Posted on 12/08/2001 3:39:48 AM PST by Rubber Duck
“Never heard of Nadia till it was mentioned in this NG. Long after we’d finished production, I might add.”TOKYO -- With the simulteounes release of the Japanese version of Disney's Atlantis movie and picture books today, an obscure American animation's critic's website has drew more than 80,000 hits over remarks published in June.
It seems the company which jealously protects their own copyrights to the extent of forcing nursery schools and kindergartens to paint over murals using Disney characters may be practicing a little plagarism of its own.
The original remarks of the American critic have gotten a new life as anime fans in Japan compare remarkable parallels between characters, artwork and plot between the 1990 film Nadia produced in Japan and the 2001 film Atlantis produced by Disney.
An excerpt of Hayden's remarks appear below.
2001.06.15 -- With the U.S. release of Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire, it is time to come clean about what I tried to accomplish with this page.
My gripe was never that there are so many unnerving similarities between Nadia and Atlantis, and I couldn’t care less how those similarities may have came about. I’m not even that interested in debating the similarities I myself have outlined on this page.
My only complaint was against the Disney staffers and self-proclaimed “experts” who denied so vehemently that there are any similarities at all.
I am not a fool. I know perfectly well that Nadia and Atlantis are very different productions. However, they are still similar enough to evoke the same gut reaction from every anime fan who has seen an Atlantis trailer or commercial: “Hey, that looks like Nadia.”
When faced with that reaction from so many people ? every one of them a potential ticket buyer ? those staffers and experts should have had the grace and good humor to simply say, “Huh, they do look a bit alike, don’t they? It must have slipped in somewhere along the way. Go figure.” Anime fans are an evangelical bunch and would have loved that anime is finally working its way into Disney’s studios.
Unfortunately, that’s not what those staffers and experts said. What they said was, in effect, “You stupid fanboys, they are nothing alike. How dare you even think it. Shut up and go away.”
After a while, that gets pretty damn annoying.
This page was an experiment in propaganda: could the similarities between Nadia and Atlantis be pulled out and presented in such a way that was so powerful and so damning that those staffers and experts looked like flaming idiots for continuing to deny them? Judging by the flamewar that has raged all across the Internet for the last three weeks, the answer is yes.
People trust their gut reactions, their instincts, and this page reaffirms those instincts rather than ridicules them. No direct accusations, no calls for boycotts or lawsuits, no wacky conspiracy theories, just an honest “Huh, they do look a bit alike, don’t they?”
My only regret is that I had to be the one to say it.
Peace.
The parallels on the link are absolutely uncanny. The remarks of director Kirk Wise are even more suspicious-- Japan is one of the world's largest markets for Disney films as well as the number one source for anime techniques.
For Wise to say he never heard of Nadia is like a doctor publishing a research study which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine as his own work and claiming he had never heard of the journal.
Looks like Disney is at it again.
If Nadia hadn't been GAINAX, maybe I'd believe them. For Wise not to be at least familliar with GAINAX is ridiculous. I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of all animators working today, even in the US, have been influenced by something they put out. I think it'd be even harder to find anyone in the animation business under 30 who didn't get into it because of anime, and for the last decade or so, its either been either GAINAX or Studio Ghibli that's been drawing people in.
The Japanese, however, are not much into laws or lawsuits. It was amazing how fast the Japanese website mirror of the source went up today. My daughter, who is an internet and anime junkie pointed it out.
Sorry for the typo.
Well, Walt had his moments of expedience, too. When he was putting together "Fantasia," one of the classical pieces he used wasn't copyrighted in the US. When the composer objected to Disney just using his music with no payment, Disney told the guy to go take a hike.
This is typical movie business stuff. It's cheaper in many cases just to _take_ what you need. (When George Lucas was putting together the "Phantom Menace" he needed a celebration scene at the end. Well, it turns out ILM had done preliminary work on a project for James Gurney' "Dinotopia" that fell apart. So, since the footage was already created, Lucas just incorporated the material at the end of "Phantom Menace." (Gurney knows who has the money -- they settled the issue out of court.)
Mark W.
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