This whole thing is silly. I had never heard of Battle Royale until I came to these message boards. I saw that the movie was available to view on Netflix, so I did. Beyond a very basic premise, the comparison with THG is remote. Most ideas have been done in some form in the past. "12 Years a Slave" is a copy of "Roots". "The Wolf of Wall Street" is a copy of "Wall Street". Every zombie movie is just copying another zombie movie. What about romantic comedies? Did you see the one where two apparent opposites get together, have a little fight, but then reconnect at the end? Sheesh! That's called every romantic comedy!!!
The idea here is basically that a government makes teens fight to the death with a lone survivor. That's about it. Sure, you can inevitably find a few more similarities if you look hard enough. Yes, they both have trackers. Yes, they both have a control room. Sheesh, that's hardly a stretch given the premise There's over 7 billion people on the planet. It's almost inevitable that some have the same ideas. Heck, I remember thinking that it would be a good movie if a bunch of the British royalty were tragically killed and a goof ball American was made King of England. Not long afterwards, they made "King Ralph". Why don't I just sue them for taking MY idea? I also thought a graduation party would be a good idea for a teen movie. They later made "Can't Hardly Wait". Oh yeah, and that movie includes a nerd, a jock, a sensitive guy and a beautiful girl. Seriously, it happens, particularly when you talk about vague movie ideas and 7 billion people on this planet.
The differences between these two movies are HUGE. This isn't a complete list, but just a few things off the top of my head:
1. The characters are completely different. (Unless you go super vague and say good guys versus bad guys, but that's every movie.)
2. THG is set in the future. BR is set in the present.
3. THG is set in North America. BR is set in Japan.
4. The law in THG is to suppress the Districts. The law in BR is designed to influence the youth.
5. THG deals with class differences (i.e, the poor of District 12 in comparison to the capital). BR doesn't make any class references.
6. Although both use random selection, the method is very different. BR selects a random class of students. THG selects random individuals (a boy and a girl) from each of the 12 Districts.
7. THG deals with the theme or revolution. BR doesn't.
8. THG is a commentary on America's obsession with reality television. BR isn't even on television.
9. THG is a commentary on big government. (The people's only real choice is to work for "Capitol Coal".) BR doesn't touch the subject.
10. THG is in a dome. BR is on an island.
11. In THG, a significant part of the story involves the training. (The game itself doesn't even start until THG movie is half over.) Other than a short instructional video, training doesn't exist at all in BR. Virtually all of BR is the game itself.
12. BR focuses much more on should they kill each other. In THG, it's pretty much accepted that they have no choice but to kill the others.
13. There's a time limit in BR. None in THG.
14. In THG, the main characters have an alcoholic mentor. In BR, there are no mentors and no alcoholics.
15. There's no escort/hostess in BR (unless you count their former teacher, but that's a completely different, almost opposite, type of character from Effie Trinket).
16. There's no stylist in BR.
17. There's no volunteering for a younger sibling in BR.
18. There's little to nothing dangerous about the arena/island in BR.
19. There's no getting stuck in a tree in BR.
20. There's no tracker jackers or anything remotely similar in BR.
21. There's no riots in BR.
22. There's no mutts in BR.
23. There's "girl on fire" in BR.
24. There's no interviews in BR.
25. You don't see the president (or ruler) in BR.
26. There's no surprise "I'm in love with her" in BR.
27. There's no "rule change" in BR.
28. There's no training auditions in BR.
29. There's no tributes on parade or chariots in BR.
30. There's no sponsors or the challenge of "getting people to like you" in BR.
31. There's no searching for water and no concerns over finding food in BR.
32. In BR, the students have no idea of what is going on. In THG, they are all very aware of the game.
33. In BR, all of the students know each other (except for the two transfers). In THG, none of them know each other with the exception of maybe the one from your District and even that was a maybe.
34. There's no blowing up of the career's supplies in BR. (There is an explosion in BR but for completely different reasons and circumstances.)
35. In HG, the tributes enter the arena by being lifted up and put in a circle with the game starting at the same time for everyone. In BR, they walk into it one at a time.
36. In HG, they have to run to get whatever weapon they get. In BR, they are randomly given a weapon.
37. The weapons in BR are very different and include guns and even machine guns. Virtually all of the weapons (except the bow and arrow) in THG are knives, swords, spears or something similar.
38. The iconic weapon in THG is the bow and arrow. Although there is a cross bow (one of many weapons), there's no bow and arrow in BR.
39. THG has a main character who is highly skilled with a weapon. In BR, the main character has no weaponry skills.
40. The BR location is the same every year. In THG, it changes every year.
41. In BR, the location includes buildings. There's no buildings in THG.
42. There's no playing for the cameras in BR.
43. There's no poisonous berries in BR.
Wow. And that's just off the top of my head in the matter of minutes. Do the movies have a common central theme? Yes, but the differences are also very distinct. Collins could EASILY have written her novel without any hint of BR. I see no evidence to suggest otherwise. Just because you make a space movie, it doesn't mean it copied Star Wars. Wait, Star Wars just copied Star Trek, right?
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pete-293
10 years ago
"Star Wars just copied Star Trek, right?"
also Doc Smith Skylark series, Heinleins "Starship Troopers", and just about any of Andre Nortons science fiction writing.
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain (Isaac Asimov)
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