Quentin Tarantino says Hunger Games “ripped off” Battle Royale
The Pulp Fiction filmmaker's says he would of loved to direct Battle Royale if not for the franchise
Aux News Battle royale
Quentin Tarantino is a movie lover first, and a movie maker second. Or, well, maybe it’s the other way around, but suffice to say he’s protective of his favorite films. So when a major franchise appears to crib from a cult hit, film’s number one fan will surely take notice.
In an interview with Dana Carvey on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Tarantino shares the movie he wishes he made: “I’m a big fan of the Japanese movie Battle Royale, which is what Hunger Games was based on. Well, Hunger Games just ripped it off. That would have been awesome to have directed Battle Royale.”
This is not the first time Tarantino (a filmmaker known for violent scenes himself) has praised Kinji Fukasaku’s 2000 film. Back in 2009, he called it his favorite film of the last 17 years, saying, “If there is any movie that has been made since I’ve been making movies that I wish I had made, it’s that one.” Clearly, no film has eclipsed Battle Royale in Tarantino’s mind in the decade-plus since.
This may be the first time that the Oscar winner dragged The Hunger Games’ good name into the conversation, but it’s not the first time this YA dystopia has been pitted against Battle Royale. It’s an old debate, in fact, but with the upcoming prequel The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes renewing interest in the series, we might as well go another few rounds.
So: did The Hunger Games rip off Battle Royale? Not according to author Suzanne Collins: “I had never heard of that book or that author until my book was turned in,” she has said of the original novel by Koushun Takami.
Still, one can’t ignore the stories’ fundamental similarities, i.e., children forced by a cruel government into a death match they can’t escape. It doesn’t look great for Collins, but at the same time, if one were to set out to write a disturbing story, it wouldn’t take long to independently hit upon the concept of “kids killing each other,” would it?
Which tale did “child death match” better is an entirely different debate, and there’s no doubt which side Tarantino comes down on. It would be fascinating to see what he’d do with a Hunger Games film, though.
169 Comments
I just wanted to add that the lighthouse scene in Battle Royale is some amazing stuff on top of showing paranoia running wild (though I guess at least a bit understandable under the circumstances).
technically they are both ripping off ancient Rome who probably stole it from some other culture
basically can say ripping off Lord of the Flies, just added the Gov involvement.
Probably inspired by rather than ripped off for Lord of the Flies since that was a situation created by happenstance, and the children don’t *have* to kill each other like they do in the later ones.Hard to deny it was a big influence though, especially on The Hunger Games.
Well technically, Richard Bachman Stephen King was the first writer to bring in the concept of pitting childrens against each other in a deadly, last-kid-alive competitive sport organised by a despotic futuristic government in The Long Walk, so he probably deserves most of the credit here.
Oh I absolutely don’t claim to know where it first started in fiction, I just mean the with Lord of the Flies it’s a similar, no doubt influential premise it just wasn’t exactly comparable to The Hunger Games/Battle Royale.
Came to make this point. That story still horrifies me. Probably because it starts so banal.
There is also the first chapter of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, which is often anthologized as a stand-alone short story entitled “Battle Royal”. It’s about the white leaders of a southern town forcing black schoolboys to battle until only one is left standing. The boys don’t fight to the death, but they do brutalize each other for the entertainment of government officials, business owners—the establishment, essentially. Ellison first published it in 1952, two years before Golding published Lord of the Flies.
Last-one-standing games had also been around and really popular for at least 5 years by the time Battle Royale was published. Doom and Quake etc had to be some part of where the idea came from.
Yes, this argument is beyond stupid. The Hunger Games is so obviously inspired by gladiatorial combat. There’s even an area. It shares way more in common with gladiatorial combat than Battle Royale. The only thing the two movies share is teenagers killing each other, but any media directed at teens and preteens is going to make teens the central character.
Yeah, it’s an amusement for the capital-dwellers and a reminder to the masses out in the hinterlands what their lives are worth. Adapted for a YA audience.
Thank you. I seriously hate the stupid idea that Battle Royale was the only story in the last 2000 years to have thought of a death match between kids. Collins even told us that she’d borrowed the idea of the Games from the Roman gladiator games, and the idea of the two teenage tributes of either gender from the Greek tributes sent to feed the Minotaur. Go read a book, Quentin, and learn things–these tropes have been around forever.This is all reminding me of when imdb still had comments, and BR fanbots had absolutely swarmed the comment boards for HG. You could never find any intelligent questions or commentary—as soon as you posted something, 5-6 comments all along the lines of “HG ripped off BR” would pop up.
