Whenever a movie becomes a huge hit you can immediately expect a sequel. But you can also expect some movie studio you’ve never heard of to quickly release a knockoff with a similar name and plot but without the special effects, production values, or ability of its cast to remember their lines.
Transformers/Transmorphers
If movie knockoffs had their own Oscars, well, fist they’d be called the “Mockars” or “Academic Awards.” Then they would give “Best Picture” to “Transmorphers,” which takes the idea of the Transformers and then ditches all the Autobots, makes the robots be unable to resemble anything but scenery, and moves all of humanity underground, effectively creating the movie “The Decepticons Win and Pretend to Be Mountains While Mankind Cowers and Eats Dirt.”
Up/What’s Up: Balloon to the Rescue!
Imagine Pixar’s “Up” if instead of an emotional, exciting story of an elderly man missing his true love and a small boy needing a father figure you had the tale of scientist who finds a magical stone that turns his house into a balloon so he could start chasing monsters. It would be as if “Finding Nemo” was about a clownfish who loses almost all of his children and so decides to hunt vampires on the coral reef. But whatever “What’s Up” lacks in originality, sensible plot, or endearing characters, it almost makes up for with a lengthy and unexplained hopscotch game on the Great Wall of China.
40-Year-Old Virgin/18-Year-Old Virgin
The original “40-Year-Old Virgin” is a funny, heartwarming movie about a lonely man who makes friends, meets that special someone, and finally grows up. The “18-Year-Old Virgin” is about an attractive girl who can’t seem to get laid before graduation, a plot that only makes sense if she goes to school at a monastery, a music academy for the castrati, or attends classes online. It’s just yet another in a long line of cinematic masterpieces by Asylum, a production company that has given the world such beloved classics as “Snakes on a Train,” “30,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” Almighty Thor” and “Titanic II.”
Iron Man/Metal Man
What if “Iron Man” has saved it’s most exciting, explosive battles for parking lots, front lawns of the studio’s unsuspecting neighbors, and the producer’s apartment living room? And what if instead of letting the hero take off his crimefighting suit, you made his life a living hell by trapping him forever inside cheap armor, making it look like someone accidentally hot-glued a homemade Halloween costume to their skin? Well, then you would have a superhero movie that may be the first chapter towards its own “Avengers” film, no doubt to be called “Heroes Get-together’ or “Metal Man, Norse Guy, Captain Patriot, Angry Green Monster, and the Other Two.”
Kung-Fu Panda/Chop Kick Panda
Pixar isn’t the only animation house to be ransacked for ideas, as seen by this movie that has been defended on IMDB with the comment “Pandas aren’t copyrighted.” (Well, neither are people, so obviously that commenter won’t mind should his identity ever be stolen.) In this apparently legally acceptable film a fat panda named “Lu” learns martial arts and fights alongside other animals against an evil tiger…then probably DreamWorks’ attorneys…to prove that no animal is owned by a studio, no idea is owned by its creator, and no movie can be made that it can’t be copied right down to its cover art in the hopes of confusing grandparents during holiday DVD shopping time.
Star Wars/The Man Who Saved the World
Also known as “Turkish Star Wars,” “The Man Who Saved the World” not only steals plot elements but also actual footage from Lucas. And from the Soviet space program. And the soundtracks to “Battletstar Galactica” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The end result is like a six-year-old who altered his home movie to prove his birthday party featured Bane taking over Gotham City. The film opens with our hero crashing his ship into a desert planet. There he confronts an evil wizard who uses a special force—and clips of X-Wing fighters, TIE fighters, and the Millennium Falcon—to attack an Earth that protects itself with a giant shield of human brain waves, effectively making the good guys the Death Star. Then everyone is attacked by zombies, skeletons on horseback, a robot with a police siren on its head, and college football mascots as people get into kung fu fights and repeatedly punch rocks for a movie that has the narrative logic of a small child telling a story while under the influence of 42 bowls of Cocoa Puffs and a 102-degree fever.
What movies do you plan on making low budget rip offs of? Let us know in the comments below!
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