What’s the Difference between Homage and Plagiarism?
In general, we probably think “derivative works are a form of plagiarism”, or we might think “derivative works are just fine”, but really, the water can get kind of cloudy.
For example, consider when a movie is remade in another country. When Sergio Leone made “A Fistful of Dollars”, he basically took the script to Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo” and set it in the American west, rather than in feudal Japan. When Kurosawa saw Leone’s film, he immediately got a lawyer on the phone. The case ended with Leone paying Kurosawa a pretty penny.
…But then let’s consider Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs”. “Reservoir Dogs” was based heavily no the Hong Kong film “City on Fire”, by director Ringo Lam, with a number of references to the films of Lam’s contemporary, John Woo, thrown in for good measure. Not only did Tarantino not see any legal action being pressed against him for this, he even won a fan. John Woo would go on to actually borrow a scene from “Reservoir Dogs” and shoot his own version of it for the movie “Hard Target”, primarily to announce to Quentin Tarantino “I’m a fan of yours, too.”
Some directors call it an “homage”, while others call it “stealing”. Interestingly, those who call it stealing, including Tarantino, do not actually have a negative opinion on borrowing scenes or plot elements. When it really comes down to it, most scholars would argue that you really can’t create a one hundred percent original work. Everything is derivative in some way. According to Joseph Campbell, there’s really only one story, and the difference from author to author is in how you tell it. However, try and see if that holds up in a court of law when you’re trying to defend your new movie “Spider-Guy” from a lawsuit courtesy of Marvel Comics.
There’s really no solid, inarguable law on the books regarding the line between borrowing an element from another’s work, taking influence, or just repackaging their work without authorization. A lot of it depends on two things: How the original author responds, and what the judge thinks.
For example, “Star Wars” is based heavily on the work of Akira Kurosawa, with many elements being borrowed literally note for note. If you’ve never heard that before, you might not even believe it, but pretend for a moment that the movie isn’t set in outer space, and that the lightsabers are replaced with regular Japanese swords. There are a whole lot of similarities. The costumes in “Star Wars” oftentimes bear an uncanny resemblance to the ones found in “The Seven Samurai”, the device of telling the story of the first film from the perspective of the two least important characters, C3PO and R2D2, comes directly from Kurosawa’s film “The Hidden Fortress”, wherein the two least important characters, a pair of luckless peasants, become the narrative point upon which we dive into the story.
So what’s the difference between “Star Wars” and “Fistful of Dollars”?
Honestly, the difference is that Akira Kurosawa didn’t notice when George Lucas borrowed from him, but he did notice when Sergio Leone borrowed from him. Really, that is essentially all it was.
Leone took an entire plotline and several characters from one film, and transplanted them into a new setting. Lucas took a character here and a character there, some costume design from this movie and the sword fights from that movie, and put that in a big mixing pot with classical mythology and some influence from old westerns, and then put that in a setting based loosely on the old “Flash Gordon” serial adventure films. Lucas actually stole and borrowed from more people than Leone did, and, perhaps, that’s why he got away with it while Leone had to pay an in-court settlement.
Many artists don’t mind borrowing in the least, while other artists despise borrowing. Others have a mixed view on borrowing; they don’t mind seeing borrowed elements in an otherwise original work. It really does come down to the original author’s opinion, and the opinion of the court. You might draw a superhero comic never having seen, say, The Blue Beetle, and then be sued by the owners of The Blue Beetle because of entirely coincidental similarities, or you might make a video game like “Final Fight”, which is directly based on the movie “Streets of Fire”, and then not get sued, as the creators of “Final Fight” did not get sued. It’s cloudy water, honestly, and it can be hard to figure out.
But… by and large, very few cases have been prosecuted based on anything besides obvious, blatant theft of ideas. Most plagiarism cases are prosecuted based on direct, inarguable evidence of theft.
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