So bear in mind I'm on day three of not smoking and that's made me more cranky than usual, but I just wanted to take a minute to tell fans of Repo! The Genetic Opera to fucking get over themselves.
In case you haven't heard about this latest little storm of fandom outrage about something stupid (y'know like putting a chinese kung fu star in a movie and then calling it "the karate kid" because duh, don't they know karate is japanese?!?!?!) there's this movie getting made called "Repo Men" about guys who repossess organs purchased on credit whose owners then got foreclosed on. This is the same premise as the aforementioned "Repo! The Genetic Opera." So now RTGO fans are all pissed off because their beloved indie B-Movie is getting "copied" by a big hollywood studio. And how dare the big studio for ripping off such an original idea. Except wait a second, not only is it not an original idea, its a fucking boring one and more than that, the new movie is really a rip off of a truly original and great sci fi flick from way back called "Repo Man," and RTGO is a rip off of that too, the only difference is that rather than repossessing organs, in Repo Man the main character repossesses cars.
In all seriousness now: you people are fucking dumb. Snopes dates the urban legend of organ theft victim wakes up in bathtub full of ice to 1991. Take that premise, combine it with the morally dubious practice of repossession as portrayed in the original repo man, put it in a blender, and voila, insta premise. Never mind the fact that various notions of blackmarket organ sales go back even further. Look at Bladerunner and various fictions of Dick predating "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" having to do with "artiforgs" and the dubious morality around corporations selling them for high profits. But I know what you're gonna say next. That's just how boringly predictable you assholes are. Next you're going to say: no but wait, look see the whole thing is even closer because it's a repo agent who has a repossessable organ and a big evil corporation that turns on him. Yawn. In other words, you're going to point to the biggest cliche in cyberpunk since it was established in neuromancer and say that that is evidence of copying? Do you even know how stupid that sounds? Do you know how stupid it looks to be so passionate about a movie that you think is being copied when that movie itself is just a rip off of a couple of other movies (specifically blade runner meets hedwig and the angry inch, or maybe repo man meets jubilee, its hard to tell for sure i've seen that goddamn flick so goddamn many times before)?
Folks, there is nothing new. Whining about it just makes you look like idiots. So shut up and let this garbage all die the quiet death it deserves as this years Freejack. Or Johnny Mnemonic. Or whatever. Please just shut up.
I want a cigarette.