MovieChat Forums > Space Adventure Cobra (1982) Discussion > No mention of being based on "We Can Rem...

No mention of being based on "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"?

posted 9 years ago by MadSimian
2 replies | jump to latest

Seriously, I was reading through the plot synopsis for the manga(which is assumedly similar to the anime) and realizing that I'd heard this story before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_(manga)#Plot

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that plot sounds like pretty much the same exact one for "Total Recall"(which IS known to be based on the Philip Dick short story I already dropped the title to in my subject line).

So I've got few questions:

1) Why isn't this listed as being inspired/based on the Dick story too and, since it obviously hasn't, why hasn't the Dick estate sued them for copyright infringement yet?
2) Is it just me or does it not look like "TR" ripped off the story line of this almost wholesale? If so, why haven't Verhoeven and company acknowledged this as inspiration for "TR"? I would say that the Cobra people should have sued for copyright infringement as well but, considering my first question, I can understand why not(we stole from Dick so we can't sue someone else over stealing from us as that would bring the whole thing to the public's attention i.e. we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot lol)

Seriously, it's one thing to have based one's movie on a short story and thus having to create new details to flesh it out enough and quite another to take another story that's already done it for you and not give them credit.

Just looking for some culpability somewhere in the whole mess. lol

The future belongs to those of us still willing to get our hands dirty. SaschaKonietzko

[–] zozogogo 8 years ago

Yeah I always noticed they lifted the concept of remembering his past by visiting a dream clinic.

Though that plot synopses is actually covering the initial setup, which makes up a minuscule part of the comic/show and everything that follows is nothing like the Dick story beyond that aspect.

[–] b-rad 7 years ago

Do you have anything to back up a statement that Cobra is actually based on Dick's short story?

The original manga Cobra by Buichi Terasawa was first published in 1978, and the movie Space Adventure Cobra was produced in 1982, 12 years before Total Recall was produced and made Dick's short story much more well-known than it had been before.

That's not to say that Terasawa could not ever have known of Phillip K. Dick's works, but while I've found references to quotes from Terasawa citing his influences, such as spaghetti westerns, Disney films and samurai stories, none of them have mentioned "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale." I suspect that instead of a direct influence, or instead of borrowing concepts from Dick's short story, it represents more of a coincidence.

Total Recall, on the other hand, is definitely based on the short story, and acknowledged as such by the people who produced it. Again, similarities to plot elements in a Japanese comic book are likely to be coincidental.

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