Inspirations: The Series

Posts from the "Inspirations" series by Jesse S. Smith explore the source of creative inspirations for popular works of literature, art, and media.

Inspirations: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

May 10, 2021 by Jesse S. Smith

My “Inspirations” series has considered a number of instances where one creative work was inspired by another creative work; but I recently came across a fascinating instance where a well-known creative work was apparently based on previous creative work by the same author.

The author was Douglas Adams, best known for his bestselling comic sci-fi series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In addition to the bestselling books, Adams’ post-apocalyptic spacefaring story of The Guide was also produced as a BBC radio series; a BBC television series; and a Hollywood movie starring Martin Freeman and Zooey Deschanel.

But did you know that it was all based on work Adams had previously done as a screenplay writer and editor for the long-running hit BBC television series, Doctor Who?

Don’t Panic! Read on to learn more.

Douglas Adams and Doctor Who

In the late 1970’s, Douglas Adams was a relative unknown, working as a screenplay writer and editor for the BBC. In that role, Douglas Adams wrote the script for Doctor Who, Season 16 episodes 4-8: a miniseries called “The Pirate Planet.” This was during the classic period of the original Doctor Who series, starring beloved Tom Baker as The Doctor.

Just a few months later, Douglas Adams apparently reused many of the concepts and characters, and even some of the dialogue from his episodes of Doctor Who, and included them into the radio broadcast which eventually evolved into his smash bestselling series of humorous novels, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the work for which he is best known.

Tracing the Inspirations

It is amazing to go back and watch these episodes of Doctor Who, because of how clearly the author’s inspirations for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are drawn from the same ideas that he incorporated into these episodes of Doctor Who.

The Vogon/Pirate Captain

For example, the “inciting incident” in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (which I’ll be referring to as “HHG2G” for short) centers on a spaceship piloted by an evil-hearted Vogon captain who is set on destroying the Earth. He destroys the Earth, and in the process accidentally picks up two hitchhikers: the hapless Arthur, and his friend Ford Prefect.

A James Bond influence?

Doctor Who Season 16 episode 5 opens with the maniacal evil authoritarian captain.

The evil captain in this show is initially portrayed in much the same way as the classic Bond villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (the “Number One” from the evil organization SPECTRE). With the camera angled so we don’t see his face, we only see his hand as he’s stroking his pet; except that in the case of the captain in this episode of Doctor Who, the pet is not a cat, it is some sort of robot (which later goes on to kill several people).

The captain is shouting, he’s insulting people, he’s demanding, he’s calling names, he’s making threats, and then he makes an announcement over the Public Address system: “This is your captain speaking.” In HHG2G, the Vogon captain is introduced in much the same manner: making announcements over a PA system, blustering and bullying and threatening and soon carrying out his threats.

Parallels between Doctor Who and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The show cuts to The Doctor conversing with K-9, a robotic dog with annoying personality characteristics: somewhat reminiscent of Eddie the shipboard computer on the HHG2G starship, Heart of Gold.

The Doctor next speaks to Romana, a recurring character in the series, a brilliant scientist with a high degree of understanding about astrophysics. She is in the process of reading a technical manual, and soon offers a correction to the Doctor when he appears to make a mistake. Her character in this moment is reminiscent of Trillian (Trisha McMillan) from HHG2G, who graduated from University with a degree in astrophysics. After the Doctor experiences some difficulty, Romana successfully lands the TARDIS, much as Trillian successfully takes over the controls of the Heart of Gold to evade the flying missiles over the planet Magrathea.

The travelers expect the planet they have landed on to be “cold, wet, icy, no life of any sort” – again, this is very similar verbiage to the description of Magrathea when they land there in the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

The Infinite Improbability Drive vs. The TARDiS

The Infinite Improbability Drive in the spaceship Heart of Gold passes simultaneously through every point in the known Universe. It also causes very strange things to happen as a sort of side effect.

I had always assumed that the Infinite Improbability Drive was probably inspired by some very good LSD; but I am noticing now that this episode of Dr. Who that Douglas Adams wrote also deals with a spaceship (the TARDIS).

As Romana explains it, the TARDIS “dematerializes in one location, passes through a space-time vortex, and rematerializes in another location.”

