DreamWorks' Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken

[Ben]

Well, no. They didn’t.

[blackcauldron85]

Even if most DreamWorks films don't make fun of Disney, right off the bat there was the Antz / A Bug's Life controversy, which didn't sit well with many Disney fans, right? And The Road to El Dorado / The Emperor's New Groove both being set in South America {some might say that's stretching, but some were surprised at that similarity back then}, same with Spirit / Home on the Range . Then to have Shrek actually making fun of Disney, and the Shark Tale / Finding Nemo controversy (even when the film was announced, people assumed DreamWorks was copying Pixar)...there was similar (even if small) controversy about Flushed Away / Ratatouille having rats...

All that to say, DreamWorks definitely had a reputation of copying and making fun of Disney. Even when they had plenty of films that were completely unique (and even when the films barely had anything in common but had the same type of setting or animal star), and when they were past that era of films and the films didn't have any similarities to Disney's, they for years had those controversies giving them that reputation.

[Ben]

It doesn’t stop at animation. Armageddon/Deep Impact for instance. Outside of Antz/Bug's Life, most of these are coinkidinks. There are very few new ideas — especially being come up with from the same kind of people — that it can sometimes get blown out of proportion. Look at Rio and Newt, and yet no-one heaps the same kind of sentiment on Pixar for attempting the same kind of story. DreamWorks has always been the Fleischeresque, satirical reply to Disney, by design or fault, but a little ribbing is never a bad thing, and can be a good thing on occasion.

This one might be a little close to the knuckle, and perhaps intentionally so, but it’s not like they’re making an outright Mermaid spoof. After all, when Tiny Toons did it and sang Beneath The Ocean, we all loved that because we got the joke. You have to have a target to hit before you can take aim…

[Daniel]

Whoops. Wrong cartoon.

[Ben]

Good evening, Mr Leno…

Love that movie.

[EricJ]

And The Road to El Dorado / The Emperor's New Groove both being set in South America {some might say that's stretching, but some were surprised at that similarity back then}, same with Spirit / Home on the Range .

There's rumors that the early versions of "Kingdom of the Sun" and "Sweating Bullets" were on Katzenberg's desk back when he was at Disney, so there's means and opportunity as well as motive.
Both Disney projects started out serious, but quickly went into revisions and turned into self-deconstructing comedies when DWA announced their suspiciously similar Conquistador and horse projects.

(As for Sinbad/Treasure Planet, that's stretching it a bit for an unbroken run of "coincidences", but wouldn't put it past them.)

[Dacey]

Sources? Citations? Anything?

[Ben]

And as we all know, Katzenberg resisted making Treasure Planet so long he had to leave the studio before they could do it!

I thought Sinbad was another Spielberg suggestion, based on his childhood love of Harryhausen, and wasn’t Sweating Bullets always a pastiche if not an outright comedy?

[blackcauldron85]

wasn’t Sweating Bullets always a pastiche if not an outright comedy?

It started as a ghost story...
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Sweating_Bullets

[Ben]

Omigosh, that’s right, but even that far back it’s clear from the concept art and, especially with the introduction of Bullets himself, that sly nods and comedy were going to be a bit part of this. You can still see the bonkers idea of Alameda Slim leading the cows along the top of the early title treatment!

[gaastra]

Don't forget volcano and donte's peak.

June we have it again with spider-verse 2 and flash weeks from each other! Two multiverse universe jumping hero movie weeks from each other.

Also don't forget the newt and rango mess.

[Ben]

Dante's Peak. I loved Volcano's poster tagline, "the coast is toast"!

I don’t think we can honestly say Spidey 2 and Flash are similar thesedays: almost every superhero thingy has the multiverse going on, and both have shifted release dates.

And it was Newt and Rio, as mentioned above, not Rango. The plots and character traits were too similar so Pixar canned their version. Sometimes — usually — it’s just total coinkidinks!

[gaastra]

Yup. Sorry. More crazy about newt is that had a bunch of it animated before they scrapped it!

As for flash both are heroes who go to other realities with multiple versions of themselves teaming up with older versions fighting to save reality weeks from each other. They are pretty similar.

[EricJ]

Also, Flash's multiverse movie is loosely based on the "Flashpoint" comic story, which already got a DC Animated, and is...pretty much the ONLY story fans can remember from Flash's solo comic.

[Randall]

They did it on the current Flash TV show, too. It's already getting old, though the film has reportedly gotten very positive responses.