Perhaps it's because movies are so massively expensive to make.
Perhaps it's because graphic novels, TV shows, video games, books and the like are such rich sources
of material, or perhaps it's just because audiences just prefer the familiar.
Whatever the reason most box office hits rely heavily on existing material.
Of the ten highest grossing films per year from the last ten years
74 out of 100 are either sequels or remakes of earlier films or adaptations
of comic books, videos games, books and so on.
Transforming the old into the new is Hollywood's greatest talent.
Everything is a Remix
Part Two: Remix Inc.
At this point we've got three sequels to a film adapted from a theme park attraction.
We've got a movie musical based on a musical, which was based on a movie.
We've got two sequels to a film that was adapted from an animated TV show
based on a line of toys.
We've got a movie based on two books, one of which was based on a blog,
which was inspired by the other book, which was adapted into the film.
Do you follow? We've got 11 Star Trek films, 12 Friday the 13ths, and 23 James Bonds.
We've got stories that have been told, retold, transformed, referenced and subverted
since the dawn of cinema.
We've seen vampires morph from hideous monsters to caped bedroom invaders
to campy jokes, to sexy hunks to sexier hunks.
Of the few box office hits that aren't sequels remakes or adaptations
the word original wouldn't spring to mind to describe them.
These are genre movies and they stick to pretty standard templates.
Genres then break up into subgenres with their own even more specific conventions.
So within the category of horror films we have subgenres like
slasher, zombie, creature and of course torture porn.
All have standard elements that are appropriated, transformed and subverted.
Let's use the biggest film of the decade as an example.
Now it's not a sequel, remake or adaptation but it is a genre film, sci-fi and most tellingly
it's a member of a tiny subgenre where sympathetic white people feel
bad about all the murder, pillaging and annihilation being done on their behalf.
I call this subgenre "Sorry About Colonialism".
I'm talking about movies like Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, The Last of the Mohicans,
Dune, Lawrence of Arabia, A Man Called Horse and even Ferngully and Pocahontas.
Films are built on other films as well as on books, TV shows, actual events, plays whatever.
This applies to everything from the lowliest genre film right on up to revered indie fare.
And it even applies to massively influential blockbusters, the kinds of films that
reshape pop culture.
Which brings us to…
Even now, Star Wars endures as a work of impressive imagination, but many of its individual
components are as recognizable as the samples in a remix.
The foundation for Stars Wars comes from Joseph Campbell. He popularized the structures of myth
in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Star Wars follows the outline of the monomyth,
which consists of stages like The Call to Adventure, Supernatural Aid, The Belly of the Whale,
The Road of Trials, The Meeting with the Goddess and a bunch more.
Also huge influences were the Flash Gordon serials from the thirties and Japanese director Akira Kurasowa.
Star Wars plays much like an updated version of Flash Gordon, right down
to the soft wipes and the opening titles design.
From Kurosowa we get masters of spiritual martial arts, a low-ranking bickering duo, more soft wipes,
a beneath-the-floorboards hideaway, and a boastful baddy getting his arm chopped off.
War films and westerns were also huge sources for Star Wars
The scene where Luke discovers his slaughtered family resembles this scene from The Searchers
And the scene where Han Solo shoots Greedo resembles this scene from The Good The Bad And The Ugly
The climatic air strikes in The Damnbusters, 633 Squadron and the Bridges at Toko-Ri play very similarly to the run on the Death Star
And in many cases existing shots were used as templates for Star Wars special effects
There's also many other elemants clearly derived from various films
We have a tim man like the tin woman in Metropolis
A couple of shots inspired by 2001
A grab the girl and swing scene like this one in the 7th Voyage Of Sinbad
A holographic projection kinda like the one in Forbidden Planet
A rally resembling this one in Triumph Of The Will
And cute little robots much like those in Silent Running
George Lucas collected materials, he combined them, he transformed them
without the films that preceded it there could be no Star Wars
Creation requires infuence
Everything we make is a remix of existing creations, our lives and the lives of others
As Isaac Newton once said, "We stand on the soldiers of giants"
Which is what he was doing when he adapted that saying from Bernard de Chartres
In Part 3 we'll further explore this idea
and chart the blurry boundry between the original and the unoriginal.
George Lucas was the most movie saturated film maker of his era
but that baton has since been pased to
Quentin Tarantino's remix master thesis is Kill Bill
Which is probably the closest thing Hollywood has to a mashup
Packed with elements pulled from countless films
Kill Bill raises filmic sampling to new heightsof sophistication
The killer nurse scene in particular is almost entirely a recombination of elements from existing films
The basic action is the same as this scene from Black Sunday
where a woman disguise d as a nurse atempts to murder a patient with a surynge of red fluid
Darryl Hannah's eye patch is a not to the lead characher in The Call Her One Eye
and the tune she is whistling is taken from the 1968 thriller Twisted Nerve
capping it off the split screen effect is modeled on techniques used by Brian De Palma
in an assortment of films including Carrie
For and extended look at Kill Bill's referances check this out
Hi there, I'm Kirby, I am the creator of Everything is a Remix
and i hope you enjoyed this latest installment
Now if you did, if you enjoyed it a lot and you would like to help me keep sluggin' away at it
financial contributions are very much welcome and you can do that at the address that is here
or you can go to my site and click donate
This series really is a massive amount of work so all contributions really do help
Also go to everythingisaremix.info if you'd like to learn more about the production this video
the samples, the referances, all the stuff that went into the making of it
Thank you for watching, my sincere thanks for your support, your feedback
your praise, your criticism, the lot
Thank you, i hope you like the video
i hope you'll like the next one
and I'll see you next time