# End of world movies



## GnomeoftheWest (Aug 21, 2003)

Anyone else think "28 Days Later" was a rip off of "The Omega Man" (Richard Mathison's "I am Legend").


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## Foxbat (Aug 21, 2003)

Don't know if it's a rip off  (still to see it) but I love The Omega Man. Also for end of the world movies, check out 
The Day The Earth Caught Fire (classic ending)
and When Worlds Collide.
Two great films in their day.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 16, 2016)

*On the Beach 
Testament *


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## Frost Giant (Oct 18, 2016)

I also liked the Omega Man, despite it being somewhat dated. Heston did a good job playing Neville.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 18, 2016)

A much broader, but more important question.

Why is it these days that every film TV show or book that has any similarities of theme or character to any theme or character found elsewhere is automatically described as a "rip off".  You see it all the time in the IMDb boards. (Usually just under a post about how X is "the Worst Film Ever" - sometimes before it has even gone into production.) 
Calling something a "Rip Off" implies that the writers, producers, directors of said "Rip Off" have so little imagination that they have stolen someone else's work and put all their efforts into disguising the fact enough so as not to get sued. 
I'm not saying there aren't such things as "Rip Offs" - just about every movie The  Asylum has produced falls unashamedly into this category but to point at EVERY similarity - deliberate, or accidental, or coincidental - and shout "Rip Off!" is just plain insulting to creative artists the world over.


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## Dennis E. Taylor (Oct 18, 2016)

JunkMonkey said:


> A much broader, but more important question.
> 
> Why is it these days that every film TV show or book that has any similarities of theme or character to any theme or character found elsewhere is automatically described as a "rip off".  You see it all the time in the IMDb boards. (Usually just under a post about how X is "the Worst Film Ever" - sometimes before it has even gone into production.)
> Calling something a "Rip Off" implies that the writers, producers, directors of said "Rip Off" have so little imagination that they have stolen someone else's work and put all their efforts into disguising the fact enough so as not to get sued.
> I'm not saying there aren't such things as "Rip Offs" - just about every movie The  Asylum has produced falls unashamedly into this category but to point at EVERY similarity - deliberate, or accidental, or coincidental - and shout "Rip Off!" is just plain insulting to creative artists the world over.



Sadly, very true. It's been said that there are only [some small number] different ideas in SF, and every book or movie is just a variation on that. I've heard the actual number mentioned as small as a dozen, although I think that might be stretching it. But I've never heard a number used that even approaches a hundred. There are 217,000+ SF books on amazon, and that doesn't include a crapton that are out of print. So guess what? Ideas get re-used. A single book might have elements in common with 3-4 others, to varying degrees.

How many clichés and tropes did Star Wars include? Yet no one accuses it of being a "rip off". But other movies are accused of being rip-offs of Star Wars, despite the movie having almost nothing original. Go figure.

What matters is how the story is executed. You can take an old idea and put a fresh twist on it, or tell it in an interesting new way. That's not a rip-off. That's a culture.


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