The Doctor as a precursor to Arthur Dent

When they reach a populated area, the Doctor arrogantly tells Romana to wait while he goes and makes contact with the locals. Romana does not wait, because the Doctor fails in his attempts to strike up a conversation with some passers-by who completely ignore him. The Doctor then engages in conversation with K-9 the robot dog, who posits that Romana is actually likely to have greater success striking up a conversation with the locals. While The Doctor is still debating this point with the robot dog, Romana does in fact walk up to a local man and strike up a conversation. She is witty, charming, and intelligent. The local man responds as any man would when a witty charming and intelligent woman walks up to him and begins a conversation. The Doctor then attempts to butt in to the conversation several times, and the other two completely ignore him. The Doctor’s character in this moment is reminiscent of the character of Arthur Dent, who is hapless and poorly socialized, frequently trying to insert himself into conversations with other people who either completely ignore him or else insult him to his face. Yes, I said it: The Doctor in this moment, Doctor Who himself, is a precursor character to the character of Arthur Dent.

Psychic Powers?

A major subplot in The Pirate Planet miniseries involves a group of people with telekinetic psychic powers. At the beginning of The Hitchhiker’s Guide, after Arthur and Ford arrive on the Vogon ship, they find a “tele-psychic helmet” and reject it as impractical.

Air Cars and Hyperspace Corridors

The pirates of the Pirate Planet drive from place to place in air cars, just like the one Slartibartfast drives on the planet Magrathea in HHG2G.

On the Pirate Planet, there’s a magical hallway that functions as a sort of space-time portal. It’s like a moving walkway that transports the person from point A to point B via some sort of hyperspace corridor – again, very reminiscent of the passage that Slartibartfast takes Arthur through, as they travel to the heart of Magrathea.

The Doctor is traveling with some sort of side companion, a minor side character for this episode, and he says, “I want you to do something very important,” and then he instructs him to go out and wait outside. It’s nearly the same line that Zaphod Beeblebrox says to Arthur, when all the others enter a subterranean corridor on Magrathea.

While The Doctor is traveling along this space-time corridor walkway, he is having trouble keeping his balance because he’s traveling so fast, and he makes the comment, “I will never be cruel to an electron in a particle accelerator again!” Douglas Adams clearly rehashed the concept for this line in HHG2G. When Ford and Arthur make the jump to hyperspace, shortly after their arrival on the Vogon ship, Ford and Arthur have the following exchange:

Ford: It’s rather unpleasantly like being drunk.

Arthur: What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?

Ford: Ask a glass of water. (ba dum, tss!)

[ Ship enters hyperspace ]

Arthur: I’ll never drink a gin and tonics again!

Tough Guards

In the second of the Pirate Planet episodes, The Doctor tries to empathize with one of the pirate guards by saying, “Standing around all day looking tough must be very wearing on the nerves.” The line is very similar to something Ford Prefect says to a Vogon guard in HHG2G. Trying to convince the guard not to throw himself and Arthur out an airlock, Ford tries to empathize with the Vogon guard about the wearying duties of looking tough, shouting at people, and throwing them out of airlocks.

A Planet Within a Planet

The Doctor and Romana discover that there is a planet inside the planet; because as it turns out, the eponymous planet from Doctor Who is a Pirate Planet that goes around and eats other planets. It essentially the same concept as the planet Magrathea from HHG2G, but in reverse: there are many planets inside the planet Magrathea because it’s the planet that manufactures planets.

Falling from the Sky

Early in Episode 3 of the “Pirate Planet” miniseries, one character tells of a legend about the arrival of the Captain, falling from the sky in a spaceship with a clap of thunder. To fans of HHG2G, this may be suggestively reminiscent of how the prototype spaceship was given to the inhabitants of Krikkit in book 3, Life the Universe and Everything.

Destroying the Earth

At last, the Pirate Captain reveals his nefarious plan. The pirate planet is next going to jump to Planet Terra in the star system Sol, and destroy it. The entire plot of HHG2G similarly revolves around the Vogon destruction of the Earth (to make way for a hyperspace bypass).

“Don’t Panic!”

In episode 3 of the Pirate Planet miniseries, The Doctor is bound and tied up at the bridge, where he is interviewed by the pirate captain. Similarly, Arthur and Ford are bound and tied up at the bridge and interviewed by the Vogon captain early in HHG2G.

