It looks like it's taken elements from The Giver, THX 1138, Equilibrium, The Matrix and more. What are some other films or stories Equals is 'borrowing' from?
shareSEVERAL concepts from THX-1130 for sure.
'Buy more. Buy more now. Buy more and be happy.'
Too many to count.
-- What would Joan say? --
There's a little book called 1984 that predates all of those films... :P
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There are going to be parallels between any dystopian future story and another. I think the similarities are not that great. We have several movies in which the future society bans personal relationships - a good plot line for dramatic purposes - but they are not all the same, any more than every boy-meets-girl love story is the same, even if they have some of the same elements.
The movie was also accused by several early critics of copying from 1984, which it resembles only very superficially.
On the other hand, it was never compared, that I've seen, to Brave New World - maybe because that's known only as a novel, not a movie - although there are much closer parallels there.
The closest resemblance to other futuristic movies, as far as set/costume design, seems to be with THX 1138, but as a little-known 1970s movie, it may be the least likely to have been borrowed from by the makers of Equals.
The only real, recognizable 'borrowing' of plot elements I can see are the bits taken from Romeo and Juliet - which has been done by countless movies, from West Side Story on down. It's too iconic a story, and too obvious a 'theft,' to really be a problem, I think.
"Moving in for the obligatory hug."
It's not a rip off because it has similar elements to other movies, if that was the case one could argue that every moviescript is a rip off of the bible.
We don't have a dog. That was just some really violent sex.