10 Times Doctor Who Shamelessly Ripped Off Hollywood

[@neilcoatham]

Surely the bar full of aliens when 10 says goodbye to Jack would be more of a star wars rip off of that scene

[@danthemeegs8751]

I believe there’s a quote where the Rings Of Akhaten makers actually reference Star Wars as an inspiration. So that’s why those two are paired together!

[@kalinystazvoruna8702]

Absolutely, and if you look to Jack's right, the woman there is obviously a double for Princess Leia. I'd also like to point out that the Ood are a ripoff of Cthulu! All the Ood needed were bat wings.

[@obiwankenobi687]

That bar scene is intentionally meant to reference Star Wars as well, there’s even a deliberate Princess Leia lookalike

[@danthemeegs8751]

@@obiwankenobi687 Hello there!

[@ihateunicorns867]

Doctor Who can rip off _Alien_ as much as it likes considering that _Alien_ came out in 1979 and _The Ark in Space_ came out in 1975 (which is basically the same story).

[@Kuyjac258]

My pet unicorn wants to know why you hate him.

[@JamifyYT]

@@Kuyjac258 cos in ‘the mind robber’ (1967/8) unicorns are shown in the land of fiction

[@GabePuratekuta]

​@@Kuyjac258 I don't believe that you managed to tame one of the wildest animals of all time.

[@azeer666]

I agreed with a few of these, but am I wrong in thinking it's a touch harsh to call a clear and evident homage a "shameless ripoff"? It was even pointed out that alot of these were intentional homages, Spyfall being the clear one. Just feels a bit thin, is all...

[@danthemeegs8751]

“Shameless Ripoff” isn’t meant to be derogatory, it’s meant to be cheeky! Just a more interesting way to title the video than “copied” or “took inspiration from”

[@azeer666]

@@danthemeegs8751 Hey Dan, thanks for replying! Totally get it, and absolutely agree with this additional context, shoulda given you the credit on that one 😅 keep up the good work, sir! 👍😊

[@danthemeegs8751]

@@azeer666 To be fair, at face value you’re totally right! It does seem a little harsh. It’s the meat of the video that’s the most important though obviously, hopefully it’s apparent that we’re just being playful when people actually watch! Also thank you for being respectful with your feedback, that’s a truly rare sight on KZbin 😆

[@azeer666]

@@danthemeegs8751 well, for what it's worth, me and my partner are start-of-channel subscribers - off the back of WhatCulture of course. Always loved your stuff for exactly what you intended from the off: witty, informative and a touch of cheekiness 😁 and you still hit the mark with this one, methinks the holiday meats might have just taken their toll on my good senses 😅 Thank you, but I won't hear of it, my friend! If we can't be civil in our discourse in a time like this, we descend ourselves to a level of static mud-slinging, and it gets us all nowhere 😊 Hope you and yours have had, and continue to have, a fantastic holiday season 👍 😊

[@Themreelz]

its a clickbait title. they know what theyre doing. they picked dream crab as the thumbnail image and that whole episode is a massive homage to a lot of 20th century sci-fi classics.

[@stueymon]

I always thought the Rings of Akhaten market scene was more reminiscent of a similar thing from Hellboy 2 The Golden Army (or whatever it's called)

[@kadosho02]

Guillermo del Toro is definitely a Whovian. I always wondered if he directed an episode, or series of eps. Would be awesome if he did someday. Amazing how his films inspired DW to deliver a more immersive world / pit stop with colorful characters

[@steveallen2327]

The bar scene in dragonfire is more like threw star wars scene!

[@arch1017]

The hidden street in Face the Raven always reminded me of the Troll Market from Hellboy 2. Just with aliens instead of fantasy creatures.

[@Lumibear.]

Yup, me too, and the ‘speeder bike’ scene was to me a clear direct homage to the movie Flash Gordon, so I stopped watching at that point.

[@henrya3530]

Yup, definitely more Troll Market than Cantina.

[@RaggedyDoctor11]

The Thirteenth Doctor ripped off my fez! That’s my gimmick! Mine I say!!