Do you mean the ancient Greek myth of Theseus, the Labyrinth, and the Minotaur?
Which, you know, is what Suzanne Collins actually cited as her inspiration?
Exactly, she uses that and reality TV as her influences. Which is pretty obvious, the imagery is there in the movies with the chariots. It’s a death game combined with reality TV.
Don’t forget And Then There Were None/Ten Little Indians.
Facts! And every empire stole from the nations they conquered. Conquer, steal, assimilate, repeat.
She’s said that she came up with the idea from both Ancient Rome and reality TV, Death games aren’t exactly an original idea. The author is a military brat who has a passion for writing in a way that makes kids understand the horrors of war which you can see from the Hunger Games and evenmoreso from her Middle Grade series Gregor the Overlander which goes as far as to write genocide into a book for nine year olds (and all of her characters have pretty constant PTSD after their first battles).
hehehe… classic Rome!
Assuming you mean gladiatorial combat, it was the Etruscans. (Though the Romans made many modifications.)
I used to read a lot of shitty, cringe-worthy fantasy books as a kid (think 2nd-tier Dragonlance books) but I still feel think The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a weenie title.
Okay, so maybe she didn’t steal the concept from Battle Royale. But then she just came up with a totally unoriginal idea, which isn’t much better.
Tarantino: “would have been awesome”AVClub: “would of loved”
he would of loved to directI would have loved if you hadn’t fired your last editor.
This might sound judgmental but holy shit. I’m not a native English speaker myself and I have yet to make that mistake, who the fuck are they hiring at GMG? What’s next, defiantly instead of definitely?
Stuff like ‘would of’ and ‘come with’ that I only heard in my dumb Dutchy part of PA back in the day are now in common use, somehow. Since this is a blogging site and not real journalism, there are no editors.
Stuff like ‘would of’ and ‘come with’ that I only heard in my dumb Dutchy part of PA back in the dayYou heard the difference between “would of” and “would’ve”.
You’re forgetting, they’re REAL DEAL, HARD HITTING JOURNALISTS FROM COLUMBIA!…At least until they get sued, in which case they immediately morph in to bloggers and are not subject to journalistic standards.
Are you sure the speakers weren’t saying “would’ve”?
Yes because they distinctly separate the words, ‘would’ ‘of’, just like it’s written in the article, putting emphasis on ‘of’. It’s specifically not a mishearing of ‘would’ve’.
Well, I would not have called it a mishearing as “would of” and would’ve” in most cases are homonyms unless you really enunciated the former. But if they do, they do.
Yeah they definitely do.These are people who say things like ‘It’s hot out here, not?’, so they aren’t ‘conventional’ English users.
No sympathy here for anyone complaining about language. Five years ago, when “literally” came to mean “not literally”, I was buried under the college-freshman commenters saying that language evolves. Yes, it does… but it shouldn’t devolve.Everyone is reaping what they sow. We’re getting lazy as English speakers, why shouldn’t English writers be any different?
“Literally” having a secondary non-literal meaning as “not literally” is one of the most gloriously twisted things ever to happen to language. And it’s not like it obfuscates anything; the meaning is always clear from context.
“one of the most gloriously twisted things ever to happen to language”‘To cleave’ means both to stick together and to split apart, and the best example is doing both at the same time.
I actually think the literally thing makes a kind of sense, because its usage is hyperbolic. “OMG, That guy is, like, literally the sweetest person in the world.” It’s very easy to understand that it just means the guy is incredibly, abnormally sweet. Yes, it’s sad that some people don’t know the correct original usage, but I don’t mind literally as hyperbolic. Would of, on the other hand…
I’ve always hated the pedants who attempt the “literally” thing. People are using it correctly when they use it in hyperbole. Do they want us to start saying “it was literally so rainy I had to to go back to get an umbrella?” Are they running up to people saying “DOES your bag weigh a ton??? What are you carrying, osmium?” “Could you really eat a horse? AN ENTIRE HORSE!?!?!?”
These are the same pieces of dry toast who think having a Starbucks barista misspell their name is an interesting story worth telling. I’m sorry they spelled your name with a V, Stephen. Did you get the correct beverage or not?