During this interview, The Doctor turns to his side character companion and says, “Don’t Panic!” Fans of The Guide will immediately recognize this phrase. “Don’t Panic!” becomes the catchphrase for HHG2G, and the entire marketing strategy for the Guide book itself: printed on the book cover in large, friendly letters.

Thrown Off the Ship

And then, at the end of Part 3 of this miniseries, the Doctor gets thrown off the Pirate ship by the Captain. This incident is clearly based on stories of pirates who make their captives “walk the plank,” but the scene clearly became the basis for the scene in HHG2G in which, as fans will remember, Ford and Arthur get put into an airlock and thrown off of the Vogon ship.

Spoiler Alert!

And in the end, the entire situation is resolved when a giant computer bank explodes. In precisely the same way, in the BBC radio and TV series production of HHG2G (but not in the book or the Hollywood movie), the situation on Magrathea is resolved when a giant computer bank explodes during a laser beam shootout with some Galactic police officers.

Conclusion

The parallels between these Douglas Adams stories are numerous, and when you begin to notice them they are obvious and hilarious.

There are several more instances from about the same time of early Douglas Adams work on Doctor Who that pops up again later in his writings.

Doctor Who, S17.E2 “Destiny of the Daleks” was written by Terry Nation, but Douglas Adams is credited as a “Script Editor” for that show. In one scene, The Doctor is seen reading the book, “The Origins of the Universe” by Oolon Caloophid. Oolon Caloophid is mentioned several times in HHG2G as a rather obnoxious and long-winded scholarly writer who pens long series of self-important tomes… not unlike yours truly.

Douglas Adams once again worked as the Script Editor for Doctor Who S17.E8, “City of Death.” That show includes an incident that involves traveling back in time to the primordial Earth to prevent a catastrophe that would have erased history, and it’s all somehow tied together with a famous work of art. In this show’s case the work of art is the Mona Lisa; but if you swap it out for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Xanadu,” Douglas Adams fans may recognize the central plot of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.

Rescued by a Lucky Number

I offer one final example of early Douglas Adams work that appeared later in his HHG2G series. Douglas Adams wrote the script for Doctor Who season 17 episode 12, “The Creature from the Pit.” That episode concludes with the following exchange:

The Doctor: We did it!
Alien: I still say it was impossible.
Romana: So do I. Though I did calculate our chances of success at 74,384,338 to one against.
The Doctor: What? 74,384,338? That’s extraordinary!
Romana: Why?
Doctor: Well, that’s my lucky number!

Fans of HHG2G will recall the scene when Ford and Arthur are thrown out the Vogon airlock into the icy depths of outer space, and are unexpectedly rescued from certain death by a passing spaceship at an improbability factor of 2 to the power of 276,709 to 1 against (which my phone’s calcutor app says is outside the accepted range). By a staggering coincidence, we are given to understand, this number is also the phone number of a flat in Islington where Arthur, Trilian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox all met for the first time at a party. It was a very lucky number indeed.

Until we meet again, dear reader, keep exploring those coincidences, and have a great day.

Inspirations: Les Misérables

March 6, 2020 by Jesse S. Smith

As it turns out, the melody for the song “Bring Him Home” from the musical Les Misérables is closely based on the melody of the song, “Humming Chorus” from Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly.”

The Songs

The hit musical Les Misérables was hugely influential during my formative years. We used to listen to the soundtrack at home, and at one point I knew most of the words: even to the songs with lots of words. Once in high school I entered a talent show singing “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” and to this day I still sing “Castle on a Cloud” to my youngest as a bedtime lullaby. Furthermore, the story of the priest who gives fugitive convict Jean Valjean a pair of valuable silver candlesticks, still has the power to move me to tears; and I made a somewhat mocking reference to it in my (still unpublished) Robin Hood retelling.

Humming Chorus

My point is, this musical has been a big part of my life; so imagine my surprise the other day when I was listening to the radio and I heard this piece from Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly”:

Bring Him Home

Fans of Les Misérables will recognize the melody line from the “Humming Chorus” of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” … because it is essentially the same as the melody line in the song, “Bring Him Home” from Les Mis.

