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/lit/ - Literature

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15475040 No.15475040 [Reply] [Original]

You know how the Lion King is literally Hamlet with cartoon animals? How heavily Jaws borrows from Moby Dick? I could go on forever pointing out examples of films and tv shows that despite not being explicit direct adaptations, pull their essence straight from literature...

So my question is, which stories are the best to adapt/rip off? Those plots that are so great or universal that will still resonate under a new coat of paint?

>> No.15475153

>>15475040
You named two, yet you claim you could go on forever. If that be the case, name 10 more.

>> No.15475476

>>15475040
sigh

apocalypse now - heart of darkness
throne of blood - macbeth
westside story - romeo and juliet
hunger games - battle royale
castaway - robinson crusoe
forbidden planet - the tempest
predator - the most dangerous game
godzilla - the beast from 20000 fathoms
pocahontas - romeo and juliet
house md - sherlock holmes

>> No.15475990

>>15475476
>godzilla - the beast from 20000 fathoms
oops I meant The Foghorn

>> No.15476018

>>15475040
The Taming of Shrew-10 things i hate about you

>> No.15476035

The theme from Romeo and Juliet of lovers from two worlds is copied all the fuckin time. Basically every love story ever is this "forbidden love"
Titanic is an example that comes to mind, also Pocahontas, as other anon mentioned

>> No.15476190

Lord of the flies maybe?

>> No.15476273

>>15475476
>>15475040
It gets worse if you start with the Greeks, because you get shit like
>Ring of Gyges - Macbeth/Invisible man/Lord of the Rings

>> No.15476759

Im surprised by the lack of brothers karamazov
reskins.

>> No.15476774

>>15475040
>So my question is, which stories are the best to adapt/rip off? Those plots that are so great or universal that will still resonate under a new coat of paint?
Honestly, I think less about the contents of the stories adapted and much more about execution. As with all writing, the execution is what matters most. A story could be great but if it's written clumsily no one will bother reading it to the end.
But obviously any story that has withstood the test of time is well ripe for adaptation. t's not like there are any original stories left.

>> No.15476870

>>15475040
Never read the epic of gilgamesh, you'll go mad

>> No.15477182

Emma - Clueless

>> No.15477190

>>15476870
But is it the hero's journey?

>> No.15477210

>>15476273
I don't know but something tells me that you can trace pretty much every western story to Greek plays and the Bible.

>> No.15477276

>>15477210
I was sort of trying to get to this point with this comment >>15477190 that while you can take these general concepts of story and apply them to anything pretty much, that as general as the hero's journey is it you run into some interesting problems when you try to apply it to the epic of Gilgamesh (in many ways the original odd couple).

>> No.15477902

>>15475040
Lion King has elements of many of Shakespeare's plays like Henry IV, Hamlet,Timon of Athens for timon ("when the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world"), and probably Biblical dramas

>> No.15479066

>>15476774
>t's not like there are any original stories left.
this is stupidly close minded. strongly disagree

>> No.15479192

>>15475040
It's not Hamlet though. There is a core similarity - murdered father, uncle usurper, revenge- but the whole story plays out differently.

>> No.15479309

>>15476759
bait

>> No.15479717

>>15475040
This thread reminds me of high school

>> No.15479858

>>15475040
Ran - King Lear

>> No.15480452

>>15475476
nothing but superficial similarities

>> No.15481340
File: 30 KB, 640x723, brainletwojak.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15481340

>>15480452
>nothing but superficial similarities

>> No.15481372

>>15475476
There's also entire genres dominated by single authors like Poe creating the murder mystery and a lot of modern horror being inspired by Lovecraft.

>> No.15481722

How about the stories that could or should have been ripped off by now but havent? Im not a writer or anything looking for shit to steal ahah, its purely for educational purposes ahah

>> No.15481759

>>15479192
>revenge
Not least of which this one: Simba doesn't set out to avenge Mufasa, but to reclaim the throne.

>> No.15481769

>>15481372
Theres somr murder mystery in the Arabian Nights

>> No.15481855

>>15481759
True enough, man.

>> No.15481877

>>15475040
>literally Hamlet
Simba isn't sure if he wants to be king. Hamlet also isn't sure if he wants to be king. Also, fratricide.
Give Disney another goddanm Oscar, they've breathed life into the Bard.