[@andrewpepperell3659]

Always thought the 'bikes' were more reminiscent of 'Flash Gordon' and the jet cycles.

[@frankmoniz1467]

Jon Pertwee's third doctor is my favorite OF ALL TIME! His run as the Time Lord was very much James Bondesque. He was the 'action' doctor, gadgets and flying vehicles in many stories.

[@elgoog-the-third]

Not just was his perfomance James Bond-esque, which it was because he was told to "act like Jon Pertwee" - Pertwee was in the navy together with Ian Fleming, and was reportedly one of the inspirations for the figure of James Bond.

[@GrahamPointer1972]

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. It could be Hollywood shamelessly ripping off later "Doctor Who" stories. Time isn't a linear cause and effect.

[@DanielNeedham2500]

A video should be done on how Hollywood ripped off Doctor Who, the matrix being one of them.

[@theabraham8164]

How did The Matrix rip off Doctor Who?

[@DanielNeedham2500]

@@theabraham8164 obviously you are not a fan or not seen the story The Deadly Assassin

[@doctormew9399]

@@theabraham8164 Excuse me for joining the argument, I'm just politely pointing out that in the Deadly Assasin, Time Lord knowledge is stored in this thing called the Matrix, which the Doctor has to go inside. The whole scene feels very Matrix-y, and this story was in 1975

[@TheBatmansbrother]

Yeah, the ark in space is like a prototype Alien and I can't quite remember its name, but there is one that's like Avatar, I think it's kinda? Bill and ted obviously borrowed the time travelling phone box.

[@TheBatmansbrother]

@@theabraham8164 The timelords have a VR world that they store their memories in that they call "The Matrix"

[@peterward2275]

Dream Crabs: I thought that was more clearly inspired by the game Half Life's 'Head Crabs' (especially the name) than Alien, even though they in turn were probably inspired by Alien. Also The Lazarus Experiment I associated more with The Fly than Quatermass.

[@thechillindude4478]

For point number 2 I'm surprised you didn't mention that they did a similar plot in season 8 of the revival - Into the Dalek

[@shibolinemress8913]

That ep borrowed a line from Star Trek too, when the Dalek says "Resistance is futile", but gave it a glorious twist when we realise the Dalek meant that - to quote another famous franchise - life finds a way. 😁

[@SirMeowsAlot89]

Why not do a list where other ripped off Doctor who? The war machines = sky net 20 years before the terminator. The deadly assassin = the matrix about 30 years before the matrix. The Ark in Space = alien 4 years before alien came out. Those were three examples I thought of in less than 5 seconds while making my breakfast at the same time. Also let’s not forget, sci fi always barrows from sci fi. And two of those examples I listed, existed before Doctor who. Day of the Daleks = Terminator about 10 years before terminator. That’s 4 I gave you for a list of 10. Get to it.

[@HariSeldon913]

Add Enemy Mine. The aliens in the movie are Draconians who look rather similar to the Draconians that were in Dr. Who in 1973's Frontier In Space. Inferno (1970) featured slipping into an parallel universe made by a different decision. This would later be used in Avengers:Endgame. 1972's The Mutants was later used by TNG in the episode Transfigurations where a race evolving into energy beings is mistaken as a sickness.

[@brinnrobinson17]

Into the Dalek is also inspired of The Fantastic Voyage where Capaldi’s Doctor and Clara and a bunch of soldiers are shrunk into a Dalek to fix a malfunction (radiation poisoning) thanks to a star being born, that caused the Dalek to turn good

[@michaelpettitt8656]

The canteen scene from Star Wars was stolen from he 1970's in my old local pub, Rocker's, Mods, Punks and skin heads, you name em they were in there.

[@VJacquette]

There are others not mentioned here. The Brain of Morbius has clear similarities to Frankenstein. Of course, there are Christmas specials based on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and on A Christmas Carol. And some specific features mentioned in this also occur in other episodes, like the Doctor being shrunk to go into the Dalek to make a repair.