(Hat tip to the program, “Sunday Brunch” on All Classical Portland 89.9 FM for pointing this out!)

Now, obviously it’s not the same song… but this is not merely an indirect inspiration, either. In this case, the composers of Les Misérables directly borrowed some of the notes from Puccini.

Inspiration versus Derivation

Usually, the distinction is obvious; but there are times when drawing the line between inspiration and derivation can sometimes be a surprisingly tricky question, one that is sure to continue to perplex content creators for many years to come.

Sampling and Mash-Up Culture

Modern technology tools create new dilemmas for professional content creators, as everything from music to visual art and even low-budget cinema utilizes “sampling” and “mash-ups” to create new content based on portions of existing content created by someone else. Such works are considered “derivative works” for the purpose of copyright law; and the creator of the mash-up, if they are ethical and professional, pays a royalty to the original content creator, and acknowledges the original creator’s contribution to the work.

Inspiration and Incorporation

Regardless of tools and techniques, as this series tries to make clear, all artists take some measure of inspiration from somewhere, be it their own personal experiences or other works of art. As creators, we create something new because we like creating new things. As humans, our ideas are based on other ideas. Even completely abstract art is inspired by an entire movement of abstract art. That’s not an excuse to steal others’ work: that’s an invitation to consider how new ideas are formed; how we put our own personal unique stamp on creations that are based on historical events or derived from existing genres; and how we incorporate familiar ideas intended to appeal to the audience.

The Good

For an example of how to do this well, look no further than another popular (and political!) musical: the Broadway mega-hit, Hamilton. The album liner notes and the performance playbill directly credit a number of influences. Hamilton’s producers made no effort to argue that these were brief references to well-known elements of popular culture and therefore subject to a “fair use” exception. Instead, Hamilton’s “lawful good” producers went all-in the other way, and gave a detailed accounting of every cultural reference included in the work, even if it was only a few words long, and gave credit to the original author for each.

The Bad

For an example of how to do this poorly, just shudder to recall the scandal over Vanilla Ice and his one-hit wonder song of self-absorption, “Ice Ice Baby.” Although the rapper denied it at the time, his song very obviously sampled the bass line from the much better song, “Under Pressure” by Queen featuring special guest David Bowie. The copyright lawsuit dominated entertainment news headlines at the time, and Vanilla Ice eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

The Ugly

It seems like there is a major copyright battle of this sort every generation. To our everlasting shame, “Vanilla Ice” (discussed above) was the signature copyright fight of my generation. Here are a couple more examples of inspiration gone wrong.

“My Sweet Lord”

George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” completely stole the melody of “He’s So Fine” by the Chiffons. I’m willing to give George the benefit of the doubt and speculate that in his heroin-induced haze, he totally forgot that he had heard the song somewhere else and honestly believed that he had written it; but the fact is, if you listen to the two pieces back to back, it’s clear that George based his song on the other.

“Blurred Lines” versus “Got To Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye

More recently, the heirs of Marvin Gaye’s estate won a copyright lawsuit that I personally have always believed was decided incorrectly.

In that case, the song “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke did not borrow any specific aspects of the melody from Marvin Gaye’s famous “Got to Give It Up”; nor did it sample the recording, nor even directly copy the beat of the original piece. Instead, the song that lost the case had borrowed elements of the production technique: such as beginning the song with party sounds in the background; starting with a loose drum beat; and then adding a male singer performing in the falsetto range.

When I took a course on the Study of Jazz in college, my professor (Dave Glenn, great guy, trombone player) devoted one of his lectures to a discussion of copyright law. According to his explanation, you can only copyright the melody of a song. (And the lyrics, of course.) A melody is recognized based on the relationship of the notes to each other; it is understood to be the same melody, even when the key and the tempo are changed. His point was, you cannot copyright a chord progression, because so many songs share the same chord progression. At some point, someone invented the 12-bar blues; and at some point, someone else extended that to the 16-bar blues; and over the next several decades, thousands of songs were written based on those two chord progressions. Those blues songs may all be classified as works within a given genre, but nobody would make the argument that they are all derivative works based on one specific song. They are all works based on a common chord progression; and for this reason, chord progressions cannot be copyrighted. (This is fortunate for the heavy metal genre, as well; otherwise all songs based on riffs in E minor would owe royalties to the first one.)

