Animation Duplication: Inspired or Plagiarised?

Nothing is completely original. We all know that. One thing is always inspired by something that preceded it, in some form or another. But there is nonetheless a substantial distinction between merely having been inspired by something, and creating what is essentially a copy. While I’m not necessarily accusing certain studios of stealing ideas, it’s clear that some works are less ‘original’ than others. Throughout the latter half of the 90s, and the early 2000s especially, there were some rather conspicuous examples of animated features released around the same time that seemed to derive from the same basic concepts. The acknowledgement of this is nothing new; as a matter of fact, it’s now widely recognised, although some examples have been alluded to more so than others since their release.

 

First, let’s address the obvious. In 1998, Disney released Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, which focuses on one brainy inventor ant’s quest to save the colony from a horde of greedy grasshoppers. In addition, as a B-plot, he manages to win the affections of Princess Atta. That same year, Dreamworks and PDI released Antz, which, apart from the obvious similarities, contains a neurotic, geeky protagonist who too falls in love with a princess. There are numerous visual likenesses too, such as the design of the females’ antennae. Yet the film maintains a certain dark tone that distinguishes it quite substantially from the former, as is the case with numerous Dreamworks animated features.

 

But that’s not where it started, as least in my opinion. Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story (1995), a film about toys coming to life, was followed two years later by Dreamworks and Amblin’s Small Soldiers (1997). In this case, Dreamworks is only credited with its distribution, as suspicious as it may seem that they should be involved in a partly animated film with the same basic premise. While the films may not look alike at all, Small Soldiers does indeed derive from the same concept, albeit from a more adult and somewhat more audacious perspective. In fact, it is the film’s more ‘mature’, dark tone that distinguishes it from Toy Story, so much so that its derivativeness is barely noticeable.

 

In 2000, Dreamworks Animation released the vastly underrated The Road to El Dorado. Inspired by the Road to films starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, the feature focuses on two wanted thieves locating an ancient, lost city based in Spain. The same year, Disney released The Emperor’s New Groove, which, while not set in Spain, bears some similarity to El Dorado in the structural designs of the film’s buildings, settings and artefacts. Even more conspicuously, the following year, Disney released Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), an adventure-based flick which also revolves around the discovery of an ancient, lost city. Furthermore, the way in which the golems protecting the city illuminate at the film’s conclusion bears considerable resemblance to the incarnation of the Stone Jaguar in the aforementioned Dreamworks picture.

 

The similarities don’t stop there, of course. It could even be argued that Shrek (2001), a film about an ogre who saves a princess, bears some resemblance to the Disney/Pixar effort of the same year, Monsters, Inc., that is if you consider ogres and monsters to be of the same ilk. In addition, it’s also somewhat ironic that Dreamworks and PDI’s greatest critical success happens to be a parody of the typical Disney flick. More similarities include Finding Nemo and Shark Tale (2003), both undersea adventures with fish occupying the main roles, and Treasure Planet (2002) and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003), both seafaring adventures (despite the one being set in space), the latter even containing a flying ship near its conclusion, as if the similarities weren’t striking enough.

 

Another conspicuous similarity concerns Dreamworks and PDI’s Madagascar (2005) and C.O.R.E. Feature Animation’s The Wild (2006), which was distributed by Disney. Both films focus on the adventures of a group of animals who break out of a New York Zoo. In addition, they both feature a lion and a giraffe as protagonists, but ultimately, that’s where the similarities end. Neither film is perfect, and both have severe pacing issues, though the latter is perhaps a little harder to swallow, being as it lacks the slapstick, fast-paced humour of the former, and seems far too dependent on its plot, which proves altogether too dark and tortuous, particularly in its concluding scenes. In 2007, Disney/Pixar released Ratatouille, a film about a rat with a yearning to cook, while that same year Dreamworks and Aardman released Flushed Away, which also focuses on the adventures of a rat. Again, however, the similarities seem to end there, suggesting that there may be likenesses conceptually, but little else to acknowledge. Moreover, since the release of these films, the similarities in the companies’ output seem to have diminished quite substantially.

 

Of course, deriving inspiration from other works is nothing new. A sequence in Monsters Inc. (2001), in which Sulley believes Boo to have been crushed into a garbage cube, is obviously inspired by a similar scene in Warner Bros short Feed the Kitty (1952), in which bulldog Marc Antony believes his newly adopted kitten Pussy Foot has been whisked and cut into biscuit shapes. The squash-and-stretch animation style of Madagascar (2005) is also inspired by the Looney Tunes anthology, as are the slapstick antics of Scrat in Blue Sky’s Ice Age franchise, while The Road to El Dorado (2000) utilises the same music team behind The Lion King (1994), including Elton John and Tim Rice, in a less-than-subtle attempt to garner a similar following. Even Disney have been accused of plagiarism in the past; The Lion King (1994) was criticised for having copied artwork and story elements from the first Japanese colour TV cartoon Kimba the White Lion (1965), although their likenesses have since been dismissed as purely coincidental.

 

Ultimately, however, whether or not these films are wholly ‘original’ or not, it makes little difference. Most often, while they may be similar conceptually, their respective storylines and styles enable them to appear entirely distinct and disparate from their inspiration. It may, of course, be the case that the aforementioned films’ similarities are in fact coincidental (although, let’s face it, it seems unlikely!).