Matrix Rip-Off?

[sekalfnroc]

does anyone else spot the similiarities between the matrix concept and that of The Island? just wondering.

[Dave]

Only in respect that the people inside the Matrix think they are somewhere else i.e. living in the real world. But The Matrix didn't invent that idea, so you can hardly say it is being ripped off.

I can think of several other films and TV series with that premise apart from The Island:
The Prisoner, Logan's Run, Vanilla Sky, Total Recall, The Truman Show and most probably Lost when it reaches a conclusion.

I can think of several books: Destiny's Road by Niven, Man in the High Castle by PKD, Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut, Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro. If I thought longer I could come up with many more as it is a very common theme.

The philosopher Plato wrote about the concept of people living in a world of relative ignorance, comfortable with that ignorance, because it is all they know, in his most famous book The Republic. He decribes a cave where the prisoners only see puppet shadows. Everything they experience is merely a reflection of the real world outside the cave.

It is a well worn philosophical concept. People who are ignorant of the truth will run and hide from the truth, even deny it, because it upsets what they are comfortable and familiar with. However, once they taste the truth they cannot let it go and must have it all. Then they can never go back.

[iansales]

Originally Posted by Dave

I can think of several other films and TV series with that premise apart from The Island:
The Prisoner, Logan's Run, Vanilla Sky, Total Recall, The Truman Show and most probably Lost when it reaches a conclusion.

I can think of several books: Destiny's Road by Niven, Man in the High Castle by PKD, Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut, Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro. If I thought longer I could come up with many more as it is a very common theme.

And I'd just like to add that - Vanilla Sky is a remake of Abre los Ojos, and both Logan's Run and Total Recall were adaptations of books (well, a short story in Total Recall's case).

Thinking further, I wonder if the earliest example is possibly 'The Tunnel Under the World' by Frederik Pohl, first published in Galaxy magazine in 1955?

[Dave]

Originally Posted by iansales

I wonder if the earliest example is possibly 'The Tunnel Under the World' by Frederik Pohl, first published in Galaxy magazine in 1955?

If it's a competition then how about Arthur C Clarke's short story 'History Lesson' first published in 1949?

It deals with an Ice Age on Earth when reptilian Venusian explorers come to decipher the meaning of a message from the past found at the end of an old film, taking the film as a truthful depiction of ancient Earth society.

[iansales]

I thought we were doing stories in which the characters discover that they're not living in the world they thought they were? (Having said that, I don't think I've read 'History Lesson', so perhaps it's on-topic :-))

A couple more: Orphans in the Sky, Robert Heinlein (1963), and Non-Stop, Brian Aldiss (1958).

[Harleyquin]

Anddddd in the Blue corner weighing....




Philosophically Metropollis with people believing in one thing then discovering the truth predates all these :P ok not a direct comparison but I never pretended to have a vast littery knowledge

[Joel007]

Wasn't the Island written before the matrix anyway?

[iansales]

It was released 6 years after The Matrix.

[Joel007]

What, the remake?

[Dave]

Do you mean 'The Clonus Horror' from 1979?
The Clonus Horror (1979)

I hadn't realised 'The Island' was a remake, though I saw the comparison with 'Logans Run'.

[iansales]

According to IMDB, The Island doesn't claim to be a remake.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by iansales

I thought we were doing stories in which the characters discover that they're not living in the world they thought they were?

Yes, I guess the characters themselves must believe they are in the alternative world.

I have a few other examples of this genre in film: a film called Hibernatus (1969) in which a man comes out of hibernation and is fooled into believing it is still 1905.

And The Village, of course.

[iansales]

It's not sf, but there's Goodbye Lenin.

[Winters_Sorrow]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Dark City.
You could argue that Planet of the Apes had elements of the "true world" being hidden as well but that's possibly more of a stretch.
Oh and The Island doesn't claim to be a remake of The Clonus Horror but the makers of that movie successfully sued them for copying their ideas so...

[Harleyquin]

not to mention the appauling eXtenZ