Green Knight
First Post
Villano said:
I remember that episode. DAMN, I loved that series!
White Wolf sues Sony over the movie "Underworld"
I remember that episode. DAMN, I loved that series!
WayneLigon
Adventurer
Reading through the linked PDF document about the similarities... I think there might be some similarities but Blade had many of the same similarities that seem most pointed (the governing body, the distinction of age/bloodlines). Others are utterly silly (like saying that both works say that silver harms werewolves, or that both works have vampires that are strong and fast). Only the use of 'Abomination' could, I think, be really taken as derivative. So much of WW's core vampire book is a derivation itself from compiled souces that I don't think they have a leg to stand on, myself, but I'm no lawyer. I guess we'll know more after the film's release in a couple weeks.
frankthedm
First Post
Originally Posted by Villano
I think your thinking of The Real Ghostbusters. In the end, the wolves and the vamps fought. Each time a vamp bit a wolf and vice versa, they infected each other, turning into bat-winged vampwolves. Then the Ghostbusters blew up the dam or bridge of something which caused the town to be surrounded by running water, trapping all the vampwolves.
RGB Ruled. one of the best american cartoons of all time. I am enjoying a DL of 'the collect call of cathulhu' right now.
Blade's vampire clan situation smelled a little like white wolf's stuff. Underworld so far has a visable miasma of WW funk.
I think your thinking of The Real Ghostbusters. In the end, the wolves and the vamps fought. Each time a vamp bit a wolf and vice versa, they infected each other, turning into bat-winged vampwolves. Then the Ghostbusters blew up the dam or bridge of something which caused the town to be surrounded by running water, trapping all the vampwolves.
Green Knight said:
RGB Ruled. one of the best american cartoons of all time. I am enjoying a DL of 'the collect call of cathulhu' right now.
Blade's vampire clan situation smelled a little like white wolf's stuff. Underworld so far has a visable miasma of WW funk.
Tratyn Runewind
First Post
Hi again,
Man, it must be cool to be able to read minds. Sure you don't have a little Auspex yourself? A movie company rips off from the same literary sources that a game company does, takes Goth-flavored words that have been in the dictionary for centuries as its terms, and because the game company used the some of the same non-copyrighted words with the same meanings in similar ways in its rip-offs, the movie producers are suddenly a devious crew of IP pirates? "Childe" in particular is right out of Lord Byron, patron saint of Goth hipster arrogance, but Heaven forbid you use it anywhere near a vampire, or the lawyers will come a-knocking. Now, some of the plot points being similar is indeed not a coincidence. Perhaps Baz Luhrmann, Leonardo di Caprio, and Clare Danes should be suing Sony as well...
Incidentally, the first decadent, aristocratic, highly organized clan of vampires I ever saw in an RPG was the House of Igorov, in Glantri. They kept their vampirism secret but regularly used their vampiric powers to interfere in mortal politics and carry on depraved affairs with members of other noble houses. They were also considered oppressive among non-noble vampires, leading to conflict and rebellion, because their prince ruthlessly forbade the uncontrolled spreading of vampirism in order to keep his own profile low. Among Igorov's political enemies was Malachie du Marais, a werewolf noble (known as "the White Wolf"!) who led an underground faction of that agitated for equal rights for lycanthropes. GAZ3, The Principalities of Glantri, was published in 1987 (drawing on material, including Malachie, from Module X2, which was out even earlier), and I'm pretty sure V:TM wasn't out before about 1990, give or take a year or two. Given that WW "obviously" ripped off their very name from TSR, how much $$$ do you think WW owes them?
You're not a professional movie maker or critic (so far as you've revealed, anyway
), so I would hardly expect you to have seen every old horror film that has helped form the modern conception of the vampire. But Captain Kronos, while not a big-studio American blockbuster, is one of the last of the famous Hammer Films horror releases, and is considered by many to be one of their best. Hammer is the British studio that made Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee famous. Incidentally, the circumstances of the film itself sound like something that might come out of a quirky RPG campaign, as the main character is an itinerant European swashbuckler of the post-Napoleonic era, wielding a katana (!?).
And no, I don't believe the vampire subtypes were called "clans", nor were they as a group aristocratic or Gothy (though individuals were), nor did they represent RPG character class archetypes. But they did have varying powers (the ones being hunted in the movie drained life force and youth, rather than drinking blood - an obvious IP theft from D&D!) and varying weaknesses (there's a humorous scene with the leads trying various traditional methods to destroy one unfortunate vampire). That seems closer than Underworld's "clans" come to those of WW, if the legal rigamarole can be believed.
Nicely put, Umbran, though at times I'd consider ignorance of WW and its products to be more blessing than stupidity. WW's own free borrowing habits, and their laughable list of "evidence", inclines me to the latter theory.
