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Robocop an Inspector Gadget Ripoff?


Anacybele
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Now I'm not bashing the movie, because I haven't seen Robocop. But from what I know of it, it seems almost EXACTLY the same as Inspector Gadget, particularly the Disney movie.

I saw a trailer for it on the display TVs where I work, then I later found a DVD copy on the floor in the warehouse underneath some clothing spinners (who knows how it got there...) and read the description on the back.

Robocop is a human police officer who was turned into a partly robotic super cop after being critically injured. So is Inspector Gadget in the movie.

But the robotics almost cause something catastrophic to happen. The same happens in Inspector Gadget, albeit in a somewhat different way, I believe.

The only real difference is that Inspector Gadget is more comedic. But otherwise, these two appear to be a lot alike. I'm a big Inspector Gadget fan and used to watch the cartoon all the time and I loved the movie. I don't particularly fancy the idea of something copying it.

But if I'm wrong and Robocop isn't as similar as he seems, let me know now. :P

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The similarities begin and end with robotic individuals being in service of the law. That's really it. Rip-off is too harsh a word.

Watch the original Robocop if you want to see exactly how different they are.

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The similarities begin and end with robotic individuals being in service of the law.

And their origins. I just described both in my post.

And how do you want to be credible if you haven't seen the source material?

I never said it was DEFINITELY a rip-off. Just that it seemed like one. I'm sorry if I'm wrong, geez...

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I never said it was DEFINITELY a rip-off. Just that it seemed like one. I'm sorry if I'm wrong, geez...

Consider watching the source material before accusing the creators of plagiarism. Otherwise you'd probably escalate further and say something such as The Hunger Games is ripping off Battle Royale.

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Although RoboCop is ostensibly an action flick, it also deals with serious issues like human behavior and personal identity. Alex Murphy (RoboCop) is a tragic character who was brutally murdered and then brought back to life as a cyborg and then struggles to reassert his humanity. These philosophical themes put it on a completely different level than Inspector Gadget.

RoboCop was actually originally inspired by Blade Runner. Blade Runner featured a cop who hunted robots (actually, it's much more complex than that). RoboCop was supposed to be a sort of inverse of that.

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TIL iron man is a batman ripoff (or the reverse, idr which one came first) because they're both about millionaires who fight crime WITH MONEY

holy shit dude killing floor is a batman ripoff because you can kills genetically engineered super soldiers with MAWNEY MAWNEY MAWNEY

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Consider watching the source material before accusing the creators of plagiarism. Otherwise you'd probably escalate further and say something such as The Hunger Games is ripping off Battle Royale.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop right there. Where was I ever accusing anyone of plagiarism? I didn't say anyone stole anything. And as I just said, I said they SEEMED too similar, not that they definitely were.

Once again, sorry for being wrong. I just wanted a little more insight before I DID go accusing someone of plagiarism.

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If you're calling something a "ripoff", that means it was copied from the source material and altered slightly. That's plagiarism by definition. You might've not intended to, but what you did was calling plagiarism without explicitly stating it.

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idk about other people but when the first line of an argument is "well i haven't actually watched the source material", it doesn't give me particularly high hopes for much being correct

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Well then, I said it MIGHT be plagiarism. But apparently it isn't, so I'm wrong, and I'm glad to be told that before I DID go saying it was a ripoff.

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"so is Inspector Gadget in the movie."

Does that mean that Inspector Gadget in the cartoon did not get his gadgets after being injured in the line of duty? If that is so, then the movie changed his origin story to be more like Robocop, and so the movie version of IG was ripping off Robocop. :Lilina:

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Briefly putting aside the list of details that differentiate the characters, I personally prefer to limit calling things "ripoffs" to cases where the two works are not only using very similar premises, but trying to use them to do nearly the same things with scarcely any variance. Because there are a lot of ideas both general/framing and specific/detailed that have been reused in fiction, and if we called all those reuses ripoffs, we'd lose way too many works that I think can actually stand on their own well enough.

From the bits and pieces I've seen and the analysis of Robocop I've heard, for example, the original could be considered almost as much horror as action/power fantasy/etc (without trying to spoil things, cough you guys cough >:{ ). That is, when Robocop is created, such as he is, it's very much not a cool thing in the movie. He does cool stuff after he's created, but it's also kind of fucking scary. There's a lot of stuff to unpack in just that idea to differentiate it, given also a corporate dystopia setting and you know what watch the movie.

Inspector Gadget is slapstick. Overall it's a cool thing that he has his gadgets, and also it tends to be funny because he doesn't always use them that well. Totally different points to watching and making the two. (and for the record that's not a dig, I love me some good slapstick)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is probably closer to Robocop than IG imo, and it's still way different even though they're both fairly serious/relatively smart/sometimes funny/sometimes a mite scary action romps about guys who get massive physical augmentations in questionable circumstances (spoiler but seriously go see the things), just because of the massively different range of themes they focus on and how they're executed.

Edited by Rehab
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"so is Inspector Gadget in the movie."

Does that mean that Inspector Gadget in the cartoon did not get his gadgets after being injured in the line of duty? If that is so, then the movie changed his origin story to be more like Robocop, and so the movie version of IG was ripping off Robocop. :Lilina:

No, we don't know how Gadget got his gadgets in the cartoon. The series started with him as Inspector Gadget.

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I think at this point, the robotic police films have made their own separate genre. They all begin by showing us how they get cybernetic implants, but once that's out of the way they become their own movies.

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From what I know of Inspector Gadget (little), it doesn't seem that one ripped off the other at all.

Ana you should watch RoboCop. The scene where they nearly kill Alex is sad in the original, but the film is awesome. Then you can watch the remake, too.

(speaking of the remake, I think it's good in its own way, it's made for our time and addresses other issues)

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yeah remember when inspector gadget gets his hand blown off from a shotgun blast? or when chief quimby sniffs cocaine off a womans pair of tits?

robocops main influence is judge dredd. not inspector gadget

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I honestly would have never even considered the similarities between the two.

But as Nightmare says, the similarities start and end with both of them being humans with mechanical bodies. There really is no plagiarism taking place here.

The debate, if ever there were one, is over.

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Cyborg heroes aren't a new thing.

I mean, just go through Marvel or DC's stock of characters and you'll find several that predate Robocop or Inspector Gadget.

33531483a905305d195694961f674e2a.jpg

1940, Robotman

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