I don't remember how the conversation started, as it is with conversations, but my nephew and I were talking about how people like to label something a rip-off. The example he used was within the sci-fi genre, specifically Star Trek's phasers and Star Wars' blasters, but then he moved on to another genre - the romance novel. They all seem to start with the main characters hating each other but then they fall in love. My response: "The Walking Dead totally ripped that off."
That was about the entire exchange, but it got me thinking. Don't most iconic relationships, in any genre, follow that pattern? Not just romances - buddy films come to mind. The relationship in which you meet, are compatible, and remain friends just isn't compelling storytelling. Even Han Solo and Chewbacca are more entertaining when bickering.
People who do what Josh and I were talking about don't understand a few things. "Ray guns" are a staple of science fiction. Sharing a staple with something else in the same genre is not ripping it off. Using a tried-and-true storytelling technique is not a rip-off of anything that's used it before.
If I were to write the story of an ordinary young man who finds himself swept into an epic adventure, I would not be ripping off Star Wars. Or The Legend of Zelda. It's a classic story called The Hero's Journey.
There is nothing new under the sun, as the saying goes. Everything is derivative of something that's gone before. So what makes a rip-off? That's a difficult thing to explain - ask any judge asked to decide a plagiarism case. As another saying (sort of) goes, I may not know what a rip-off is, but I know what it ain't.