[@UnclePhil2k]

Robot is not only my favorite classic Who episode (it's a 3rd Doctor story starring the 4th Doctor), but yes... it's a blatant bite off King Kong. K-1, like Kong---even gets a shocking public reveal in a theater setting!!

[@Kuyjac258]

I had no idea that this was supposed to be A JP story. Would have been wonderful to see him playing this story out. I’m busy with a rewatch. Watching a serial a night and last night was the last two episodes of Invasion of the Dinosaurs and all the bonus features (I split this over two nights because it was just so busy on Christmas that I was exhausted and went to bed early. One of the interviews with Liz Sladen mentioned that Jon had asked for a pay raise and it was turned down so he quit on the spot and filmed his last series. Think it was time for him to go though as much as I adored him. The death of Roger and Katy resigning was a big knock for him and I think he’d lost a bit of that spark.

[@matriculus2]

Up voted site a load of early Tom Baker which was inspired by hammer horror films. Brain of Morbius being Frankenstein and Pyramids of Mars being the Mummy.

[@svxyash._]

See, there's really no problem in Doctor Who ripping off Hollywood as long as the ripoff is better than the original.

[@owenshebbeare2999]

Hollywood rips off all sorts of things. Studios have a long history of plagiarism and stealing of scripts from scriptwriters. Disney is infamous for stealing the work of others.

[@svxyash._]

@@owenshebbeare2999 exactly!

[@lokisgodhi]

I've always felt it was obvious that late 60s early 70s Doctor Who series was heavily inspired by the original Star Trek series in terms of episode plots and the feel of those episodes. Late 70s and 80s Doctor Who series were heavily inspired by the costuming and the look of the aliens species the Doctor interacted with by the costuming and aliens of Star Wars.

[@hammerman199374]

While talking about "Voyage of the Damned" I'm surprised you didn't mention another direct reference to "The Poseidon Adventure": In the scene where they have to cross a chasm over the engines on a piece of wreckage spanning the gap like a bridge, there is a large oval opening above them enclosed with a force field. This is an obvious homage to a famous scene in the earlier film where the ship is capsized and a person falls down through a large skylight with an oval shape in the glass.

[@andrewsmart4491]

Voyage of the Damned was also going to flip upside down like the S S Poseidon but budget let it down.

[@hammerman199374]

@@andrewsmart4491 Yes, they mentioned that, which is why I was so surprised they didn't mention the skylight.

[@liamwilliams1794]

Also the ship in ‘a Christmas carol’ is said by the doctor to be a “galaxy class” ship, the same as the enterprise D.

[@frankwilhoit]

I have been waiting for anyone to notice that Flux contained both a Vulcan mind meld and a Goa'uld.

[@422katieleigh]

Aliens in a market is a generic space thing, not a ripoff. And like, if you’re in space needing to get somewhere fast, you’re probably going to grab a speeder bike and not… a motorcycle? Are spaceships also a ripoff? I think they walk down a hallway in Star Wars too. Is that a ripoff? They also wear clothes, is that from Star Wars?

[@TheLiquidcool81]

I always thought the first part of “the seeds of doom” was basically The Thing. But that episode came out before the John carpenter movie.

[@owenshebbeare2999]

In some ways it was more inspired by Lovecraft, at least in terms of the Krynoid design.

[@antonycornell6284]

But not before “thing from another world” of which the thing is a remake. The second half of seeds of doom is another borrow from the quartermaster experiment

[@katmandoism]

now you are just being silly. Every Si Fi movie made took their clues from Si Fi books.

[@TheTristanmarcus]

Actually it was Stravinsky who is supposed to have said that 'most artists borrow but great artists steal' 🤔

[@DJGallifrey]

I actually thought the flying bike scene from the Rings of Akhaten was more reminiscent of the Flash Gordon movie.

[@peterjf7723]

Similar transport was also used in Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds.

