Can any story actually be original now?

[Truly-A-Lie]

I'm pretty jaded when it comes to storylines and whatnot but I thought Inception was pretty original.

The interesting thing about Inception is that it intentionally recalls other films and genres to tell its story and still comes across as really unique and original. I did an essay on Christopher Nolan for Media Studies and the more you look into Inception the more remarkable it is.

 

[rh1006]

no. there cant be anymore origial stories, its always about conspirices

 

[Hiikuro]

If originality is the idea that something is dissimilar to anything previously created. One must look at the idea of similarity.

It is easy to find similarities between things. I would argue that it is entirely impossible to not find similarities between two things, no matter how dissimilar they might appear. We humans are ridiculously good at using weird conclusions to make two things appear similar. And the concept of similarity ends up being based on feeling when we're speaking of something abstract as a story. If similarity can be applied so vaguely that "anything goes", it follows that nothing can be truly original (or in fact, original at all).

If the way to judge how original a story is, based on finding similarities, we will eventually find so many similarities that the question of originality is pointless.

So in conclusion I'd say that, until I get a proper and reasonable judge of what similarities in stories is, originality is a worthless measure for a story.

 

[shadyh8er]

You can draw similarities between anything and everything. Some are obvious like Avatar and Dances with Wolves, but others you just have to dig a little deeper, like Inception and Paprika.

 

[shadyh8er]

Fight Club.
Nuff' said.

You do know that was based on a novel right?

 

[subject_87]

What I don't like are people who take TVtropes way too seriously and say 'Oh, this is just an unoriginal retread of X, Y, and Z', thereby missing out on any new or interesting takes on concepts, or high-quality work. Paradoxically, once you've 'seen everything', you see nothing.

 

[Thaius]

Yeah, complete originality is not possible. But originality within said stories is definitely possible. For instance, Dances with Wolves would make a pretty awesome sci-fi movie if the basic story took place on a beautiful, fully-realized fictional planet with some cool sci-fi concepts thrown in. But of course there would be plenty of people who would decry it for being a story that's been told before, because apparently retelling a great story in an original setting is bad. And yes, I know exactly which movie I'm talking about here.

Originality in stories is not about what the story is, it's about how its presented. The little details, the small changes, the original scenarios placed within an old metanarrative. An old story with new and interesting characters, or a few original ideas, can be awesome.

EDIT: And by the way, insane stories made up of completely random crap don't count. Yes, it would be original to have a story about a transvestite armed with a box of jello saving his hometown from zombified aliens specifically targeting said town because it had delicious apple pie and pretty women. It would be very original. It would also suck. Originality for the sake of originality never works.

 

[Vakz]

I'd say no, they can't be truly original anymore. However, they can still tell the stories in other ways, that are more believable. If you think about it, you could describe Lord of the Rings as "A couple of dudes who killed some bad looking guys to throw a ring into some lava in a mountain", or you could tell it in the epic way of Tolkien did.

 

[thirion1850]

A brontosaurus riding painter in a cyberpunk setting out to make the world's tastiest and last cake.

MAKE IT.

OT: Everything is original, and yet not in its own right. Similarities are what give the illusion of things being unoriginal, and the gritty realization of the fact that aspects like these have been done before. So -technically-, no matter what you do, it's been done before. Always.

 

[RamirezDoEverything]

Fight Club.
Nuff' said.

You do know that was based on a novel right?

God Damn it, I forgot the book, but the book was original

Here's another one, Lord of the Rings(THE BOOKS)
Tolkien created a new world, that's pretty original

 

[Numb1lp]

Nope. The Simpsons have already done everything.

 

[N1ceDreamz]

It would be very hard to find/think of an original setting. WW2, (near?) future, medival times, alternate realites, all used. A story can be very oringal if you were to go though alot of ideas I'm sure you'd come up with something fairly new. But in my own opinion it's not how original the story is but how well it's excuted.

 

[templargunman]

I completely disagree with the concept of this thread. Sure, if you take a broad enough look at a story, it will be unoriginal, but that's a stupid way of looking at things. What most critics will be complaining about is when either the story or the world the story is placed in is too similar to another story. For example, people complained because avatar had the same story as dances with wolves and Pocahontas. At the same time, most people didn't care because the story was secondary to the world of Pandora. When you're watching a movie or reading a book about a specific point, it's going to share a lot of similarities to other stories based around the same point. So yes, at this point it's probably impossible to come up with a broad genre of story that's different than any other, but specific stories can still be broad and different. This "guy" (you should really learn to cite sources because right now this guy could be your 10th grade English teacher for all I know) is talking on a very broad sense, sure, you can boil any story down to sci-fi or fantasy or war or something else, and sure, you can boil down characters in the same way, but the specifics are what matter. If I wanted to I could put every story and every character into one grouping. Every story falls under the story group, and every character falls under the character group. Now I could say that The Hobbit is the same as 1984, as they are both stories. Also, what do you imply by original, does that mean that every facet of the story is completely unique? Does every story that uses elves and dwarves copy the Tolkien world? Does every story that uses the Vietnam War as it's setting copy Apocalypse Now? Think about the difference between Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, even though those movies both use similar character archetypes, and have similar aspects, such as the setting and time period, they are drastically different movies. So I guess really, the question is what you mean by original, because if it means completely unique, you're pretty much narrowed down to pure nonsense using a completely unheard of and made up language using a completely made up form of script. But even then, someone at some point has probably done that for some reason. So really, nobody has had an original thought sense our race achieved sentience.

 

[Patrick Dare]

What stories have ever been original? Even the first stories written down, the first novels were based on tales orally passed down, mythologies, etc. which were based on other tales, mythos, etc.

Spoiler: snip

Yeah, complete originality is not possible. But originality within said stories is definitely possible. For instance, Dances with Wolves would make a pretty awesome sci-fi movie if the basic story took place on a beautiful, fully-realized fictional planet with some cool sci-fi concepts thrown in. But of course there would be plenty of people who would decry it for being a story that's been told before, because apparently retelling a great story in an original setting is bad. And yes, I know exactly which movie I'm talking about here.

Originality in stories is not about what the story is, it's about how its presented. The little details, the small changes, the original scenarios placed within an old metanarrative. An old story with new and interesting characters, or a few original ideas, can be awesome.

EDIT: And by the way, insane stories made up of completely random crap don't count. Yes, it would be original to have a story about a transvestite armed with a box of jello saving his hometown from zombified aliens specifically targeting said town because it had delicious apple pie and pretty women. It would be very original. It would also suck. Originality for the sake of originality never works.

Another great example is "O Brother, Where Art Thou?". That movie was based on "The Odyssey" and yet was very original and just an awesome movie.

 

[ApeShapeDeity]

The thing about story telling is that it is necessarily referential. You HAVE to be telling a story about something. Fiction writers have to rely on thier knowlege and experiences to draw upon for thier ideas. These things will be mythological, archetypal, historical, personal and hypothetical in nature.

Not withsanding this fact, I would say that while if you deconstruct any story, you're going to find references and infulences. This does not make the story itself unoriginal. No. Rather, I would postulate that the way that these elements are used contextually, combined with clever writing and a deep understanding of what makes people tick psychologically can combine to make a thoroughly original, intruigeing story.

In short, referential does NOT equal unoriginal.