I thought it set a dangerous precedent to award a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs in that case, because there are a lot of songs that incorporate those specific production techniques. Many songs include party sounds in the background, and many songs include a male vocalist singing falsetto. Neither of these is copyrightable. I listened several times to the clips of back-to-back audio intended to support the case, and I have to say, I did not hear a similarity that would justify a $7 million verdict. As someone who was once a semi-professional musician, they sounded like completely different pieces of music to me. They did not meet the necessary standard of sharing a common melody. I believe this was a case when a work inspired by another work was incorrectly identified as a derivative work. However, again as content creators, whatever our beliefs, it is important to remember the court’s finding in this case, and do our best to steer clear of grey areas that could wind up getting us into trouble.

Public Domain

Returning to our original consideration, of the melody to “Bring Him Home” — Fortunately for us, as armchair philosophers, we don’t have to wrestle with the extremely sticky question of whether or not the piece of music in question retains enough of the character of the original to be considered a “derivative work.” (That said, a warning, in case you are considering directly borrowing the work of another artist and incorporating it into your own: if circumstances were different, the composers of Les Misérables would almost certainly owe royalties to Puccini.) In this case it is not a consideration, because Puccini’s music is in the public domain.

Giacomo Puccini died in 1924. At that time, international copyright law was very limited in scope and only offered protection for 14 years after publication. In the United States, the Copyright Act of 1976 established copyright protection for the lifetime of the creator plus 50 years after their death. Even using this standard, Puccini’s work would still have fallen into the public domain when Les Misérables was first performed in 1980. However, note that the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 changed the duration of copyright protection to last for 75 years after the death of the creator. Under the terms of that latest extension, if this scenario were to somehow repeat itself, the heirs of a modern Puccini would have a valid claim against the producers of a future musical.

Generally, a work that is in the public domain can be adapted, repurposed, reworked, republished, or performed, without paying royalties to the creator of the original work (or their estate, since copyright law now provides protection for decades after death). Works created by government agencies; works created by someone who has been dead for a certain period of time (provided the copyright was not renewed — a topic beyond the scope of this post); as well as any edition of a Medieval manuscript: are generally considered to fall into the public domain. It would be an act of fraud to claim that you were the original creator of such a work in its entirety; but other than that, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it: sample it, remix it, paraphrase it, quote it, whatever.

Based on this principle, the composers of the Les Miserables soundtrack were well within their rights to quote Puccini, whose work was in the public domain at that time. I should add that the composers were not trying to be sneaky; they assumed that everyone would get the reference, and my surprise on learning this after decades is a result of my own ignorance. In quoting his work as they did, the composers of Les Miserables were paying tribute to an influential composer, someone who they admired greatly.

Inspirations

This series of blog posts seeks to explore the boundaries between ideas: where they come from and how they are developed into new ideas that stand on their own. Check out some of the other posts in the “Inspirations” series, and drop a comment below to let me know your thoughts!

Inspirations: The X-Files and Twin Peaks

July 10, 2019 by Jesse S. Smith

Twin Peaks was a show about an FBI agent investigating a bizarre situation powered by supernatural events… just like The X-Files.

Inspirations: Part 3

This is the latest in a series of posts that discuss the correlations between popular works of fiction and the sources which inspired those works.

Twin Peaks

As I was watching Twin Peaks one recent day, I found myself thinking that this early 1990’s TV series about an FBI agent who investigates paranormal incidents and strange murder that turns out to involve magic and Supernatural forces a show set in rural Washington state of all things and that this with a haunting ethereal introductory theme song to top it all off just might have influenced the hit TV show The X-Files.

The X-Files is a show which launched just a few years after Twin Peaks concluded; a show featuring a pair of paranormal investigators from the FBI, who spend their time checking out crime scenes, often in rural Washington State (at least in the early seasons); a show that also featured a haunting ethereal theme song to top it off.

I was contemplating these similarities to myself as I watched an episode of Twin Peaks, when all of a sudden I saw that this one particular episode in Season 2 guest starred a very young actor by the name of… wait for it… David Duchovny! Duchovny, as we all know, later went on to play Agent Fox Mulder in The X-Files for many years, alongside Gillian Anderson.