[@XYVARIA]

I feel like it's a little irresponsible to make a video like this without at LEAST nodding to the fact that a lot of these franchises (especially star wars and Alien) not only ripped of Doctor Who as well, but in the particular case of Star Wars, they absolutely and shamelessly ripped off Doctor Who, and in far more substantial ways, and never even gave Doctor Who credit for the elements very clearly pulled directly from classic who. At least Doctor Who writers are honest about where they get their inspiration from, which also makes it a little annoying that you call it "ripping off" rather than "gained inspiration from"

[@andrewsmart4491]

The mopeds from rings of akhaten emulated 1981's Flash Gordon and various aliens gathering in one place was also done in The End of The World. The spaceship in A Christmas Carol is closer to the ships in UFO and was probably in post-production when Star Trek 2009 came out.

[@diana_rayne]

Into the Dalek also rips off Fantastic Voyage.

[@audacity60]

What about the Dr Who episode shot in Dubai, where they jump a London double decker bus into the desert? Surely a rip off of the film "Jumper".

[@RichardBarclay]

Dreamcrabs are more like Headcrabs from Half-Life to be honest.

[@antonycornell6284]

I thought the alien reference was put in to distract from that quite obvious steal.

[@dylanogg347]

"Twister"!? That's my favourite Helen Hunt movie!

[@derekhart3308]

And so what how many times others shows /films ripped off Doctor Who!

[@Jimbob_Offical]

How dollar s they not cover how the Christmas episode ‘the return of Doctor misterio” is a copy of superman.

[@batjay0763]

The Star Wars one is just because they aren’t very creative ideas. It makes sense that more than one person could have thought of them. Especially the floating bike thing

[@triviabuff5682]

Fireball XL5 had flying motorbike things in 1962.

[@harryjones3821]

Tom Baker's 2nd and 3rd seasons ripped off so many classic movies and novels, particularly Hammer Horror. Terror of Zygons - Invasion of the Body Snatchers Planet of Evil - Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde/Forbidden Planet Pyramids of Mars - Mummy movies (particularly Hammer Horror one) Brain of Morbius - Frankenstein (Hammer Horror) Seeds of Doom - Day of the Triffids Masque of Mandragora - Masque of Red Death The Deadly Assassin - The Manchurian Candidate The Face of Evil - Brave New World, Captive Universe, Eliza Doolittle (Leela) The Robots of Death - Agatha Christie (also influenced Terror of the Vervoids, Mummy on Orient Express and most obviously Unicorn and the Wasp); Dune (tho maybe just a novel back then) Talons of Weng-Chiang - Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu (less good), Phantom of the Opera, Food of the Gods In Graham Williams era you had The Androids of Tara (Prisoner of Zenda), Stones of Blood (Children of the Stones) and The Image of the Fendahl (Quatermass and the Pit, Chariots of the Gods, The Sirens of Titan). You also had Underworld inspired by Greek Myths (admittedly not Hollywood). Invasion of Time also nicked its opening shot from Star Wars. Admittedly a lot of these aren't Hollywood movies but still/

[@martygould5114]

You forgot to mention The End Of Time Pt II also ripping off Star Wars with the spaceship battle scene.

[@McKayDarkwood]

Akhaten felt more like a copy of Farscape with its scenes set in an alien market rather than the Cantina from Star Wars. That said, the Cantina scene can be traced back to shows such as Star Trek TOS which featured stories with numerous alien races in canteens (for example, the first tribble episode).

[@r.g.o3879]

Half of Tom Baker's adventures looked like old Hammer Horror movies with dark, foggy streets and horse drawn cabs and creepy Victorian Manors with mad scientist labs down in the crypt... fact much of that was copied by Eccleston and Tennant after the reboot. The space pig in the abandoned hospital in the very first episode and the creepy episode set in London during the first blitz where Captain Jack is introduced is full of spooky Victorian images taken from a half a dozen old Hammer films

[@joannae3167]

Ok this but in reverse. Psycho Goreman has many Dr who like characters and no one is talking about it.

[@librarysong8617]

Why say "which he was clearly very fond of" when you can say "which he was clearly very bond of" The opportunity was right there!

