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Is anything original???

Started by Julia1996, October 25, 2017, 05:44:32 PM

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JulieOnHerWay

Steely Dan was original.  So original that they sued some rapper for stealing their licks.
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Rayna

As an amateur musician I often wonder about this.  There aren't very many distinct notes, and how many ways can they be combined to make a new song?  But we can often recognize a song just by the first few chords and start of the melody, so it is different somehow from all the other songs.

When I improvise I wonder if I'm really just playing a different song, but somehow, in combination with the chords that my friends are playing, it still sounds like the original song -- just a variation, sorta like a remake.
Randy
If so, then why not?
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Lady Lisandra

Hardly. There are original thing, but only a few. Mainstream, commercial music for example is, in my opinion, just different versions of the same pattern. Even Bach copied himself,  he had original things. Not to mention he completely changed the way music was composed...

On TV I've seen very few original things. Attack on Titan for example, which even for Japan is something new. The creator started writing a new story, combining elements to tell something that, on the whole, had never been told, at least that way. Perhaps we lack people like him, that need to create original content instead of just wanting to create a good product. Maybe that's the problem. People are too focused on creating a good product and think "if this worked before, it will work again". It does sometimes. I thought that Matrix, Bladerunner, I, robot, were all great, original movies, only to find out they were all watered down, friendly versions of Ghost in the Shell (not the one that came out recently, the animated film from 1995, which was based on a manga). It's soundtrack was composed by Kenji Kawai. He used ancient japanese lyrics, sang by a choir that mixed traditional Japanese and Bulgarian singing, and an orchestra that adds till the usual instruments, modern electroacustic and traditional Japanese instrument. That combination of old things, is original.

- Lis -
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Roll

Quote from: Lady Lisandra on October 27, 2017, 12:52:33 AM
I thought that Matrix, Bladerunner, I, robot, were all great, original movies, only to find out they were all watered down, friendly versions of Ghost in the Shell (not the one that came out recently, the animated film from 1995, which was based on a manga).

I'm confused what you mean, Bladerunner, even ignoring Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep? predates Ghost in the Shell significantly. I, Robot is a weird case where it was "based on", but not really(originality feigning unoriginality to a degree), a collection of Isaac Asimov stories.

I think that it is important to make a distinction between an original story, and elements of that story. With the four you mentioned, there are similar elements, but that doesn't make any of them unoriginal inherently. Even Ghost in the Shell pulls heavily, very heavily, from William Gibson novels, even though it uses what it pulls in a comparatively original way (manga at least, not the '95 film, it pales in comparison to the manga). For most of these, the reason the lines can be drawn on elements is because they are the same genre (which can be defined as a grouping of common elements) more than that they share similar plot lines or story development (cyberpunk, though I, Robot is more traditional sci-fi). To go to the song comparison, there are only a handful of notes. To be original you don't have to create new notes, that's impossible of course.

(And now I want to go reread old Masamune Shirow manga.)
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Kylo

There are only so many modes of story to tell, outside of biopics. Most forms of fantasy adventure story are based on the Monomyth ("the hero's journey") for example, and other types of story usually fit into roughly 7 categories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots

But the reason why Hollywood is currently experiencing a slew of remakes, rehashes and reboots and feels extremely stale is it's usually not willing to take financial risks on new properties, except in the horror genre (which is usually thought of to be the cheapest and most efficient movie to make for a first time writer/director, or a quick successful cash grab. Because you can't do much wrong with horror tropes). So we get tons of new and silly horror fare, and almost everything else is a remake of a comic, or a pre-existing franchise, or a popular videogame, or a re-imagining of something well known. 
"If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."
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