Just stumbled upon this. Did Nolan rip off Scrooge McDuck?

[JdPat04]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19021_5- ... ously.html


Inception was the biggest film release in a long time, and audiences and critics alike gushed over how original it was. It pioneered such innovative story mechanics as dream sharing, thought theft, psychological limbo and escaping the subconscious through specific triggers, or "kicks." Those are, no doubt brilliant devices. Devices that, to a one, can be traced back to Scrooge McDuck.

In a 2002 comic book, eight years before Christopher Nolan's little dream exploration film, Scrooge got his mind hijacked by the Beagle Boys. The Boys were trying out new careers as dream-thieves and went into Scrooge's mind to steal the secret combination of his vault. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because that's exactly how Inception opens up, except you have to replace DiCaprio with talking dogs. Which, incidentally, would probably improve every single one of his movies.

After they're inside Scrooge's mind, the Beagle Boys have trouble differentiating dreams from reality -- again, exactly like the characters from Inception, who need special items, or "totems" in order to tell dream from reality.

When Donald Duck enters Scrooge's dream to help, he has to figure out a way to pry the Beagle Boys out of there. In Inception they use "kicks" to make controlled exits, like how the feeling of falling usually snaps you out of the dream. In McDuck's head, they do, well, the exact same thing.

In order to escape danger, Scrooge starts jumping from dream to dream, but like Cillian Murphy's character, he can't remember the last dream once he's in the new one. Donald, however, is the invader (like DiCaprio) so he alone is able to remember the progression.

But Inception was a sci-fi thriller, and that was key to its appeal: It took metaphysical concepts, like Lucid Dreaming, and used them to fuel the action. The characters can't break the rules, but they can "imagine a bigger gun," and that's hardly something you'd see in some Disney duck carto-

Anyone who's really bad at pattern recognition might at this point be saying, but wait, there's Limbo! That, at least, is definitely the exclusive work of our favorite dark genius ... Gyro Gearloose.

These are all from the same issue of one 24-page comic book, by the way -- not some collection of random panels throughout the years that we've strung together to make a point. Then there's Mal, DiCaprio's wife who's being kept alive solely in his dreams. And yes, even that sad, emotionally complex motivation is echoed in this comic about pantsless waterfowl.

This is Goldie, Scrooge's old girlfriend. She may or may not be dead, but he certainly hasn't seen her in about 50 years. See, she's in the dreamworld because Scrooge carries a lot of guilt from the way he treated her when they were together (i.e., he kidnapped and tormented her. Yeah, Ducktales skipped over Scrooge's violent criminal phase.). Kind of like the guilt DiCaprio feels, believing that he killed his wife, whom he constantly visits in his dreams.

Nolan has never commented on the similarities between the two properties, probably because there isn't much he would be able to say besides, "Well ... fuck." He has mentioned that he isn't sure where the inspiration for the movie came from though, probably because "I owe it all to Donald Duck!" is kind of an embarrassing Oscar speech. Nolan "may not know" where he got his ideas from, but some directors sure do. Like ...

[JdPat04]

#3 well part of #3

Carl Barks had absolutely no background in science or chemistry and, much like his ship-raising technique, believed at the time that he was just pulling it all out of a duck's ass. Twenty years later, Disney received a letter from Joseph B. Lambert at the California Institute of Technology, informing them of an article about to be published in the New York Academic Press called "The Spin States of Carbenes." The article referenced "literature of no less than 19 years ago," which was considered the first published work depicting a new carbene called Methylene. A carbene that the scientific world had only just discovered.


S ... science?
Barks had apparently made reference to methylene, described as CH2, almost 20 years before science could prove its existence. Oddly enough, it wasn't even Disney that caught the reference, but one of the real-life doctors that actually discovered the stuff: Dr. Gaspar, who had a "long-standing esteem for the adventures of Donald Duck." So far, we've seen Donald Duck enthusiasts that are international patent officers, world-famous directors and respected scientists. Clearly, there is a vast conspiracy of powerful and influential people who communicate exclusively via duck comic.

Even more insane: A year later, Disney got another letter, this time from Richard Greenwald, a scientist at Harvard. It let them know that not only had Donald Duck discovered Methylene years before, but that, in the comic, Donald also used Methylene to react with other substances in what was later confirmed to be a scientifically accurate way. And he did it "many years before 'real chemists' thought to do so."

[RoeTied]

In a 2002 comic book, eight years before Christopher Nolan's little dream exploration film, Scrooge got his mind hijacked by the Beagle Boys.

How can he rip something off that he had already written before this comic came out?

When he first started thinking about making the film, Nolan was influenced by "that era of movies where you had The Matrix (1999), you had Dark City (1998), you had The Thirteenth Floor (1999) and, to a certain extent, you had Memento (2000), too. Nolan first pitched the film to Warner Bros. in 2001, but then felt that he needed more experience making large-scale films, and embarked on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

[Y4NK33 PL4N3T]

Inception was terrible.