>> No.15481883

>>15476273

>Invisible Man

Wells or Ellison?

>> No.15482471

I think yall are confusing rip off with inspired by

>> No.15482477

>>15477902
It's explicitly Hamlet, although ofc the author is dead etc etc

>> No.15482497

>>15481883
I think both, I always assumed Ellison is referencing Wells' book. It's maybe a sort of inversion though.

>> No.15482504

>>15479192
Also the Lion King isn't set in Denmark.

>> No.15482526

>>15482504
Also The Lion King doesn't end with everyone dying.

>> No.15482530
File: 532 KB, 1200x1200, kubrick.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15482530

>greatest filmmaker
>every single one of films is a book adaptation
what did he mean by this?

>> No.15482553

>>15482530
He was a neural network that took books as input and outputted films. 2001 wasn't based on an existing book so he wrote one then turned that into a movie.

>> No.15482581

>>15482526
Not after they cut that poaching scene.

>> No.15482729

>>15475040
>watched yourmoviesucks.org

>> No.15482895

>>15475040
Does Simba's mom fuck Scar?

>> No.15483222

>>15481722
Hunchback of Notre Dame

>> No.15483254

>>15482530
Most films are based on books, especially when Kubrick began directing

>> No.15483282

You know Pamela Anderson made a ripoff of Casablanca? It's called Barb Wire. It failed spectacularly because everyone involved with the production was completely incompetent.

So you can take Hamlet or Moby Dick, and you can sharpen your best Crayola markers and grip them like a retard in your potato hands, and you can change all the names and places but keep the plot the same, but it will come out as utter shit because you think plot is what makes stories great.

>> No.15483288

>>15482895
did you see the lion cubs in the sequel?

>> No.15483354

>>15475040
Lion King story is very simple.

Hans Zimmer's music is what makes LK work, proving once again that /mu/ is the purest artform.

>> No.15483359

>>15483354
also james earl jones

>> No.15483423

>a generation of kids grew up on "spoiler warnings" and plot twists
>now they all think plot is the most important aspect of story telling

>> No.15483436

>>15483423
Can we bring back
>reading for plot

>> No.15483495

>>15480452
The differences are arguably only superficial

>> No.15483504

>>15481877
Hamlet is essentially about the tragic nature of life. If the lion king does this at all its only with kiddie gloves because disney movies are literally child baby shit.

>> No.15483553

>>15479192
Those core features are the most essential elements of the film though. The essence of Hamlet is -- uncle usurper, existential crisis, revenge -- which is exactly what the lion king is, but while just altering enough details to appear as if its an original story. I think the lion king is a worse retelling of the story, but just because its a copy doesn't mean that it needs to be as good as the original.

>> No.15483562

>>15483504
Hunchback is pretty lit, dealing explicitly with deformation, lust and racial genocide. Producing a film like that is real bravery; c.f. Disney producers today: "What about we make A Wrinkle in Time only everybody's black, that'll make the darkies happy."

>> No.15483639

>>15483562
That movie was legitimately as deformed as quasimodo. The weird blend of adult themes while also having those insufferably childish gargoyles; I think people from most age groups would find some feature of that film to be overly off-putting. The degeneration of disney movies into the films we get today though is unironically a byproduct of capitalism, and we are making our children more retarded by feeding them these brain dead films which prop up and glorify the most empty values.

>> No.15483653
File: 251 KB, 530x599, Olivia O'Lovely (4).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15483653

>>15475040
Jaws is based on a novel by Peter Benchley, which already had similarities to Moby Dick. The Lion King adapts more from Hamlet than Jaws does from Melville.

