kimba simba? disney stole it

[otaku]

but i still cant believe that those disney bastards never said
anything about kimba or osamu tezuka...
thats the worse you can do

[Dragonrider1227]

I'll agree with that. I can see minor similarities and if they really came from Kimba, they should give credit.

[adrian _68]

Well, that's how life is. Stepping on others just to get on the top and forget them when they are up there.

Dunno about this topic I have not really watched any Kimba episode so I have no right to judge

[O2Destroyer]

Here I go, resurrecting a dead thread...

So yeah, I'm pretty much digging as far into Jungle Emperor as I can given the manga hasn't been translated, but from the new(er) movie and the first season, I end up somewhere in between on this argument. Could some elements and imagery be ripped off? Absolutely. Is Disney's claim they never heard of Kimba rediculous? You bet! But once you've gotten beyond the 'Lion King may be heavily inspired by Kimba/Leo' the whole business really has no where else to go. While tons of people love the Lion King, it is a terribly simple plot that rides more on dramatics and a strong soundtrack. While revenge plots can often be drawn out to truly epic proportions, The Lion King doesn't. It's Shakespeare in 90 minutes with lots of musical numbers to pad it out. Suddenly, all the similarities really seem to make little difference. Jungle Emperor is a lengthy and sophisticated stories with tough moral choices. It is NOT a revenge story in the slightest. The more I read/watch Tezuka the more I feel an influence on artists like Miyazaki, NOT Disney. Lion King is very western, and while it would be nice if they gave Tezuka a nod, I think a nod is probably all that would be required.

[jeffbert]

Originally posted by O2Destroyer@Oct 8 2004, 07:39 PM
Here I go, resurrecting a dead thread...

So yeah, I'm pretty much digging as far into Jungle Emperor as I can given the manga hasn't been translated, but from the new(er) movie and the first season, I end up somewhere in between on this argument.  Could some elements and imagery be ripped off?  Absolutely.  Is Disney's claim they never heard of Kimba rediculous?  You bet!  But once you've gotten beyond the 'Lion King may be heavily inspired by Kimba/Leo' the whole business really has no where else to go.  While tons of people love the Lion King, it is a terribly simple plot that rides more on dramatics and a strong soundtrack.  While revenge plots can often be drawn out to truly epic proportions, The Lion King doesn't.  It's Shakespeare in 90 minutes with lots of musical numbers to pad it out.  Suddenly, all the similarities really seem to make little difference.  Jungle Emperor is a lengthy and sophisticated stories with tough moral choices.  It is NOT a revenge story in the slightest.  The more I read/watch Tezuka the more I feel an influence on artists like Miyazaki, NOT Disney.  Lion King is very western, and while it would be nice if they gave Tezuka a nod, I think a nod is probably all that would be required.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Disney people flat out denied any knowledge of or influnece by Tezuka's work. Hence, at this date, a nod would be insufficient. Even if one gives them the benefit of the doubt, & allows that they neither knew of, nor were influenced by Tezuka's work, the similarities are too many & too strong to ignore. In my last year of college, I was required to submit my essays not only to my professors, but also to Turn it in dot com, which having no knowledge of any student's integrity, would compare those essays to others, and potentially wreck a student's life by a match of three consecutive words or more. :angry: As one who works hard to do my own research & writing, I was quite unnerved by this possibility. qouting the site,

At the heart of our plagiarism prevention system are our customized Originality Reports, which contain extensive documentation of any potential plagiarism. Any text in the paper that is found by our system to be unoriginal appears underlined, color-coded, and linked to its original source. All work submitted to Turnitin is checked against three databases of content (Plagiarism Prevention).

I certainly feared an innocent error, such as neglecting to correctly cite a source, or even a paraphrase that was too close to a quote, could result in an automatic failure and perhaps even expulsion from school. In regards to Kimba/ Leo Vs. the Lion King, the similarities are such that this system would not likely detect them, because words & phrases were not in question. Rather, the characters Dan'l Baboon, Poly Cracker, & others, as well as the other elements were similar to those that would be found in the latter work, & anyone seeing the two works should certainly agree that they are similar in these respects. However, I note that the girlfriend is not a character that I would think is unique to a Tezuka creation, Thus, while there is a similarity, it seems that it is reasonable that this character could have been created by a person wholly ignorant of Kimba/Leo.

