Speaking of ripoffs

[Trevor Angelus]

I believe Star Trek ripped off its most famous adversaries from BSG!

Think back to the original Klingons, they were just your average cardboard cutout moustache twirling evil villains.

Suddenly in the 1st film they have forehead ridges and dress more primatively. In the 3rd film you truly discover they have a code of honor.

Hmmm, forehead ridges, primative dress, a code of honor, sound familiar?

The Klingons are Borellian Nomen! No one can argue the change in the Klingons from series to film, and the are almost identical qualities to them. And the changes did occur AFTER Battlestar.

[amberstar]

I see your point, good thinking. They both have A lot of similar qualities .

[AlphaAce]

Hm... That is an interesting argument; however, did BSG really explain Borellian Nomen culture?

[Trevor Angelus]

Well when they were waiting for Chamleon they discussed a little about their culture, but mostly talked about the honor of their people.

Trek NEVER talked about honor or glory, or had ANY of their current trappings until after Battlestar. It just made me wonder.

[Proximo]

I think your'e seeing ripoffs where non exist. The idea of an honour-bound culture is nothing new in SciFi and, as I recall, the old Trek did have a lot about klingon honour and glory that was gradually introduced in the series. The changes in the klingon makeup was already in the works for Star Trek: Phase Two when BSG came out. They ended up on the big screen shortly after, but they were already being redesigned long before the Nomen appeared.

[Muffit]

The thing is, scifi does not exist in a void. Just like music, people are subconsciously affected by other works. I think it would be fair to say everybody is affected to some degree by other works. I can't say that Trek is an actual ripoff of BSG, it is very different just as BSG is very different than Star Wars. But I just watched The Man with Nine Lives and yes there are striking similarities between the Nomen race and the newer Klingons. The "Code" is prominently mentioned, just like honor, and they are a warrior race (although Klingons already were that in '66).

To me the Ovions were always a direct take-off on the Morlocks of the Time Machine. But who knows? I think it is fair to say all scifi is affected to some degree by other scifi. I wouldn't say they were ripoffs really, just affected positively.

Cheers,
:muffit:

[Trevor Angelus]

Once again, beautifully put Muffit. I was just merely pointing out the drastic change in Klingons after BSG. I agree that all fiction inspires others. I was just saying that THIS was a more viable claim than Lucas' about BSG!

[Muffit]

Hi Trevor, and thanks! I watched Man with Nine Lives purposely after reading your post cuz I thought the idea was intriguing, and then searched for this so I could join in a bit. You are right there does seem to be a correllation, it would be interesting to find out if Trek truly was influenced by BSG. Also, I always wondered if the Trek writers would try to explain the forehead ridges, and I think I saw one ep or movie where it was less pronounced, possibly evolving.

When the Nomen are sitting outside the shuttle bay talking, they do indeed talk of the Code much like Klingon honor. Of course, sometimes show producers and writers have ideas long before others actually introduce them onscreen, then again many times it sure seems awfully coincidental when they mimic one another's work. Will we ever know? I don't think anyone would admit "borrowing" from another's concepts. At least not openly... :)

I do believe very strongly that a favorite movie of mine, "Enemy Mine", drew its inspiration directly from G80's "The Return of Starbuck". It's awfully close! I never minded the similarity, it just made me miss BSG a bit.

:muffit:

[BST]

If indeed this is the case then, it could be said, yet again, that

"Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery".

Whether one show borrows ideas from another shouldn't be the issue, how the idea is presented and received by the viewer is the key. If one wanted to stretch this way beyond the point of common sense, one could say that the 2nd sci-fi show that used a spaceship was a rip-off of the first one.

Nonetheless, this is a good topic,Trevor. It was one of the better elements of the original show that, unfortunately, was never expanded upon due to the show being prematurely cancelled. Oh, so much potential has this show!!

BST :)

[Muffit]

Hi again!

I opened a different topic over at Cylon Alliance, which is different, but I was about to link it here to a similar subject, because it's heading in our direction. So I thought I'd open the topic here and see if it goes anywhere.

At CA we were talking about the possibility of using CGI (and hopefully good taste) to allow John Colicos and Lorne Greene to have an active role in a BSG continuation. (Please see link below). That got me to thinking about who first came up with the CGI/holo person idea. And that fits in well with our "is it a ripoff?" discussion.

The whole idea of using the true facial image of a person as a texture on a 3D CGI model (in scifi - it's already being done in 3d games), I think, comes from Star Trek Voyager's holo-doctor. But aha! That's not original as it turns out. It looks awfully like the unnamed doctor came directly from Frederick Pohl's Heechee Saga (Gateway, etc). In fact, the main character, Robin, has a holo-doctor himself - a Freud-like counselor who helps him deal with life's troubles, among other holo-helpers. What must be stated here is that Pohl's holo programs /do not/ interact with their environment using force field emitters, so that at least is a first for Trek. However, there are 2 kinds of what I will call "computer people" in Pohl's vision - pure programmed AI, and astoundingly immortal versions of true people by embedding their conscious and subconscious totally into a computer (in the later of the books). As I said, they do not interact with their environment, however they can control real world devices using the computer they are in, using software switches (which we have today and computer programs use them routinely to control real world devices).

Ah, but the circle does not end there. I believe Pohl got his inspiration of embedding a consciousness/personality from - what else - Star Trek TOS! In "The Ultimate Computer", the inventor-scientist (who is African American, hint-hint mini creators) gives M5 it's amazing abilities by embedding human brain engrams into a computer. Sound familiar? And of course that episode of computer AI going mad is very similar to the slightly later HAL 9000!

Isn't it odd how so many famous scifi works are so similar? What do you think? Am I way off base or do a lot of scifi works gain inspiration from one another?

:muffit:

Link to Cylon Alliance thread:
http://www.cylon.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1941&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=e38d718aae54c7a431b1815f3d63f688

[Trevor Angelus]

All vey good observations, but you missed one. Have you ever seen THX1138? There was a hologram in that! A holographic image of a human that could interact with his environment, he even had a line in the film, "Say, you got anymore of that food? I'm hungry." He could eat and even get hungry. Pretty advanced for a hologram. Alas his part was the only highlight for me in this film.

Good job Muffy! :rose:

[Muffit]

Oh yeah, Trevor, I forgot! Yes, I did see THX 1138, I thought it was pretty cool actually. A bit slow like most old movies but interesting none the less.

Thanks for the reminder! :)
:muffit:

[Trevor Angelus]

No problem, I thoght of another. The archive in the Time Machine! And back to the Klingons in the Motion Picture, I heard that it was a last minute addition. I looked through a copy of the writers bible for Phase2 of Trek, I saw NO mention of the Klingons whatsoever. As a matter of fact most of the writers found the Romulans more interesting because they had more substance.