"Atlantis" and "Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water"

Some people have noticed similarities between Disney's "Atlantis", which just opened yesterday, and a Japanese Anime called "Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water." Here's one comparison chart of the two movies. Here's another. And one more for good measure. via Slashdot

Give me a ____ break

This reminds me of a game developer I once knew. Everytime a new game came out he would scream "That's my idea. They stole it from me!!!"

Of course he had thought of game where a boy hears about a princess in distress and decides to save her. In the process he becomes a hero. He rids a horse. He wears armor. He uses a sword. The princess calls in love with him. The bad guy has magic. He lives in a dark scary place. He turns people into bad things.

I could go on an on but that describes like every figgin D&D type of game out and half the fanatasy movies and books as well.

The point is what do you expect a movie about Atlantis to have in it? Chances are, two movies about a similar topic are going to have many simularities.

By the way, how was Atlantis?

Haven't seen it yet

But one of the linked articles said Atlantis was much more like Miyazaki than Nadia, that the same plot points in the comparisons didn't make them similar movies at all. AT saw Atlantis and said it was heavily influenced by Laputa and Mononoke. He had never seen or heard of Nadia.

Yea but Laputa is taken from Gulliver's Travels

I read some of those comments too. Especially comparing Atlantis to Laputa. But, of course Laputa is copied from Gulliver's Travels in which there is a floating island castle in the sky named Laputa.

For that matter there's also a floating city in the sky in the old Star Trek series as well as Empire Strikes Back so I guess Miyazaki is just as much a copycat as everybody else.

Oh yeah, the Death Star is in the Lensman Series of books from the 1930s.

Striking resemblance tho...

The comparison chart does draw eery similarities. Well, except for the damn ship, those two don't look at all alike.

Maybe it's just a matter of universal cliches. IE all geeks wear bow tie and glasses, all hot chix have crystal pendants, all doctors work out at the gold's gym.

If it is indeed a copy, I have no problem with it. There's no such thing as an original idea. Six degrees of separation applies to creativity as well.