Benjamin Button is a complete rip-off!
There I said it.
SPOILER ALERT: Stop reading if you have not seen the movie and plan to see it.
Last night, Bill and I went to the Ojai Playhouse to finally take in the Oscar-nominated film that's been all the buzz.
Perhaps it’s a headline I saw somewhere that read something like, “Benjamin Button is like Forrest Gump in Reverse” that tainted me and caused me to be a bit sensitive and notice more. Well, it turns out that the formula for what I considered to be a great movie was patently stolen, and Find, Edit, Replace was unabashedly used to write The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
I found that video after I wrote this blog post!
Forrest Gump was a great movie. Other greats, according to my Netflix ratings, include: Million Dollar Baby, Lost in Translation, Away From Her, Brokeback Mountain, Good Will Hunting, Girl Interrupted, Sideways, Juno and The Cider House Rules, to name a few. I’ll add Gran Torino and Slumdog Millionaire into that mix, as well. They all have great writing with original characters and story lines (although I will admit Clint Eastwood did some borrowing for Gran Torino from his own Million Dollar Baby).
Benjamin Button, with unapologetic audacity, blatantly swiped not just characters and broad story lines, but the subtlest details. Follow me, if you will, on a little journey into The Curious Case of How Benjamin Button Ripped Off Forrest Gump:
Benjamin is Forrest: He’s odd, he walks on crutches in the beginning, he’s vulnerable, his affliction makes him all the more loveable, he’s funny and cute, he peppers in “Mama always said,” he gets the beautiful girl (after he accidentally gets hella rich), he does a lot of voice-over narration, and he has a southern accent.
Location: In the south (Alabama, Louisiana, what’s the difference?)
Tug Boat = Shrimp Boat (with a crazy Captain who has a mono-syllabic generic first name that I’ve already forgotten).
Mama runs a boarding house and has profound pearls of wisdom to offer her affected child. She dies when the boy she raised has become an adult, but is still at an impressionable time in his life that he needs his mama. Oh, and she raises the boy pretty much on her own.
Jenny = Daisy in just about every way. She’s pretty. She’s wild. She pushes the manchild away, then wants him back and has an unplanned pregnancy with him.
Benjamin goes off and has excellent adventures that normally a disadvantaged person (let alone someone completely abled) wouldn’t have.
He, too, goes off to war, and survives against all odds.
It’s a generational epic (but Forrest has a way-better soundtrack).
It ends with a single-parent scenario that is miraculously easily overcome.
And to top it off, Benjamin even has the nerve (you could even say the gumption) to steal the floating feather, except in his movie it’s a hummingbird.
If I sound bitter it’s because I am. Forrest Gump was a great movie that I absolutely adored and it’s been used in a cheap and tawdry way. I can’t possibly be the only one who noticed, so now I am going to the Wide World of Webs and do some googling.
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Comments (9)
Well, it turns out I'm not the only one! Google returns over 200,000 hits! There's even a video mash-up:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/1d76506803/the-curious-case-of-forrest-gump-from-fgump44
BB gets THIRTEEN Oscar noms and Gran Torino gets none? What?
Comment #1 Posted by: LS | January 25, 2009 11:18 AM
I haven't read the short story, but it was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1921. Could it be that F. Gump is copping F. Scott?
Comment #2 Posted by: Tyler | January 25, 2009 01:08 PM
There's more: Eric Roth wrote both of the adapted screenplays!
Comment #3 Posted by: LS | January 25, 2009 01:17 PM
Lisa,
Lighten up... I've seen "Gump" so many times now, I almost know the lines by heart. It's about time they changed a few lines, a few scenes, a few actors and gave us something friendly, familiar yet foreign & near.
I loved "Slumdog" this year too, but it's nothing but a reworking of all those glittering 1930's Depression Era rags to riches movies as well.
Since when is repetition not a staple of the movies? There are only 8 basic plots in drama. Everything else is just a derivative.
Comment #4 Posted by: smythe | January 25, 2009 01:28 PM
Lisa, what's wrong? You seem to have gone off the deep end. I think you are completely off base with your extremely angry review. Perhaps, in the future, you will take ten deep breaths before embarrassing your self with a page full of reactionary drivel. I watched this movie and found it highly entertaining. I had not read any reviews comparing it to your precious Gump. I suspect you watched this movie thru a biased lense with a chip on your shoulder - which seems to be growing like a tumor.
Comment #5 Posted by: displacement | January 25, 2009 10:18 PM
Well it is an intriguing discussion certainly and the similarities obviously worked, which is part of why maybe they were used again. But even knowing the information I personally don't feel ripped off. There were for me such strong elements that were different.
The age reversal -- starting out old, growing young was one of the major differences. I also loved seeing New Orleans in all its incarnations and for me, having lost a home in Katrina, it was poignant that it was occurring. I also liked the way the story was laced through the relationship with the dying mother in the hospital. I also loved the racial mixture and that the father keeps touch with him.
I thought the accents on the whole were good (as a louisiana gal). I didn't think whether they were voiceovers or not, will ponder.
In the long run for me it's simple. You went there to take a journey, were you entertained or not? Are you happy you took the time to go on the trip? I was, although I was devastated by personal things it brought up.
The other question I have is who is being ripped off if the man who wrote both screenplays was hired twice? Is the writer complaining? I obviously haven't researched it. But I am personally glad I didn't know of this controversy before seeing it so I could just sit back and take the trip.
Certainly and interesting discussion!
Comment #6 Posted by: DK | January 26, 2009 12:24 AM
OK, so I'm less Paula than Simon when it comes to movie reviews! And, yes, I was entertained, thank you for reminding me of that!
Comment #7 Posted by: LS | January 27, 2009 09:18 AM
I like that you took a stand, I just wanted to understand the why's of it, that's how i learn...by finding people who are passionate about something then getting them to tell me why. 'second lump of gump', not a bad title btw.
Comment #8 Posted by: DK | January 27, 2009 10:49 AM
I find it very interesting that you've written this blog. I saw Forrest Gump when it came out and did not like it at all. I'm not a Brad Pitt fan, so was not interested in seeing BB but then got interested when I read that it was an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, (I'm reading The Great Gatsby again now.) But when I learned that it was written by the same guy who wrote Forrest Gump I was turned off again. So, I'm torn. I guess I wait for it to come out on DVD.
Comment #9 Posted by: Demitri | January 28, 2009 09:11 AM