Yes, it was a worthy follow-on to one of the best comedies of the '80s - most episodes I've seen were, alas, better than Ghostbusters II. Any series that can produce an episode like "Collect Call of Cthulhu" has got to get some props from me!
Yeah, the abominations are superhumanly strong and can be grotesquely ugly. A clear infringement on Marvel Comics copyright! At least as good a claim as some of the other stuff on that list...
By the way, Villano, your name sounds kinda DC Comics-like. Perhaps I'm noticing this because Amazo, Despero, and Eclipso came out in the last DC HeroClix set. But you might want to keep a weather eye open for the lawyers yourself...
Man, it must be cool to be able to read minds. Sure you don't have a little Auspex yourself? A movie company rips off from the same literary sources that a game company does, takes Goth-flavored words that have been in the dictionary for centuries as its terms, and because the game company used the some of the same non-copyrighted words with the same meanings in similar ways in its rip-offs, the movie producers are suddenly a devious crew of IP pirates? "Childe" in particular is right out of Lord Byron, patron saint of Goth hipster arrogance, but Heaven forbid you use it anywhere near a vampire, or the lawyers will come a-knocking. Now, some of the plot points being similar is indeed not a coincidence. Perhaps Baz Luhrmann, Leonardo di Caprio, and Clare Danes should be suing Sony as well...
Incidentally, the first decadent, aristocratic, highly organized clan of vampires I ever saw in an RPG was the House of Igorov, in Glantri. They kept their vampirism secret but regularly used their vampiric powers to interfere in mortal politics and carry on depraved affairs with members of other noble houses. They were also considered oppressive among non-noble vampires, leading to conflict and rebellion, because their prince ruthlessly forbade the uncontrolled spreading of vampirism in order to keep his own profile low. Among Igorov's political enemies was Malachie du Marais, a werewolf noble (known as "the White Wolf"!) who led an underground faction of that agitated for equal rights for lycanthropes. GAZ3, The Principalities of Glantri, was published in 1987 (drawing on material, including Malachie, from Module X2, which was out even earlier), and I'm pretty sure V:TM wasn't out before about 1990, give or take a year or two. Given that WW "obviously" ripped off their very name from TSR, how much $$$ do you think WW owes them?
You're not a professional movie maker or critic (so far as you've revealed, anyway
), so I would hardly expect you to have seen every old horror film that has helped form the modern conception of the vampire. But Captain Kronos, while not a big-studio American blockbuster, is one of the last of the famous Hammer Films horror releases, and is considered by many to be one of their best. Hammer is the British studio that made Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee famous. Incidentally, the circumstances of the film itself sound like something that might come out of a quirky RPG campaign, as the main character is an itinerant European swashbuckler of the post-Napoleonic era, wielding a katana (!?). And no, I don't believe the vampire subtypes were called "clans", nor were they as a group aristocratic or Gothy (though individuals were), nor did they represent RPG character class archetypes. But they did have varying powers (the ones being hunted in the movie drained life force and youth, rather than drinking blood - an obvious IP theft from D&D!) and varying weaknesses (there's a humorous scene with the leads trying various traditional methods to destroy one unfortunate vampire). That seems closer than Underworld's "clans" come to those of WW, if the legal rigamarole can be believed.
Nicely put, Umbran, though at times I'd consider ignorance of WW and its products to be more blessing than stupidity. WW's own free borrowing habits, and their laughable list of "evidence", inclines me to the latter theory.
Yes, it was a worthy follow-on to one of the best comedies of the '80s - most episodes I've seen were, alas, better than Ghostbusters II. Any series that can produce an episode like "Collect Call of Cthulhu" has got to get some props from me!
Yeah, the abominations are superhumanly strong and can be grotesquely ugly. A clear infringement on Marvel Comics copyright! At least as good a claim as some of the other stuff on that list...
By the way, Villano, your name sounds kinda DC Comics-like. Perhaps I'm noticing this because Amazo, Despero, and Eclipso came out in the last DC HeroClix set. But you might want to keep a weather eye open for the lawyers yourself...
Ranger REG
Explorer
Hmm. That brings up a legal question: Aren't Derivative Work also qualified for copyright?WayneLigon said:
Mark Chance
Boingy! Boingy!
Tratyn Runewind said:
Of course, we must remember that those who find WW's suit dubious at best are motivated solely by a hatred of WW. Therefore, people who criticize WW can be safely discounted as irrational cranks.
Tsyr
Explorer
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3
Here is my take, after reading the complaints.
The first chunk of them WW is wasting it's time with... "Vampires and werewolves fight each other with claws and teeth", "Silver harms werewolves", "werewolves and vampires hate each other"... All of those aren't going to get them anywhere, IMO.
The last chunk, those dealing with the novel, those might have a chance of doing something.