So I think it’s safe to say that there’s a pretty direct correlation of inspiration!

I saw Duchovny’s name in the opening title credits, and quickly drafted the above with dictation software. As I continued watching, the script built up to Duchovny’s appearance. The main character (Kyle McLaughlin as Agent Dale Cooper) built him up as this brilliant visiting agent… so imagine the surprise when Duchovny walked in dressed in drag, with a long wig and garish red lipstick.

His character later made an appearance in a man’s suit.

Soap Operas

Twin Peaks, in turn, is clearly inspired by soap operas.

The script openly mocks daytime soap operas such as “Days of Our Lives,” and yet the show mimics them, too. The tangled love lives of the various Twin Peaks characters; their plotting and scheming and double-crossing; their not being sure which rather irritating side character is the father of a particular baby; their descents into persistent vegetative states or demonic possession only to be returned to their normal selves in later episodes: all of these themes are clearly intended to evoke the story lines of popular daytime soap operas. In case the viewer had any doubts about it, David Lynch repeatedly shows his characters watching snippets of a fictitious parody soap opera on their own televisions; and while they watch, the Twin Peaks characters cheer for various characters in the parody TV show, in ways that emphasize each character’s own inner dialogue.

Because Twin Peaks is not altogether innocent of being a bit of a soap opera itself, these parody moments are like the show taking a moment to look in a carnival mirror and poke fun at itself in a distorted view.

To cap it all off, we have to return once again to that haunting theme music, with its synthesizer strings and chords that emphasize the major 9; and the emotional crescendo of the dramatic piano piece that plays during the end credits and at other times of emotional drama throughout the series. It’s too dramatic, and too reminiscent of soap opera theme music, for that to be incidental.

Inspirations for Star Wars

May 13, 2019 by Jesse S. Smith

Inspirations: Part 2

It was always clear to me that George Lucas found his inspiration for “Star Wars” in other science fiction writers and TV shows.

Dune

Tattooine, the desert homeworld where Luke Skywalker grows up and from whence he launches his adventure to the stars, was clearly inspired by Frank Herbert’s blockbuster sci-fi novel Dune and its sequels. In the first Star Wars movie, “A New Hope,” there is even a specific reference to “the spice mines of Kessel,” a torturous prison planet where people are sent for punishment. Spice mining, the reader will recall, was the chief economic activity of the planet Dune (Arrakkis); and the Dune universe also features a torturous prison planet (Selusa Secundus). In Dune, the spice, mélange, grants the user psychic and in some cases prescient abilities, in some ways similar to the abilities The Force grants to the Jedi. On planet Tattoine, Luke works on his uncle’s farm using “moisture vaporators” to collect minute amounts of moisture from the desert air; just as on planet Dune, the Fremen use seitch wind traps to collect minute amounts of moisture from the desert air. Luke has been told (by Uncle Owen) that his father was a pilot on a “spice freighter.” Spice freighter pilots play an important role in the galactic economy of the Dune series. And to top it all off, Jabba the Hut in “Return of the Jedi” looks almost exactly the way Emperor Leto Atriedes is described in God Emperor of Dune, when his body is undergoing its millennia-long metamorphosis into a sandworm.

Egypt

Incidentally, Frank Herbert overtly took the inspiration for the planet Dune from the real-world country of Egypt. The Fremen explicitly state in once scene, “We are the people of Misr.” In the real world, Misr is the Arabic word for Egypt. There is no secret here. Herbert makes it plain: The Fremen tribes of Dune are inspired by the Bedouin tribes of Egypt, transplanted to an imaginary world in the distant future.

Star Trek

Back to George Lucas. It’s not much of a stretch to note that the title of his magnum opus, “Star Wars,” is very similar to the name of a popular sci-fi TV show that he would have grown up watching, a TV show that would have had a major impact on his young imagination and his concept of science fiction itself: a show named, “Star Trek.”

“Millions of voices suddenly cried out”

A few months ago, I was watching Star Trek Season 2 episode 18, “The Immunity Syndrome.” In the opening sequence, a starship with more than 400 Vulcan crew members is destroyed. From many light years away, Spock feels the reverberation of this trauma. He holds his hands to his head in pain, and explains that he “could hear the death scream of 400 Vulcan minds, crying out over the distance between us.”