I very much mind the non-literal hyperbolic use of “literally”. We had a very valuable word that meant “not figuratively”, and using it when not appropriate is like counterfeiting, devaluing the word so it no longer has the value it previously had.
What word would you prefer instead of literally for the hyperbolic usage?
What word would you prefer instead of literally for the hyperbolic usage?Isn’t, or wasn’t, figuratively, the correct word? When people use literally in place of figuratively, it makes it harder to ascertain when one is being literal or not.
But then that’s not hyperbolic, it’s literal! If I say “He’s figuratively the sweetest person in the world” that a) doesn’t really make any sense and b) takes away emphasis. The point of literal in that context is how strong it is. By figuratively being a more appropriate and weaker word I think you’re actually losing meaning.
‘Practically’ is an option.
“He’s practically the sweetest person in the world” keeps a hyperbolic sense that the speaker is almost certainly overstating the point without stretching the definition, i.e. you can’t realistically compare everyone on earth nor can you rigorously quantify sweetness, but for practical purposes, you won’t meet someone sweeter.
Does it, really? I’m hard pressed to think of a time when I heard someone use “literally” in a figurative sense and didn’t know instantly they were doing so, simply by context. Because, as Zwing points out, it really only works if it’s used hyperbolically.
Simply remove the word “literally” and a hyperbolic statement can still be hyperbolic, it’s just no longer explicitly disclaiming that it’s hyperbolic. The word “like” has received complaints about overusage but it’s helpful in indicating “Not exactly this, but something like it”.
Given the way language works, especially in these irony-drenched times, it’s virtually inevitable that “literally” would evolve that hyperbolic second definition. So I’ve never had a problem with that, because language often depends on context, and there is some actual intent behind it.“Would have” vs. “would of”, however, is just people lazily typing out what they think they hear without any regard for the way the language works.
That devolve/evolve distinction is catchy, but doesn’t actually make sense. The way that language typically changes is that people in casual conversation begin using a word in a somewhat off-brand way. Those changes always feel like a “devolution” to people who tend to be nitpicky about language. Can you name a change in language where English language purists said, “This is a definite improvement on what came before. Huzzah for this evolution of language!”
I just wanna jump in here and clear up some stuff on this thread.
‘Literally’ still means exactly the same thing as it did before. The meaning of ‘literally’ has not reversed itself, it’s just that people use it hyperbolically because no-one’s ever going to say: ‘That joke was so funny, I figuratively died.’ If we need to make the distinction, we’re still going to use literally to convey the meaning ‘in a literal sense.’ The meaning of the word is augmented, not reversed or eradicated, and that is fine.
A lot of language purists do get upset about things like this, it’s true, but a lot of these kinds of changes are a good thing; they’re examples of language becoming more efficient or more useful to us. Like the prevalance of the word ‘like’ – as annoying as it may have sounded, at first, it’s caught on because it’s actually a pretty efficient way of denoting imprecision in what follows – like, it didn’t happen exactly how I’m saying it happened, but that’s the gist of it.
‘Would of,’ on the other hand, always has been and always will be a mistake (albeit a common one) caused by mishearing someone saying ‘would have/would’ve’ without internalizing the written form. It’s neither an evolution nor a devolution of language. The structure ‘would + have + past participle’ has logical grammatical links to the broader English language. ‘Would have’ makes sense as the perfect conditional; it fits in with the rest of the language. ‘Would of’ does not, unless you’re going to start saying/writing: ‘I ofn’t eaten dinner today,’ or ‘You of been lying.’ And if you’re not going to do that, then I would argue there’s absolutely no benefit to anyone in adopting ‘would of’ as a valid evolution of language rather than just correcting it as a mistake.I think Sinatra’s evolve/devolve distinction is wrong in this instance, but… it’s tricky. Changes to language only occur when they’re adopted by the majority of speakers, and in a widely-spoken, thriving language like English that will generally only happen when it’s useful to society. Most likely individual changes to the language will either be adopted broadly (because they’re good) or will remain limited to a certain use-group before disappearing.
Languages can devolve, though – Cherokee, for instance, is beginning to lose swathes of its grammar that are useful for conveying nuance, possibly because its remaining speakers don’t fully understand it. Or, more likely in the case of English, they can branch off into dialects or completely new languages that may lack some of the range of the original, or hamper communication between the broader group of speakers.
Fortunately, neither of the above-mentioned examples count as that. Not everything is an evolution/devolution of language – sometimes they’re just common mistakes.
