Stolen ideas?

I really liked the movie, since I am a fan of The Brothers Grimm stories to me it was really well done. To me it seems like something Dreamworks should do.

The world needs my idea Amazon Studios.

To quote Pablo Picasso: "Good artists borrow, great artists steal."

I FOR ONE FIND THIS VERSION OF THE STORY VERY TASTEFUL AND I LIKE THE WAY HE HAS BLENDED THE IDEAS FROM THE OLDER CLASSIC MOVIES TO MAKE THIS ONE A REKINDLED VERSION. THE PRINCESS MLVIES THE BARBIE MOVIES THE OLD FABLES ALL IN ONE. I KNOW IT WASN'T HIS ORIGINAL IDEA BUT PERSONALLY I LIKE THE SPIN HE PUTS ON IT.

...........My divination skills are not what they used to be and my crystal ball is a little out of focus, so I can't predict who (if anyone) buys the script. But Warner Bros. does have first-look deal with Amazon so WB gets to see any script before other studios. Keep in mind that films like Tangled average around a 200 million dollar budget, so one way or another AS will have to partner with someone and that's when titling issues will be addressed.

And whatever studio would that be?

The original story was collected and titled by the Grimms brothers over 100 years ago. Because of that I don't think Disney could really 'buy rights' to the title. But even if they could, there still isn't really a problem. Just change the title. Tangled was originally "Rapunzel" but Disney changed it. I'm assuming that whatever studio buys the rights to this script will do the same eventually.

I don't get it. 12 Dancing Princesses was covered by the Barbie franchise. Sounds like a title clearance problem to me.

Oh leave the guy alone. You're always going to have movies similar to one another. (i.e. Pocahontas - Fern Gully - Avatar; The King's Speech - the Miracle Worker; Titanic - Poseidon) as long as it can sell, it's gonna sell.

So what if the story is or seems derivative? 90% of what Hollywood puts out is. If this is a problem for you with the script pitch to Amazon for the re-write and make this one of your goals.

This story has been written quite a number of times, by the Brothers Grimm for example, with titles such as The Worn-Out Shoe. The number of princesses differs, the plot not very much, but the idea is the same. This is bordering on plaigiarism, not just a "stolen idea".

As far as the screenplay is concerned, it is written in an amatuerish way, giving directions, telling instead of showing, as if it was a revised script, ready for production.

Have to agree with RJ ("..I get so tired..") and with Stephen (awesome name, btw).

Aren't Aladdin, Hercules, Tangled and perhaps a score of predecessors... each of a genre (sub-genre, etc..) that's been archetyped (thanks Stephen) and probably even cataloged (e.g. "Aarne–Thompson classification system", late 19th century/early 20th) into alphanumeric "type" numbers. I'm pretty sure Aladdin and Hercules have at least. The "... he/she doesn't realize that she/he is a prince/princess.." device has been used in storytelling for as long as the notion of royalty itself. It's not that plagiarism doesn't exist of course - but the telltale signs vary greatly with genre, and some that we think of as original may well have borrowed heavily from even earlier works. At this point, it's pretty hard to label any "Fairytale" style of fiction as being "stolen". Almost by definition, they are all derivative of earlier works - since the originators are the likes of Aesop, c. 5th century B.C., writing "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", "The Goose That Layed The Golden Eggs", "Tortoise and The Hare", etc... (it's not certain that Aesop really existed btw, but these ancient stories have been written and rewritten thousands of times, over eons). Believe it or not, Socrates is credited with "converting" some of Aesop's works to Socratic "Verse"... I guess it's possible that some of his peers considered elements of his work as stolen or derivative; who knows? ;-)

Sorry for the novel. Just that it's a serious accusation to make, and not one to make lightly. I'm sure I'm not the only person to see similarities between present-day movies and others from years past, but there aren't very many that I'd say were clearly "stealing" ideas. In some sense, virtually every idea is derivative of some previous idea(s) - putting a unique or personal "signature" spin on one's creations is the challenge, and the level of that achievement is subjective anyway. The blatant copycat or whatever-you-call-it is (usually) obvious and easily agreed-upon by "the community" - the typical rash of hastily assembled copycat releases that surely follow a summer Blockbuster come to mind.

Uh... wow, a little bit verbose there. I'm guessing that no small number of successful film's rewrites included the minimizing and reshaping of material that might have been interpreted as too similar to another work's. Probably a fairly common part of the process.

I have a lot of misspellings when I archetype. Sorry, that's all I got.

When used properly they're called "archetypes." When misused they're called "stolen ideas."

On fairy tales, I completely agree with RJ. The "family" elements tend to read the same, but the visual spectacle can be the creative distinctiveness to set each story apart including this one.

Ideas are a dime a dozen; and fairy tales in particular use a lot of the same themes, symbolism, and story ideas. It's all the in the execution obviously.

I get really tired of people being paranoid and worrying about stolen ideas, but if it took you out of the story, then your point is valid.

Aha. Makes sense.

Some of these ideas came from the story notes that Gardner received from Amazon.

I appreciate the hard work done on this movie, and I am not trying to detract from that, but I got about 20 minutes into it, and there were many moments reminiscent of Hercules and Aladdin and Tangled, and I don't like that. For example, Yannick's rewrite the story song reminded me of go the distance in Hercules. Him not knowing she was the princess at first, then waking up with his sidekick animal I'm jail, and the king's toys were very Aladdin. The whole deal with the dying queen mother and a special healong flower, then running away from the castle and then running away with yannick, a young guy with a satchel was tangled. Also, the old man at the beginning telling yannick he was old enough to hear that he was hopeless reminded me of a Cinderella story. And this is just the first 20 minutes.Maybe it is just me. (Sorry for bad typing. I'm on a tablet.)