Critter Island, Lost American Predecessor of Flushed Away
Mar 30, 2024 4:23:55 GMT
MantleM, Trance, and 1 more like this
Post by ModWalletGuy on Mar 30, 2024 4:23:55 GMT
"...And if you think DreamWorks will be above this, like, this isn't their first plagiarism accusation.
This isn't even their first plagiarism accusation involving a bug-themed movie!"
- All Things Lost, "Did Dreamworks Steal the Idea for Bee Movie?"
The Flushed Away and infringement rabbit holes are a lot bigger than we thought, and the newest addition to unite the two topics is Critter Island.
On March 29th, 2024, while I was doing research on a topic for a thread on the 2006 film "Flushed Away", I stumbled across "legal records" for a predecessor that's uncannily in the same vein as Beebylon, a currently lost demonstration for a full-length version older than Bee Movie.
It is on a website known as IP Trademark Attorney, operated by an entity named Milord Law Group, assumingly for documentation purposes.
The page provides a three-paragraph summary on the antecedent of a court case dated in 2009, called Buggs v. Dreamworks, Inc. (All Things Lost, you were righter than you ever thought you were, as this plagiarism accusation was started by somebody named Buggs)
[The preceding is available in this link, or you can read the following in-a-nutshell]
So basically, somebody named Yolanda Buggs was in a film school back in 1999, who also met and became friends with Flushed Away's Creative Executive, Chris Kuser.
Apparently, she thought of the idea for Critter Island in 1999 and actually made a DVD in 2003 containing the finalized screenplay and sent it to him, but never heard anything back.
Fast forward to the Fall of 2006, Buggs watched it, saw her friend's name in the credits, and that's when the lawsuit begins.
This isn't where documentation falls short though, we've still got two more links to go through.
Next up on our tour is Loeb & Loeb (another attorney site), which is luckily a continuation of the lawsuit and a sneak-peek of Critter Island's plot.
This one was dated 3 days after the Christmas of 2010 and explains a 5-paragraph summary of what both sides said to each other in court, but most importantly was the screenplay's story.
The plot of Critter Island goes like this: Two gangs of cockroaches that hate each other inside of a retirement home in Harlem, New York. The rival leaders, named Mario and Vicki, develop feelings in the middle of some human's plans to exterminate them, and of course, get flushed down a toilet, with the goal to return home and deal with the humans.
Unfortunately, Buggs lost the lawsuit in the end, as the court didn't find much of a resemblance.
Our last stop in this thread is an unlikely one and was actually foreshadowed earlier.
Ironically, Critter Island has an entry on IMDb!
The only aspect of this page I will be taking seriously is the poster, as everything else can be fabricated easily.
I cannot imagine that anybody (except, of course, me) would bother to go through the effort to create a mockup of something so incredibly obscure, especially with crew member names and website addresses.
I will keep my doubts on me though, as reverse-image-searches didn't find a possible source.
But then again, I used one that finds EXACT duplicates, rather than one that finds close alternatives. (Or is that not how it works? Machine learning is confusing sometimes)
Let's see, it appears that my to-do list for this thread here is done for now.
Where do I imagine that this thread may go should it receive traction from elsewhere?
...
The poster is the only lead we have right now, so I think that's a good starting point.
This isn't even their first plagiarism accusation involving a bug-themed movie!"
- All Things Lost, "Did Dreamworks Steal the Idea for Bee Movie?"
The Flushed Away and infringement rabbit holes are a lot bigger than we thought, and the newest addition to unite the two topics is Critter Island.
On March 29th, 2024, while I was doing research on a topic for a thread on the 2006 film "Flushed Away", I stumbled across "legal records" for a predecessor that's uncannily in the same vein as Beebylon, a currently lost demonstration for a full-length version older than Bee Movie.
It is on a website known as IP Trademark Attorney, operated by an entity named Milord Law Group, assumingly for documentation purposes.
The page provides a three-paragraph summary on the antecedent of a court case dated in 2009, called Buggs v. Dreamworks, Inc. (All Things Lost, you were righter than you ever thought you were, as this plagiarism accusation was started by somebody named Buggs)
[The preceding is available in this link, or you can read the following in-a-nutshell]
So basically, somebody named Yolanda Buggs was in a film school back in 1999, who also met and became friends with Flushed Away's Creative Executive, Chris Kuser.
Apparently, she thought of the idea for Critter Island in 1999 and actually made a DVD in 2003 containing the finalized screenplay and sent it to him, but never heard anything back.
Fast forward to the Fall of 2006, Buggs watched it, saw her friend's name in the credits, and that's when the lawsuit begins.
This isn't where documentation falls short though, we've still got two more links to go through.
Next up on our tour is Loeb & Loeb (another attorney site), which is luckily a continuation of the lawsuit and a sneak-peek of Critter Island's plot.
This one was dated 3 days after the Christmas of 2010 and explains a 5-paragraph summary of what both sides said to each other in court, but most importantly was the screenplay's story.
The plot of Critter Island goes like this: Two gangs of cockroaches that hate each other inside of a retirement home in Harlem, New York. The rival leaders, named Mario and Vicki, develop feelings in the middle of some human's plans to exterminate them, and of course, get flushed down a toilet, with the goal to return home and deal with the humans.
Unfortunately, Buggs lost the lawsuit in the end, as the court didn't find much of a resemblance.
Our last stop in this thread is an unlikely one and was actually foreshadowed earlier.
Ironically, Critter Island has an entry on IMDb!
The only aspect of this page I will be taking seriously is the poster, as everything else can be fabricated easily.
I cannot imagine that anybody (except, of course, me) would bother to go through the effort to create a mockup of something so incredibly obscure, especially with crew member names and website addresses.
I will keep my doubts on me though, as reverse-image-searches didn't find a possible source.
But then again, I used one that finds EXACT duplicates, rather than one that finds close alternatives. (Or is that not how it works? Machine learning is confusing sometimes)
Let's see, it appears that my to-do list for this thread here is done for now.
Where do I imagine that this thread may go should it receive traction from elsewhere?
...
The poster is the only lead we have right now, so I think that's a good starting point.