Well-written, but this is all a symptom of the atomization of norms. The current sociological movement in the US is the rejection of authority. Anarchy reigns in our consciousness. This is unfortunate because we rely on a single language to communicate. I have worked in engineering fields for years, so I see the value in precise language and the pitfalls of the obverse. I’m not being pedantic when I talk about the taxonomy of language. I’m being concerned because language is crucial to our species. Trump spoke off the cuff. “Don’t listen to what he says, listen to what he means.” How did that work out? One of the most painful things in the human experience is being misunderstood. We are in for a lot of that.
Why do you think language wouldn’t devolve? I won’t approach your idea that it shouldn’t devolve because that is just nonsense.When the Roman empire fell language devolved. It is why we have numerous romance languages.
Oh, I’ve long since given up on “literally” and moved on to griping about “free reign.”
AAAAAAAHHH god I hate “free reign”!!!!!!
I’ll happily give up both “literally” and “free reign” as hills to die on if I never have to hear “versed” or “versing” in reference to competitions or fights again. Only time a person should be “versing” someone is in a rap battle, dammit.
Literally has literally been used as emphasis for hundreds of years.Tom Sawyer was not going Scrooge McDuck in piles of money when Mark Twain described him as “literally rolling in wealth.”Nothing supernatural is happening in “Little Women” when Louisa May Alcott wrote that “The land literally flowed with milk and honey.”Jane Austen wasn’t being literal when she wrote about being “literally rocked in bed on a stormy night.”
And they were wrong every time.
Are you sure about the last one. That may have been literal?
I will never accept irregardless as a word, idgaf what Merriam-Webster says.
That one is doubly infuriating because no it fucking doesn’t. Not even in a descriptivist, “this is just how people use it” sort of way. It’s become an intensifier like “extremely,” but no significant number of people actually use it to mean “figuratively.” The real villains there were the dictionary writers, who should know better if anyone should.
Five years ago, when “literally” came to mean “not literally”Huh? That feels a bit wrong or disingenuous. Are you talking about “figuratively”, which I guess is probably closer to what you mean? Can you give an example?As someone downthread mentions, it seems more like it has become another intensifier, with maybe a hint of sarcasm.You can technically still use it in its original sense (or its original denotation as far as my lifespan goes back) while speaking. It’s really just a manner of tone and context. In writing, it might be trickier, but still possible.
I’m holding out hope for a good old fashioned rouge/rogue or tome/tomb.
For all intensive purposes, they are doing this on accident, but they’re certainly not chomping at the bit to fix these issues.
You’re going to give me an aneurysm.
Me, a sicko: Ha ha ha yes!
Oooh, ‘on accident’, that one really grinds my gears!
It’s “champing at the bit” not “chomping at the bit”. Phonetically they sound the same. Just like “would’ve” and “would of”.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/champing%20at%20the%20bit
Yeah I totally missed that joke, had i been fully away I’d have seen intensive purposes as well.
Thank you for explaining only 1/3rd of the jokes I made there.
totally missed that, as well as the intensive purposes.
Good on you.
You recognize that in this case the error was intentional, right?
“For all *intents and* purposes…”Just going to leave that right there. Cheers!
Defiantly’s a perfectly cromulent word.
I’m not a native English speaker myself and I have yet to make that mistake,There are, actually, certain mistakes that are more common among native speakers than ESL speakers. ‘Would of’ is one of them.
ESL learners, who have to go through the trouble of learning the conditional perfect structure ‘would + have + past participle’ wouldn’t get confused. Most native English speakers, on the other hand, have never had to study the language in that way – they’ve just internalized these structures over time. People write ‘would of’ because they’ve memorized the structure via spoken English but mistaken the sound of ’ve for of.
“who the fuck are they hiring at GMG?”The former CEO of Moviefone, the one-two punch of Hughes and Barsanti, and now various twenty-somethings who are most likely working for 50% of what Dowd and the rest used to make but are happy just to have a semi-stable writing gig.
Or my personal favorite: someone “loosing” instead of “losing”.
If you mean by favorite, the one that drives me insane, yes.
I think it’s a mistake that native speakers are more likely to make, because they haven’t necessarily studied the language (or at least didn’t pay much attention to those classes in school) and mostly picked it up through experience, so they’re just repeating structures they’ve heard without thinking about it (i.e. in normal speech, “have” is often shortened to a “-’ve” suffix, which sounds very much like “of”). There’s no excuse for someone who’s writing professionally though.I don’t know what your native language is, but I’d imagine there are similar mistakes that people commonly make in it.