The reader, familiar with the first Star Wars movie, will recall that Obi-Wan Kenobi feels a similar reverberation of a mass trauma event over a vast stellar distance when the planet Aldebraan is destroyed by the Death Star. He holds his hands to his head in pain, and famously states, “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.”

Note the specific similarity of the phrases “cried out” and “crying out” in both of these scenes.

Inspiration

Lest the reader mistake my intent in pointing out the similarities between these two scenes, I’d like to note explicitly: I do not consider this a case of copyright infringement. I consider this a case of inspiration.

When you put the two scenes side by side, it’s clear (to me) that Lucas was inspired by this scene from Star Trek (which originally aired about a decade prior to the release of the first Star Wars movie). That does not mean that Lucas stole it! His own scene is very different. His characters are different, his universe is different, the dialogue is different, the events are all different. By no means would I ever suggest that Lucas stole the scene from Star Trek. He did not. However, it is clear that even if it was unintentional, he clearly borrowed inspiration from this earlier scene.

This is the nature of creativity. We adopt, adapt, and rework popular ideas. We produce creative works that are influenced, whether or not we mean them to be, by the stories we love and by the culture we live in.

Additional Inspirations

The original Star Wars movie borrowed additional inspiration from a number of sources.

The concept of “shields” as an invisible energy field that surrounds a space ship and deflects weapons fire (and random space debris) is explored in both Star Trek (where the Enterprise frequently loses its shields during space battles) and in Star Wars (where, among other references, the Millennium Falcon loses rear deflector shields during a showdown), but it turns out, speculation about the development of this type of force shield has been a science fiction trope since the 1920’s or earlier, and was extensively discussed by Isaac Asimov.

The “tractor beam,” which the Enterprise uses regularly, and which the Death Star uses to trap the Millennium Falcon, has likewise been a science fiction trope since the early 1930’s.

But the idea that blasters could be set to “stun,” as the Storm Troopers do to capture Princess Leia in the first Star Wars movie, may have been directly borrowed from Star Trek, where the Enterprise crew utilizes this function of their phasers several times.

Fair Use

Incidentally, the images from Star Trek and Star Wars displayed within this post are themselves subject to copyright. They are used in this post under the Fair Use doctrine of copyright law: that a small excerpt from a piece may be quoted for the purpose of nonprofit educational criticism and commentary.

Thanks for your interest. Next time, join us for an exploration of the inspirations for specific narrative lines within Arthurian legend.

Inspiration, the Series: Introduction

May 10, 2019 by Jesse S. Smith

As an author of retellings, I am a huge fan of borrowed inspiration. Rather than something to be ashamed of, I think the links of similarity from inspiration to inspiration are something to “geek out on.” I have personally spent countless delightful hours tracing back the different versions of the Arthurian legends, from modern retellings through Malory to his sources and their sources. It’s awesome!

I believe in copyrights

Now, that said, I am also personally a proponent of copyright law. My belief in copyrights has, in the past, set me at odds with some of my peers, who have a rather more anarchist outlook on the world. I believe that the author of a creative work deserves to earn royalties for that work. It often takes years to write a book, and years more to get it published; years to establish a career and get an agent (or to successfully self-publish it); and years to promote it. Whether an author has written one book or many, this effort represents a substantial portion of their life’s work, and if other people are consuming or otherwise enjoying that work, then the creator deserves to earn a return on the investment of their time and effort. The idea that readers should not have to pay for it because it’s so easy to make a digital copy is simply a rationalization for theft. Even worse, the idea that another author or unscrupulous publisher might profit off an author’s years of hard work by simply plagiarizing it, is beyond shameful.

Inspiration, Not Infringement

There’s an important distinction here. When inspired, an artist takes an idea and makes it her own.

Imagination can only take us so far. Most works of art (in this case, writing) use some idea as an inspiration or starting point. Sometimes the idea is based on the author’s personal experience. Sometimes the idea is based on information they have researched. Often the idea is based on some other author’s writings. For example, many of the greatest works in our culture were inspired by stories from mythology. I could list many more examples here, but that would make this post too long. Instead, this blog post will be the first in a series. I will write follow-up entries discussing the inspirations for the legends of King Arthur; the legends of Greek mythology (especially as told by Ovid in his great work, Metamorphoses); and the great writers of classical English: Shakespeare and Spenser.