[@danthemeegs8751]

You win the internet for today.

[@librarysong8617]

Thanks, man/woman/Non binary fan

[@danthemeegs8751]

@@librarysong8617 Thank YOU, random citizen!

[@onlyme219]

The video is totally correct on most. But they weren't in a canteen, how do you ripe off a canteen scene without it being in a canteen or at least a bar?

[@danthemeegs8751]

The makers of Rings Of Akhaten have directly mentioned Star Wars/Mos Eisley cantina as a major inspiration. Basically the wide range of alien creatures on show.

[@onlyme219]

@@danthemeegs8751 there is a wide range of alien creatures on lots of sci-fy stuff way before star wars, it's nothing new or ripped off, 'inspiration' I agree with 'ripped off' I think is the wrong use of words for this one

[@baaron7]

Wait, how is the market scene ripping off a bar scene? Bit of a stretch with that one It's more reminiscent of the market scene in Hellboy 2. I'd even say it's more reminiscent of the market scene in the phantom menace

[@danthemeegs8751]

The makers of the market scene directly referenced Star Wars/Mos Eisley as an inspiration. There’s a quote online somewhere!

[@baaron7]

@@danthemeegs8751 inspiration isn't ripping off. One is a market, the other is a bar, it's not the same at all haha

[@gazo0408]

Really…no Doctor Mysterio 🤣🤣🤣

[@owenshebbeare2999]

That one was so forgettable.

[@paullaing5921]

What about Hollywood ripping off Doctor Who? Bill and Ted in a time traveling phone box anyone? Anyway, what about that episode of Torchwood that ripped off the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Earshot" because RTD and Joss Whedon were besties at the time.

[@obiwankenobi687]

I think you mean ‘inspired by’ or ‘paying homage to’. Turn left doesn’t really count as the concept used here is not just reserved for a wonderful life. The Star Trek reference is obviously deliberate. As is the face-hugger for example, it’s even referenced in the episode, spyfall obviously is a nod to James Bond etc. but none of these are really rip offs. A rip off would be George Lucas basically rewriting Dune and then building a multi billion dollar franchise off the back of it. (Don’t kill me I love Star Wars)

[@ladycplum]

Doctor Who has never made it a secret that they regularly "stole" from Hollywood films. In some cases they did better than the films on a miniscule budget. And speaking of taking a cue from films and movies, why isn't Planet Of Evil on here? It's a pretty well-known act that the Anti-Matter Monster on Zeta Minor was pretty much the Id Monster from Forbidden Planet. Or The Brain Of Morbius, which was Frankenstein mixed with elements of She?

[@theunknowntimelord8494]

Always thought dragonfire was more of a alien rip off , brain of morbius was Frankenstein. Seeds of doom was the thing.

[@julieeverett7442]

inspired rather than ripped off, but yes, clearly

[@shinylugia7052]

To be fair though, the eternals recently ripped off doctor who

[@igorschmidlapp6987]

The "Sliding Doors" scenario is a well -used story writing situation. The "path not taken", so to speak. Heck, the whole "Choose Your Own Adventure" "Choose Your Own Path" book series is based on it... and Dungeons&Dragons...

[@badfairy9554]

I like very much the new film Last Christmas. 15.

[@TigerofRobare]

The bar where 10 says goodbye to Jack by introducing him to Alonso in The End of Time is more of a Cantina homage than Akhaten.

[@samdickson7348]

I feel like there’s another reference to the quatermass experiment in planet of the dead when 10s talking to Malcolm about the wormhole and Malcolm says that 1 Bernard is 100 malcolms

[@keithnewton8981]

Sorry so we could say star War pulled its idea from from an international airport or boat terminal or Dock area basically this is what happens when a large international inter galactic port. You cannot say it was taken from a film as it a reflection on life. The speeder bikes came from earlier scifi try Gerry Anderson and his various creations your a bit fixated on start wars when many of these things go back in TV film history before star wars.