To give the people making this mistake the slightest bit of defense, it is a mistake to be more likely made by native speakers. People get confused because of the “would’ve” contraction. It sounds like “would of”. They are used to hearing it that way and (completely) not thinking about the meaning of what they are saying.
I remain convinced that most of these errors are the result of voice-to-text processing that misinterprets, followed by authors that can’t be bothered or don’t have time for even the most rudimentary proofreading.
Jesus wept. She got paid to write this.
The Pulp Fiction filmmaker’s says he would of loved to direct Battle Royale if not for the franchiseWhy is everyone so obsessively focused on this egregious “would of” typo? Surely we could pay a little attention to the egregious “filmmaker’s” typo.
Also, what is this??
The Pulp Fiction filmmaker’s saysI’m not sure which is worse: the grammatical issues or thinking that this is a fresh story.
This is the logical long-term result of claims that proper grammar no longer has a place in communications. How many times have you heard that language evolves and anyone complaining is just a dinosaur who doesn’t want to accept that? And so here we are.
It’s because a lot of people don’t really understand what grammar is. I’ve both learned and taught languages, and it bugs me whenever someone says: ‘Don’t worry about the grammar’ or ‘Grammar isn’t important.’ Like, no, it’s really important, especially for foreign language learners. Grammar is literally everything about a language other than the vocabulary. It’s the words you choose, the order you put them in, the changes you make to them to convey a certain meaning. It’s not all just trivial, finnicky points like when to use ‘who/whom’ and how to use a semicolon properly.
Language evolves therefore you’ve got to complain if you want to have any say in how it evolves!
Fortunately you’ve come to the right guy!PROPER GRAMMAR OR GTFO!!
“Acrosst”
Irregardless of that error, I though the article was prefect.
Came to the comments to say this. If the headline has grammar this poor, I’m not even going to bother with the article.
At this point, it has to be bait for comments. There’s simply no other way that so-called professional writers and publishers can make this many basic grammar mistakes that even a basic MS Word check would catch.
“Allow for” being used synonymously with “allow”
Am I the only one getting bleeding ulcers over this?
I suck at english. I reread “would of loved” 3 times at least and again when you commented. It make no sense.
Here’s a handy tip to remember if you should use “would have,” or “would of.”It’s never fucking “would of.”
Would you accept a “woulda”?
I coulda, but I don’t know if I shoulda…
I would of course never use “would of”.
You bastard
Grammatically incorrect.
Equally relevant: that one song by Jet totally sounds like “Lust for Life!”Anyone who ever cared about this topic lost interest at least 10 years ago, QT. Story of your life.
Quentin Tarantino is a movie lover first, and a mommy hater second.
HOLY CRAP with the “would of.” That is beyond embarrassing. Get thine act together pronto, AV Club. Good grief.
Everyone said the same thing when the movie first was released.
Nope, it’s a ripoff of “The Long Walk”, which I haven’t read in 30 years but stuck with me ever since I did….as did “Rage”. Not a King fan but those two stories….wow
Tarantino went on to explain that it’s called “Battle Royale” because of the metric system.
Look at the big brain on RougeIndy!
Child Murder with Cheese
I mean that is just what McDonald is isn’t it
If I’d read that two seconds earlier I’d have done a spit-take. Bravo.
Originally it was Battle Pound-er but they don’t know what a pound is over there.
You a smart motherfucker, that’s right
Who better than the authority on this matter:“I steal from every single movie ever made”-Quentin Tarantino, Empire Magazine (1994)
I’m glad that I’m not the only one saying it
They’re similar but so are the kajillion slasher flicks out there, and found footage flicks, and demonic possession flicks, and superhero flicks. It doesn’t stop directors from directing those movies.
This was more blatant as there are not a kajillion movies about schoolchildren forced to hunt each other.
By the time Hunger Games was around there were a kajillion deathmatch video games. Someone could easily arrive at a similar idea from hearing about the Columbine shooters playing Doom without knowing about Battle Royale at all.
Death Games aren’t an original concept.
Is Squid Games a ripoff of The Hunger Games? Nope, but they’re in the similar genre.
Well they both owe a debt to Frederick Brown…
it’s kind of ironic coming from Tarantino, who quite literally takes scenes from other movies. I don’t knock him for it, but it’s strange to be upset at someone else for borrowing an idea.