[ericberry14]

Inception was terrible.

I didn't think it was terrible but it was definitely ridiculously overrated. everyone was like WOAAHHHH THAT WAS SO CRAZY AND THE ENDING WAS LIKE WOAHHHH IT WAS SO HARD TO FOLLOW AND THEN THEY HAD ALL THESE TWISTS!!1

bitch they had a dream in a dream (that's been done by everyone on every show since the beginning of televsion). So what do they do to top that!? A DREAM... INSIDE A DREAM..... INSIDE A DREAM! :explode innovative... creative... original... none of these words begin to describe how great this really was



but seriously the only somewhat interesting part about this was the fact that people who hated their life would go and be asleep for a day and live an entire lifetime or whatever but then again of course that shit would happen.

[frazier9495]

In a 2002 comic book, eight years before Christopher Nolan's little dream exploration film, Scrooge got his mind hijacked by the Beagle Boys.

How can he rip something off that he had already written before this comic came out?

When he first started thinking about making the film, Nolan was influenced by "that era of movies where you had The Matrix (1999), you had Dark City (1998), you had The Thirteenth Floor (1999) and, to a certain extent, you had Memento (2000), too. Nolan first pitched the film to Warner Bros. in 2001, but then felt that he needed more experience making large-scale films, and embarked on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Memento is still probably my favorite Nolan film :yes

[Y4NK33 PL4N3T]

Inception was terrible.

I didn't think it was terrible but it was definitely ridiculously overrated. everyone was like WOAAHHHH THAT WAS SO CRAZY AND THE ENDING WAS LIKE WOAHHHH IT WAS SO HARD TO FOLLOW AND THEN THEY HAD ALL THESE TWISTS!!1

bitch they had a dream in a dream (that's been done by everyone on every show since the beginning of televsion). So what do they do to top that!? A DREAM... INSIDE A DREAM..... INSIDE A DREAM! :explode innovative... creative... original... none of these words begin to describe how great this really was



but seriously the only somewhat interesting part about this was the fact that people who hated their life would go and be asleep for a day and live an entire lifetime or whatever but then again of course that shit would happen.

:lol:

[RoeTied]

In a 2002 comic book, eight years before Christopher Nolan's little dream exploration film, Scrooge got his mind hijacked by the Beagle Boys.

How can he rip something off that he had already written before this comic came out?

When he first started thinking about making the film, Nolan was influenced by "that era of movies where you had The Matrix (1999), you had Dark City (1998), you had The Thirteenth Floor (1999) and, to a certain extent, you had Memento (2000), too. Nolan first pitched the film to Warner Bros. in 2001, but then felt that he needed more experience making large-scale films, and embarked on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Memento is still probably my favorite Nolan film :yes

Inception still for me. Though Interstellar is certainly climbing it's way up.

[frazier9495]

Inception still for me. Though Interstellar is certainly climbing it's way up.

I need to watch Interstellar again. I've only seen it once :shock:

[ericberry14]

In a 2002 comic book, eight years before Christopher Nolan's little dream exploration film, Scrooge got his mind hijacked by the Beagle Boys.

How can he rip something off that he had already written before this comic came out?

When he first started thinking about making the film, Nolan was influenced by "that era of movies where you had The Matrix (1999), you had Dark City (1998), you had The Thirteenth Floor (1999) and, to a certain extent, you had Memento (2000), too. Nolan first pitched the film to Warner Bros. in 2001, but then felt that he needed more experience making large-scale films, and embarked on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Memento is still probably my favorite Nolan film :yes

Inception still for me. Though Interstellar is certainly climbing it's way up.

interstellar was almost cool. inception might have been cool if dummies like you didn't pimp it out so hard.

[ericberry14]

Inception still for me. Though Interstellar is certainly climbing it's way up.

I need to watch Interstellar again. I've only seen it once :shock:

they talk so softly through the whole movie. most of which is boring... then anne hathaway is a dumb bitch and gets the guy killed. then matt fucking damon shows up and turns out to be a total douche. Then that one cool part happens and he sees his daughter as some 200 year old bitch. That part was kinda sad. Then he leaves to go find anne hathaway and the movie ends. I'm pretty sure they are all going to die though :(

[frazier9495]

Inception still for me. Though Interstellar is certainly climbing it's way up.

I need to watch Interstellar again. I've only seen it once :shock:

they talk so softly through the whole movie. most of which is boring... then anne hathaway is a dumb bitch and gets the guy killed. then matt fucking damon shows up and turns out to be a total douche. Then that one cool part happens and he sees his daughter as some 200 year old bitch. That part was kinda sad. Then he leaves to go find anne hathaway and the movie ends. I'm pretty sure they are all going to die though :(

Completely forgot Matt Damon was even in it...proof I need to watch it again :yes

Also funny how he goes from Interstellar to The Martian :lol:

[ericberry14]

wow... that looks bad.