[@r.g.o3879]

They weren't ripping off the pathetic Star Trek rippoff from recent years they were clearly copying the original Star Trek with Shatner and Nemoy.

[@nathanielfarkas4431]

Yeha and Ridley Scott’s alien copied the ark in space

[@matriculus2]

You should do a video of new who ripping off classic who. Voyage of the damned was basically robots of death. Those was spearhead from space. Daleks in manhatten with dalek/human experiments taking the idea from Evil of the daleks. The list goes on.

[@frankharr9466]

Man, am I oblivous. :)

[@B-A-L]

Dr Who ripping off Hollywood is just revenge for American tv ripping off British tv shows! Btw, you do know that the Death Star trench run in Star Wars Ep 4 is a blatant rip off of the Dambusters movie and, er, James Bond is British not American!

[@elgoog-the-third]

Where's the very first scene shown in the video from?

[@thatcedric]

Hollywood, I don't think so. Alien, Star Wars and Sliding Doors are all shot in the UK. The Quatermass Experiment was a BBC TV serial before it was a British film. The BBC ripping off the BBC. 😂

[@MsAli0]

They are not rip offs, they are homages. HOMAGES

[@oliverl.5834]

And fhe Facehuggers were stolen from Starro the Conqueror from the "Justice Leauge of America"-Comics. So what.

[@DavidTyler]

Star trek stole from Doctor who cybermen with the Borg

[@hadinasrallah8928]

MAybe you could do the opposite: media inspired by dw

[@mrbond59]

"Iconic" count - 3

[@danthemeegs8751]

ICONIC

[@peterratter6603]

The flying moped doohickies in Rings of Akhaten seem to owe more to Flash Gordon's rocket-sleds than to RotJ's speeder-bikes.

[@theoncomingstorm1236]

It’s not ripping off they are all just very common sci-fi story

[@igorschmidlapp6987]

"Star Wars" is NOT sci-fi... it's space fantasy. BIG difference...

[@Daniel-nn8mr]

I wouldn't say ripped off, more like homage or dedication to the greats of Hollywood.

[@dalekbumps]

Now can we have the other video, '1000 times Hollywood shamelessly ripped off Doctor Who' I know it might be difficult only picking 1000 examples, but you can just use the most prominent ones, such as: Alien? based on The Ark in Space Terminator? same story setup as Day of the Daleks every vaguely Satanic horror movie set in a creepy village? see also: The Daemons

[@antonycornell6284]

But the daemons is a rip of quatermass and the pit

[@gregm766]

Ripoffs or are they just homages?

[@tl1110]

Yeah, and the Borg in Star Trek are a blatant ripoff of the Cybermen in Doctor Who. Who cares! Everyone copies everyone else.

[@eeurr1306]

The first ripoff isnt even an inspiration mixing species in a sci fi enviroment isnt something starwars can claim ownership rights off, its a basic idea

[@brianmarrow8688]

Dragonfire borrowed from Aliens (soldiers going on the hunt for an Aggressive Non Terrestrial, motion trackers)

[@Michelle_Schu-blacka]

I always wonder how they get away with it. Presumably it wasn't a big deal in the early serials, but in the modern era, surely there's copyright issues? It's not as if those american companies aren't looking for a reason to sue, these days.

[@igorschmidlapp6987]

JJTrek's Enterprise was an Apple store mounted on a microbrewery... KurtzTrek is worse...

[@ultramaximusreviews]

I hate how we don't get fun Christmas specials anymore. You can thank the woke left in 2000 current year for that who hate Christmas and Christians.

[@nickfromohio6032]

Meh

[@igorschmidlapp6987]

"Quaitermass"? WTF?

[@wigm]

I Miss the DISLIKE button

[@wallyarroyo7939]

Not true. Just the opposite. The whole Star Wars saga is plagiarized from Dr Who which started almost 20 years before there was any Star Wars. For example, the endless multiplicity of strange characters that are very similar to Dr. Who's.

[@darransykes2540]

Modern Who is a shameless rip of just about everything that came before it.

[@docbrown6550]

They copied the woke part to perfection