In context it doesn’t even sound like he’s upset by the mimicry; he just offhandedly points it out while having something to say about Battle Royale.
I really don’t think he considers “ripped off” to be pejorative.
Yeah, I think it’s just a crassly fond way of saying, like, “sampled” for him. If asked I think he probably thinks it’s kinda cool to “rip off” such a grim, grimy movie and repackage its premise as a tentpole blockbuster series for kids.
In my brain, there is a thick line between ripping off and homage, and I rarely have trouble telling the two apart. It’s the difference between respectfully referencing material / honoring it versus stealing it.
The avant garde (wedding) DJ of filmmakers.
Shhh… he’ll come after you if you bring this up.
The problem is that it’s not just one scene that she copied but the whole concept for her book. Plus, it’s hardly an homage if she pretends she never even heard of the book.
Thank God Tarantino has never made a movie influenced by movies he loved in the past.
Quentin Tarantino loves making movies, and watching movies. But both come second to his true love, ladies’ feet.
What’s the Dutch title for The Hunger Games? Battle Royale with Cheese.
How is this news? Just because someone of the stature of QT is saying what everyone else was saying 10 years ago?
The Pulp Fiction filmmaker’s says he would of loved to direct Battle Royale if not for the franchiseWe’ve all had a good laugh about “would of,” and disregarding the random possessive “fimmaker’s” typo, what’s maybe even MOST sad is that Tarantino said nothing to even imply the notion of “if not for the franchise.” Even if you read his offhand comment that Hunger Games ripped it off as derogatory, he still says he would have loved to direct it. Literally none of this is correct and it just sucks.
“The Pulp Fiction filmmaker’s says he would of loved to direct Battle Royale if not for the franchise”This was written, presumably reviewed by an editor (?), and used as the subheader on a professional pop culture site. Unreal.
I shouldn’t be surprised, though, as this “article” is basically just a half-dozen tweets commenting on a YouTube video the writer saw
“presumably reviewed by an editor”Ah, so this is your first day on the AV Club then
Tarantino should know; he’s always been a thief. When people like him get called out suddenly it’s an “homage.”
This is all accurate.
Tarantino coming strong with the internet’s hottest ten year old takes.
“I had never heard of that book or that author until my book was turned in,”
Sounds suspiciously similar to someone who has been known to say something along the lines of “I don’t know who that is. I never heard that name. I meet a lot of people all the time but I don’t remember all their names. Maybe they brought coffee or something” when confronted with an embarrassing connection.
sounds like Michael Pondsmith claiming he wasn’t aware of William Gibson or Bruce Sterling’s work as he methodically ripped off every single aspect of them including the genre name for Cyberpunk.
I think the difference is Mike Pondsmith is an American who “created” a science fiction RPG called Cyberpunk while Gibson and Sterling’s fiction dominated the literary side of science fiction and they worked almost exclusively within the subgenre of cyberpunk.
On the other hand, The Hunger Games series was written by an American and – while both Battle Royale the novel and film had been released in the US – they were very much cult products that most Americans were unaware of and the similarities between the two works is similar on a superficial level, but once you break down the minor details of their respective dystopias and the circumstances under which teenagers are being forced to fight each other to death and what comments it’s making about American and Japanese society respectfully, they’re very different works.
The whole thing’s been silly. I never heard about Battle Royale until the fanboys started screeching about it, and I doubt she did either. They are both loosely based on a similar idea which is not original to Battle Royale, and they both go different directions with it. The main similarity is “government forcing kids to kill each other”, how they go about it is way different. I love QT, but he is making himself look stupid here.
Right. I suppose it’s possible that Suzanne Collins, a then middle-age writer of children’s shows from Connecticut, was secretly into Japanese horror fiction in the mid-2000s, but that doesn’t seem super likely.
I’ve always thought that was a sketchy claim. Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy literally have a Night City in them; what are the odds another creator writing about a high-tech dystopia lands on that exact same name?