Name Your Sources

Just as knowledge is based on sources, so too is credibility a product of naming those sources.

In scholarly works, from peer-reviewed publications and doctoral theses all the way down to an elementary school essay, the author is required to cite her sources. In news reports, the journalist cites sources (even when, as often happens, the source requests anonymity). How we know a thing is often just as important as what it is we know. This is the foundation of science and learning.

I propose that the same may be true of art.

Even a work of fiction usually has a number of sources: from other works of fiction to research materials. Accordingly, in many of my own writing projects, I have added a list of references at the back of the book. I first did this with my manifesto, “Principles for a Self-Directed Society,” which was a work of nonfiction and relied heavily on research to support its assertions. Beginning with “Rise of the Pagans,” I have done this for my works of fiction as well.

Rise of the Pagans

I self-published Rise of the Pagans in 2014. The story of “Rise of the Pagans” is fictional, although one pivotal scene was inspired by a real-life incident, as stated in the Introduction. The words are mine; but the narrative includes constant elements of Pagan mythology and history, interwoven throughout. How can I vouch for the accuracy of the assertions made by the characters in my story? By citing the references that I myself was drawing from as I wrote the novel. In the years since I wrote the book I have discovered several slips of scholarship, where assumption or misunderstanding got in the way of material fact; nonetheless, the book has held up pretty well over time: and because I named my sources, any student of Paganism who decided they really, really cared about the subject matter could check my references for themselves. (To learn more, you can visit the Rise of the Pagans website, or purchase Rise of the Pagans on Amazon).

Retellings and reimaginings

I took this concept and ran with it in my next several projects. First with my King Arthur retelling, then my Greek myths retelling, my Robin Hood retelling, and now my new Norse myths retelling project: I have borrowed scenes, ideas, and in places close paraphrases or even brief quotations from the original sources.

Public Domain

Please note that in my case, the original sources are usually Medieval manuscripts, which are internationally recognized as falling under the law of Public Domain. (Here are some links so you can read more about Public Domain.)

Anyone can do anything they want with those Medieval manuscripts. If I didn’t want to cite my close paraphrasings of them in brief passages, there was no legal requirement that I should do so. But I wanted to. For one thing, I think it’s fun to trace back an idea to its inspiration, and I want to share that geeky joy with the reader. For another thing, I don’t want anyone to ever say that I inappropriately claimed someone else’s work as my own. I’m a stickler for these kinds of details. Because I am consciously writing retellings based on original sources, the best course of action seemed to be to list in detail those sources and how I have used them, down to specific passages.

I would not demand that others do as I have done. I am not attempting to introduce yet another requirement for fiction writers. But I do strongly recommend it.

Do Not Plagiarize Your Peers

Inspiration is one thing; but I would strongly discourage writers from borrowing directly from other contemporary writers. “Plagiarism” is not a pretty word, and inadequately paraphrased passages that closely resemble another author’s work are rightly considered a form of theft. If you do borrow from another writer, get their permission, and give them prominent credit.

For example, the practice of naming sources could avoid situations like that recent incident when a young woman began her poem with a close paraphrase and partial quote of another contemporary poet’s work. That incident may have ruined her career before it even began. Because she failed to cite her source, her action was widely denounced as plagiarism, and the original author was rightly infuriated by the incident. This could have been avoided if she had obtained permission, and credited the original author as the source of her inspiration – and taken greater care to paraphrase rather than quote.

Celebrating Inspiration

We all take inspiration from other sources. But ideas themselves are too ethereal to be protected by copyright law. We must take care never to take other people’s work and claim it as our own: that would be both immoral and illegal. But when we create a work inspired by another work, we should celebrate that fact, rather than feel the need to hide it for fear of running afoul of copyright laws. I propose that when we borrow concepts and ideas, the right thing to do is to credit the source.

All writers and artists take inspiration from other sources. (Every modern fantasy writer is inspired by Tolkein, and to deny it would be pure folly.) There is no shame in acknowledging this fact. Let’s celebrate the bonds of inspiration, and inspire each other to keep creating more.