Yet, I do not believe that a charge of Plagiarism is dependant upon proving that the creator of the latter work had knowledge of the former work, but I might be wrong. In regards to turnitin.com, I think the burden of proof would surely be upon the accused. Thus, although that student had no knowledge of the work that produced a match with his own work, he is condemned unless he can somehow prove his innocence, assuming he is given the chance to do so. :angry:

[cybotron]

You probably have seen this as it is easy to find... But here is Roy Disney.
Roy Disney drops the slip

The fuss continues.

[jeffbert]

Originally posted by cybotron@Oct 8 2004, 11:34 PM
You probably have seen this as it is easy to find... But here is Roy Disney.
Roy Disney drops the slip

The fuss continues.

Considering the first hyperlink, Roy Disney drops the slip: While this seems damning at first, it could simply be that Roy knew of Kimba TWL, but others (who created Lion King) did not. Thus, he in referring to the character in the lion king, fails to recollect the names of the characters, so he uses the first similarity that comes to mind: Kimba's Mama-san. Note that I do not hold this opinion, but am merely mentioning it as a possible interpretation of his response. I say this based solely upon the content of Roy's response, and not based upon any other knowledge that I had on this subject.

In other words, while this clearly indicates Roy Disney's knowledge not only of Kimba TWL/Jungle Emperor Leo, but also of the similarities between that work & the one Disney was then preparing, it says nothing about the script writers' or animators' knowledge thereof. Now that I think about this, it seems that the executives (usually older people who have risen through the ranks) might indeed have proposed doing a Kimba-like story, & decided upon certain similarities in their meetings. Having done so, they then explain what they want to the script writers, character developers, animators, etc. It seems unlikely, but it just might be that the latter group had no knowledge of Kimba, & that the orders given did not mention Kimba. After all, when the executives say to the younger people, they want something like Kimba, only to hear, "What's Kimba", were they at that time able to find videotapes to use as examples, or were they forced to rely upon their own descriptions? If the latter, would it be reasonable to assume that the people who actually created the Loin King (using certain specifications handed down from superiors) had no knowledge that their bosses had based it upon Kimba? Thus, any reference to Kimba by the bosses was quickly forgotten, becuae Kimba meant nothing to them.

However, as I said, just because they might not have knowingly infringed upon another work, does not exonerate them of the infringement, only of the intent to do so. B)

Note, that this only addresses the Roy Disney response Roy Disney drops the slip. The other link, The fuss continues, renders the above hypothesis null. That is, we must reject it, based upon an examination of the evidence.

[cybotron]

You mean you guys had not seen those links?

[O2Destroyer]

Right, I'm not arguing there is no plagiarism, or that ther superficiality of it makes it right. No, what I'm saying is that while some seem to think that Lion King is Kimba with a disney make-over, instead I think its a very thin and typical disney plot with a an obvious Tezuka make-over. While that IS something to make a fuss over, it doesn't seem like a very big fuss. At least not the fuss this whole business has turned into. I think part of the problem is that as this idea that Lion King is a rip off has been passed down, its turned into something bigger than it is.

Basically, I was thinking about how The Magnificient Seven clearly needs to and does credit Kurosawa (I don't remember whether Battle beyond the Stars does, but the idea of a remake of a remake is pretty sad to begin with.) In both these films, the setting is completely different, but the plot of the story is roughly the same. But to me, Lion King simply feels like a film that takes some inspiration from Kimba. Now, the talking parrot and the baboon are a bit much--certainly enough in combination with kimba/simba to make one wonder, but the problem is that ultimately these are just superficialities!

There are plenty of films that take inspiration from other films, and there are also issues of how close something has to be before it can be called plagiarism. No doubt, Jeffbert, as a student your papers were held accountable to a higher standard than Disney will ever be. I'm positive that Disney's attorneys would argue successfully that movies about lions in Africa with support characters who are animals indemic to that region cannot be copywritten. Not to play the devil's advocate, but I'm sure they'd win.

I guess the reason why I brought this thread back though wasn't to argue that disney didn't get away with something, they surely did. Rather, the theft itself isn't interesting. If they're going to be influenced by Tezuka (which they should since he was so heavily inspired by them! , one wishes the inspiration reached them at a deeper level than Lion King.

[O2Destroyer]

Originally posted by cybotron@Oct 9 2004, 01:34 PM
You probably have seen this as it is easy to find... But here is Roy Disney.
Roy Disney drops the slip

The fuss continues.

Convincing, but at the same time, if Lion King had been 'Jungle King', this would have made for a pretty sad remake of Jungle Emperor. Again, plot-wise, Lion King has almost nothing to do with Jungle Emperor, its just a simple revenge story...