No one on this side of the ocean had heard of Battle Royale before Hunger Games came out. Also, this argument has always been unfounded because the core similarity is not some groundbreaking or unique thing, and the plots and the aesthetic are otherwise totally different. The basic premise of forced deathmatch is as old as time. There’s some kind of forced gladiator episode in every genre TV show that has ever been. Plus there were, you know, actual gladiators.Sure, both things had the gladiators be young. That’s the central comparison point. Is it crazy that more than one person in the history of time had that idea? It has never been uncommon in post-apocalyptic or dystopian fiction to show a kid getting involved in the savagery to make the point of “look, this has gotten real bad”. Same basic deal.The problem here is that any two things that have even a passing similarity get called out as ripoffs on the internet, and they almost never actually are. They’re just two things with a passing similarity, and then the idiot ape compulsion of humans to pit two things against each other steps in. It’s dumb.
Yeah. Kind of.Now let’s talk about how many movies you’ve ripped off.
Suzanne Collins has said she got the idea from the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur ( Athenian youth being round up and fed to it). Make sense instead of keeping the monster she instead would make them fight each other. It’s a very likely and reasonable explanation. Not a big fan of the books, dropped out after the 2nd one, but I easily believe her explanation. Like the article alludes to, it’s not like the premise is such a logical leap to come up with when one wants to signal how terrible a government may become.
yeah, and besides, “child deathmatch arena” is such a concept that I have no trouble believing at least two people came to it independently
WHAT A GROUNDBREAKING THEORY
The comment section blowing up over a typo is pathetic.
That’s not a typo. You don’t attempt to type “have” and accidentally type “of”
Maybe YOU don’t. Lots of people of different problems, you know?
And he is correct!
“No dur,” says everyone else.
They’re both just Lord Of The Flies though.Anyway Fukusaku is one of the greatest directors of the 20th century and Tarantino is not. I don’t know why I’m even commenting on this.
I kinda of hate Tarantino and often feel compelled to comment, so this is really weird, but Tarantino’s indulgent, myopic, and petty, but solidly a great director.
I’m not just trying to be “that guy” who is too much of a snob to appreciate Tarantino, but is he that solid? You read his screenplays and his shooting scripts, and you can see there’s a lot of direction in there, so he’s certainly a thoughtful director (though I don’t care for his thoughts), and certainly a visionary director (though I don’t care for his vision), but I dunno: there’s not much to him.
He is absolutely correct. The only reason HUNGER GAMES got away with it is that in the aftermath of Columbine BATTLE ROYALE couldn’t get U.S. distribution.
The Hunger Games folks should say:“I steal from everything, tough titty.”or“I love Battle Royale, I have the poster right here.”or“Good artists create, great artists steal.”
>which is what Hunger Games was based on.< Terrible phrase. How about “on which The Hunger Games is based.” Or “the basis for The Hunger Games.” Also please note the article in front of “Hunger Games”.
Duh.
You’re doing this shit on purpose just to wind me up
“I had never heard of that book or that author until my book was turned in,”I never knew it was a book at all until today but I remember loving that movie when it came out eons before the Hunger Games was published. Bit of fishy wording there…
Regardless of whether Suzanne Collins appropriated her ideas from Battle Royale, I think it’s safe to say Beat Takeshi >> Hunger Games.
God, it’s embarrassing when people cry ripoff over superficial similarities. Does he think no one made a WWII movie before he did?
Hunger games is shit. Battle Royale is brilliant. the end.
“The Pulp Fiction filmmaker’s says he would of loved to direct Battle Royale if not for the franchise” The grammar in this is giving me a stroke jesus christ
It would be much more interesting to see what he’d do with a Battle Royale movie.
I’ll take two double royales with cheese, please; MF
Here’s the deal both movies were based on books that were released 9 years apart. Battle Royale came first it was published in April 1999. Hunger Games was first published in 2008.sources? google brings up the wiki for both but the first Battle Royale movie (it had a sequel) was released first too, around 2000 A.D. An entire videogame genre was also inspired by it. 9 years is a long time to exist with in a vacuum. If she truly had never heard anything of Battle Royale, like seen it on 📺 or heard of it by word of mouth? That’s interesting cause that’s almost a decade of such.
Its an open secret at this point. I think ripping off is an understatement, when you start comparing how the two stories work with their battle royale mechanics, it couldn’t have been coincidence.The author of HG may have an original story, but I 100% believe she took HEAVY inspiration from BR and just refuses to admit it.
This is an old argument. Both films owe their stories to The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell from 1924. That was the first person put into a game of life and death story. Captain Kirk has gone through it many times. Stephen King’s short novel The Long Walk (written as Richard Bachman) from 1979 had teens competing in a deadly game by a corrupt government. Don’t assume anything made recently is truly original kids. There’s only 36 stories to begin with.