Now, I fully believe that the producers and scripwriters of Underworld were AWARE of White Wolf. I'll even go so far as to say I fully believe they did draw from White Wolf for the movie. What I'm not sure about is White Wolf having a valid legal case... particulrly with them not having done anything over Blade.
The ones related to that novel might get them somewhere, though, I don't know.
Here is my take, after reading the complaints.
The first chunk of them WW is wasting it's time with... "Vampires and werewolves fight each other with claws and teeth", "Silver harms werewolves", "werewolves and vampires hate each other"... All of those aren't going to get them anywhere, IMO.
The last chunk, those dealing with the novel, those might have a chance of doing something.
Now, I fully believe that the producers and scripwriters of Underworld were AWARE of White Wolf. I'll even go so far as to say I fully believe they did draw from White Wolf for the movie. What I'm not sure about is White Wolf having a valid legal case... particulrly with them not having done anything over Blade.
The ones related to that novel might get them somewhere, though, I don't know.
Villano
First Post
Tratyn Runewind said:Hi again,
And no, I don't believe the vampire subtypes were called "clans", nor were they as a group aristocratic or Gothy (though individuals were), nor did they represent RPG character class archetypes. But they did have varying powers (the ones being hunted in the movie drained life force and youth, rather than drinking blood - an obvious IP theft from D&D!) and varying weaknesses (there's a humorous scene with the leads trying various traditional methods to destroy one unfortunate vampire). That seems closer than Underworld's "clans" come to those of WW, if the legal rigamarole can be believed.
By the way, Villano, your name sounds kinda DC Comics-like. Perhaps I'm noticing this because Amazo, Despero, and Eclipso came out in the last DC HeroClix set. But you might want to keep a weather eye open for the lawyers yourself...
I'm a big fan of Hammer and Capt. Kronos in particular. I believe there's a dvd of this due out soon and I recommend picking it up as the movie is great.
Anyway, the different types of vamps in that film was a nod to all the various legends dealing with them. Nothing about clans, just different species. The one in this film sucked youth (ususally by biting on the mouth like a kiss), was immune to sunlight, holy symbols, wooden stakes, etc. I'll keep what is was vulnerable to a secret so as not to ruin the "how do we kill him?" scene.
It's a shame that they didn't continue on with the series, I would have loved to have seen Kronos battling nosferatu and chinese hopping vampires. Script ideas even had him meeting up with Dr. Frankenstein and Dracula (most likely played by Cushing and Lee).
And I admit my name is a direct rip-off, not of comics, but of the family (or "clan" if you will
) of Mexican wrestlers. The father was Ray Mendoza (a name which should be familiar to fans of El Santo movies since he appeared in the wrestling scenes in some of them). His children continued the tradition of wrestling, but under masks and the names Villano I, II, III, IV, and V. II was supposedly the most skilled, but I believe he died in a car accident (I know he's dead, but can't quite remember the cause). I just passed away of, I think, a stroke. And their father died not too long ago (I'm pretty sure he headed up the whole Mexican wrestling commission for a time).III is still hanging on, but he lost his mask in a match with Atlantis. IV and V will probably be best know in America since they were with WCW for many years.
Villano V is my personal favorite.
Children of these wrestlers have picked up the hood, but totally screwed up the names by not continuing with VI and VII, instead calling themselves Villano 2000 and Villano, Jr. Bah, kids today!
I don't have to worry about being sued, btw, since "villano" is simply Spanish for "villain". So there.
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Ghostwind
First Post
Without being a lawyer, I would say that WW has made an attempt to use the 60 points of similarities to back up their 17 specific instances. From what it looks like to me, those 17 incidents have more bearing on the Nancy Collins story than actual WW property or concepts. The fact that it was filed in Atlanta rather than Hollywood means it will at least get hearing (although when will be anyone's guess) assuming it goes that far and isn't settled.
As an aside, when I saw the very first trailer, my thoughts were "Oh, they've finally come out with Crow III." (Crow III was supposed to feature a female Crow). There wasn't anything in that trailer that made you think vampires and werewolves that I saw. But then, I don't play WW's WoD. The reason I bring this point up is that the casual person who is not familiar with WW and what it represents will likely look upon this suit as frivolous regardless of what the facts are. Most folks don't have a clue who WW is and have never heard of V:tM.
As an aside, when I saw the very first trailer, my thoughts were "Oh, they've finally come out with Crow III." (Crow III was supposed to feature a female Crow). There wasn't anything in that trailer that made you think vampires and werewolves that I saw. But then, I don't play WW's WoD. The reason I bring this point up is that the casual person who is not familiar with WW and what it represents will likely look upon this suit as frivolous regardless of what the facts are. Most folks don't have a clue who WW is and have never heard of V:tM.