>> No.15483672

>>15483653
Influences

Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is the most notable artistic antecedent to Jaws. The character of Quint strongly resembles Captain Ahab, the obsessed captain of the Pequod who devotes his life to hunting a sperm whale. Quint's monologue reveals a similar obsession with sharks; even his boat, the Orca, is named after the only natural enemy of the white shark. In the novel and original screenplay, Quint dies after being dragged under the ocean by a harpoon tied to his leg, similar to the death of Ahab in Melville's novel.[84] A direct reference to these similarities may be found in Spielberg's draft of the screenplay, which introduces Quint watching the film version of Moby-Dick; his continuous laughter prompts other audience members to get up and leave the theater. However, the scene from Moby-Dick could not be licensed from the film's star, Gregory Peck, its copyright holder.[5] Screenwriter Carl Gottlieb also drew comparisons to Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea: "Jaws is ... a titanic struggle, like Melville or Hemingway."[23]

>> No.15483806

>>15483553
Where's the revenge in The Lion King? Really I think it's the opposite: there are superficial, structural similarities between the two, but no thematic similarity at all. The Lion King is like the pick-up artist who confuses confidence with "moves."

>> No.15484109

>>15483806
The revenge in Lion King is when Simba finds out that Scar killed Mufasa and then fights him in the fire.

I'll admit that in Hamlet, Hamlet suspects his uncle and plans his revenge which Simba doesn't. But I think that's only a byproduct of the fact that the lion king is a children's movie which alters how Hamlet/Simba experience their existential crisis. Broadly speaking for Hamlet, his existential crisis is a brooding and nausea at the absurdity of life - prompted by his suspicions that his uncle murdered his father.

Simba doesn't have those suspicions, and so instead, his existential crisis is different and centres around a desire for lack of responsibility. This is a fundamental difference between the stories, but it exists only because Hamlet's nausea at the absurdity of life would not be viewed as appropriate for children, and the lion king is a children's movie.

Fundamentally I agree that they are thematically different, but I also think that because Hamlet is not a children's story by today's standards, to create a Hamlet for children, the story would need to be radically sublimated into a form acceptable for children. So at it's deepest essence, the lion king is Hamlet, but Hamlet in the only form acceptable to children. Obviously a children's version of Hamlet would need to be thematically different to be acceptable, but I think the familial resemblance between the stories points to their connection. Basically, if you dumb down a good story enough for it to be appear different, you haven't really created anything original in the artistic sense.

>> No.15485500
File: 633 KB, 971x913, Olivia O'Lovely (6).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15485500

>>15483672
Huh. I did not know that. Thanks, anon. Looks like you're citing from something. Where'd you get this from?

>> No.15485597

The Ænid

>> No.15486588

>>15482530
>greatest filmmaker
pedestrian

>> No.15486632

>>15475040

Frozen - Anna Karenina
Avengers Infinity War - War and Peace
The Joker - Crime and Punishment
The Sister Act - the Brothers Karamazov
Sex and the City - Portrait of a Lady
90 Day Fiancé - Middlemarch
The LEGO Movie - In Search of Lost Time


There’s actually a lot more meticulous decision making in modern film and television than people give credit for. It’s a shame this board is so unaware.

>> No.15486670

>>15485500
wikipedia, duh

>> No.15486714

>>15475040
literally nothing similar go kill yourself

>> No.15486861
File: 38 KB, 645x729, brainlesswojak.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15486861

>>15486714
>literally nothing similar go kill yourself

>> No.15486888

>>15486714
literally a film à clef with a happy ending plot twist, proceed to end your existence

>> No.15488040

>>15486714
how dumb

>> No.15488071

>>15486632
>The LEGO Movie - In Search of Lost Time
Oh yeah.

>> No.15488254

>>15488071
That's the one you decided to cling on?
All of them are outrageously dumb claims, guy must be fishing for (you)s or something.

>> No.15488413

>>15475476
Apocalypse Now and Throne of Blood both are original enough in their own right to justify their existence
the rest are pretty shameless

>> No.15489280

>>15482471
/thread

>> No.15490071

>>15476273
Lord of the Rings - the entirety of mythological medieval European literature/Wagner’s Ring

>> No.15490082

>>15488254
Clearly you haven't read À la recherche du temps perdu or seen La Grande Aventure LEGO or you would immediately understand.

>> No.15490321

>>15490082
>>15486632
It sounds like you know your shit. Can you recommend some good stories with potential to be adapted through a different setting that haven't been done to death?

Im not a fraud or anything ahah, just looking for inspiration

>> No.15490736

>>15483639
The gargoyles were added because of excecs, to lighten the film and sell toys

>> No.15491322

>>15490736
not an excuse. just because there's a reason that explains why something sucks doesnt magically make it not suck.