Thursday, January 18, 2007

Inspired by...


...Indiana Jones and Lara Croft? Heck, more like ripped-off from.

Caught the premiere of Robin Padilla's "Asian Treasures" and wondered how long it will take for someone to sue them for copyright infringement.

The concept of adventurers gathering asian treasures is fine. Having the female lead as a spoiled rich girl with a bad boy for a bodyguard is a bit cliched but can still work. Dressing them up as Indy and Lara (even Angel's wetsuit is silver-gray) crosses over from being slightly derivative to totally copied.

What's sad is that there are so many original ideas out there, usually in comicbook form. Darna and Captain Barbell are nice but there is a lot of new stuff out there just begging to be filmed. Budgette Tan's "Trese" would make a great TV series (provided they followed the British model and made a series of only 12 episodes) combining mystery, horror, and pinoy pop culture. Think "Buffy" meets the "X-Files" set in Malate. Tobie Abad's "Diliman" is another cool urban fantasy deal that knows its sources and tries to come up with something original.

Of course the creators may not want to part with their pet projects just yet. Money notwithstanding, the idea of the work being bastardized and dumbed-down may just be too much for some writers. "Zsa-zsa Zaturrnah" is probably the exception.

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