Parallel Themes in Recent Movies

Diz

Has anyone seen these recent flicks, such as the "Arrival", and "Passengers", and perhaps even Sir Ridley's "Morgan"?

I get a strong sense of borrowed themes here.  In "Arrival" you have the vertically arrayed alien vessel, just as in the 1st act of "Prometheus".  In "Passengers" you have a host of things, but specifically the interrupted space journey, and the unknown threat to the "crew", not to mention the hypersleep chambers, and the bartender scenes reminiscent of the "Shining".

Is it just me, or do you guys see these things when watching other movies?  I think Spaights might have been a writer in "Passengers", which would explain his exploration of similar themes.  "Arrival" just seems a blatant rip-off of Sir Ridley's visualizations.  Unless he was consulted on the project.

And Sir Ridley's other projects.  Yeah he is actively exploring other themes on his own.  With "Morgan" you have this hybrid or next gen humanoid. 

After hanging around here for awhile, you get an almost industry insider feel going on.  We have already discussed the imagery of the vertical ship in the engineer sacrificial scene; we have discussed the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of space travel; and certainly we have discussed the mutations of the human species. When I see these things in other movies I'm like, no ****, we just talked about that last month.   

Batchpool

I'm always seeing things when watching other movies. It might be worth you watching the Trailer for 'Life' with Ryan Reynolds, which just happens to be coming out around the same time as Alien Covenant. There certainly a couple of scenes in that that seem lifted from the Covenant trailer (see if you spot what I mean)

https://youtu.be/HguxTfWISKY

Shasta cyclone

They all kinda do I guess.

Arrival was a great movie!

if others have not seen it, I highly recommend 

BigDave

A lot of movies borrow of each other..

And remember Wayne Haag said Ridley Scott does steal a lot of ideas and then put his creative twist on them.

Deep Space

Hey Diz :) 

There does seem to be a trend in Hollywood where 1 studio releases, say, a sci-fi film about 1st contact then anther studio releases a similar themed film around the same time. 

I think taking an idea and rolling with/expanding on it is OK (happens in music - rock/blues as an e.g.) but simply rewriting the same tale with different characters/settings is a bit cheap.

On that - I watched Independence day 2 with my partner a few days ago (her choice I must stress ;) and it was very poor imo.  All CGI, weak plot and despite lots going on struggled to keep my interest for more than half an hour.

It was as if they thought 'ooh that looked cool in that movie, let's do that but bigger . . . ' again and again and again lol :) 

Myrddin365

@Deep Space. I couldn't agree more. I'm just glad I only paid Red Box prices for the experience.