years ago

I came on here to ask about that! Even though the concept isn't too hard to come up with. It basically just asks the question - what would happen if we could prove there was an afterlife?
So while I think Chuck Palahniuk is one of the first people to create a widely-known piece with this theme, I guess there are many ways to artistically explore the question.