White Wolf and Nancy. A. Collins sue Sony Pictures Options

[Hot Wheels]

[Atrox]

There's of course the flip side that, if the character was embraced to eventually become an Archon, he needs that combat ability.

Even then, I find flaws like "Inept: Poetry" somewhat . . . ridiculous.

Now with a Tory, that would actually be a real flaw.

[Ancient History]

Then of course there's Blood magic, the pen-ultimate path to Twinkdom.

[Snow_Fox]

Just to add back to the fun, TV guide pointed out that the poster for Underworld looked very similar to the color advertisament for Fox's failed serries Birds of Prey.

[Miststlkr]

Birds f Prey? never even heard of it :(

[lorg]

Bird of Prey, you didn't miss anything. It was an all girl action program with batgirl and similar characters. It had nothing on other girl action shows like Buffy and Dark Angel.

Birds of Prey - Online

[Miststlkr]

never watch buffy, but DA used to kick arse (is it still runnning?!) and I'vve seen Alias once or twice, that was good too, almost good enough to consider dropping the cash on the season DVD set... almost. if i ever get the cash, I will get the DA one.

[lorg]

Nope Dark Angel ended after two seasons, concidering that the second season was not nearly as good as the first that might have been for the best. Buffy was great until the end, ok episodes where better and worse from time to time but the show was still good. I don't like Alias, they just started to show it on TV here about a month ago but I had seen the first season before and I am not, was not, that impressed with it.

Only TV DVD's I'm dropping any kind of cash on is Futurama, Simpsons and quite possibly Couplings.

[Hot Wheels]

The first season of "Dark Angel" was good. The second season sucked and the show folded.

"Birds of Prey" was supposed to be the daughter of Batman and Catwoman is basically "Batgirl the next generation." The previous batgirl is now in a wheelchair and acts as her mentor with a psychic runaway as a tag along. They tried to do too much add mutants as being most of the people with superpowers and a hopeful tie in to "smallville" the superboy serries, but that would screw the time line 6 ways to sunday- Batman's grown daughter as a contemporary with a teen superman?

[lorg]

Since you did mention 'smallville' that show is much better then BoP ever was. Even thou Smallville is the oddest place on earth concidering the amount of weird stuff that goes on there. Makes Sunnydale (in Buffy tVS) almost appear normal.

[Snow_Fox]

I watched smallville once or twice but it never clicked with me.

[Siege]

It's a little bizarre -- both Smallville and Alias have absurd sorts of drama, but Alias is entertaining to watch while Smallville just...ugh.

I think Alias has enough action and other stuff to detract from the simpering drama while Smallville revolves mostly around teenage angst.

Compare that to something like "Charmed" which is a soap opera which occasionally deposes gods but only because they were interrupting the very serious conversation about what color the living room curtains should be.

-Siege

[Ancient History]

I thought it was cute that Viktor runed out to be played by the guy that played the druggie washed-up vocals in Still Crazy.

[austin316]

Well, I saw the movie, and now I don't feel strongly one way or the other about the lawsuit. I can see where White Wolf feels infringed, but the movie didn't really scream "WoD!" at me. So both the movie and lawsuit get a solid "meh" from me.

[Miststlkr]

having seen the movie this weekend, not only did i find it quite a let-down, i didn't find it any more WoD then any other dark occult-ish movie and consider it to be in the same class of movies as bladerunner, though nowhere near as good. having now seen it, if i were the Judge, i'd throw it out. the only way it would be associated with WoD (IMHO) is by the people who say "ooh, vampires and 'wolves! that reminds me of WoD!!" not any specific points., but that's just my opinion.

[Snow_Fox]

That seems to be the general feeling. I think they didn't even do the vampires very well. Even the vampires fighting vampires in "Blade" gave more of a feeling these were beings more than human. In Underworld they could just have been the rumanian gymnastics team on a shooting spree.

[Miststlkr]

LMAO. love that analogy.

i'll leave my complaints about the movie itself out of this, but i can't see how the lawsuit can stand up.

[Snow_Fox]

I think the law suit was based more on the screenplay or noivelisation which was a bit more discriptive. Adam posted the suit and some of the points just don't appear in the movie, like Vampires having the ability to disappear from personal site.

[danbot37]

Well, if WW can sue Sony over this (which I think would be ridiculous, WW vampires are built off centuries of lore and Ann RIce, etc. and are not their own design in the first place), then why isn't there more of this kinda thing? Why didn't FASA sue the makers of Johnny Mnemonic back in the day? Why didn't the makers of d&d sue Id over doom? (beholders and such, which is what everybody I've ever introduced would say when I described a beholder, "Oh, you mean like in Doom?")
Why didn't they? Because these were just ideas people took, not just stories. ANd when it comes to the story of Underworld or Collins' book, it was obviously riped off Romeo and Juliet and similar stories. That would be like somebody suing other horror movie companies over the creepy guy sneaking up on teenagers making out in a car, because they invented it first in their old man with the hook for a hand story or something stupid. I can see where WW is coming from (and yes, Iplayed vamp and werewolf back in the day), but just don't see enough ripping off of any of WW's original ideas even

And on a similar note (kind of), how bout this. Looks like a d20 shadowrun to me (I hate d20, to random of a chance). Seems like a big ripoff to me, but nothing there I think fanpro could sue over, either. Just more proof that ideas get ripped off all the time.

[Hot Wheels]

The law suit, which Adam was nice neough to post particulars on a while back, was not just in the same genre, the way Jonny Neumonic was cyberpunk, but claimed there were significant similarities between the vampires of "Underworld" and the ones in VtM.

Writing a book about vampires dopesn't mena you're infringing on Anne Rice, BUT writing one about a brooding man from Federalist New Orleans that laments his lost humanity and hates his sire, a wild spirit from France who keeps him in thrall with hidden knowledge. that starts to cross the line.

Having played the game and seen the movie I don't think the suit has merrit, becasue a lot of the points raised in the law suit don't appear in the movie. Maybe they were in the screen play or something but didn't make the screen.

[Adam]

[JongWK]

@ Danbot37:

Maybe because Johnny Mnemonic was based on a previously written story by William Gibson?

The ID programmers were D&D fans, it was a homage and I think the TSR guys liked it.

Let's face it, why doesn't Arnie sue SR because of those "tapes" that ruined his career? There is a line between parody and plagiarism, ask Mel Brooks.

[TinkerGnome]

[Senor 187]

When is Disney going to sue FASA for ripping off TaleSpin?

[Pistons]

Say what?