When I'm with friends talking about various films or television shows that have been released or are upcoming, or when talking about projects that we could be working on, possibly the most common question and debate to arise is that of originality. One person pitches a story and another responds with how similar it is to something that came out two months ago, and the idea is dropped. As students deeply interested in not only making movies but enjoying them, the concept of being original is a very strong one. It's somewhat ironic, really, considering how weak of a idea it seems to be in the actual Hollywood industry (but we'll save Hollywood vs. Indie for another time).
I was once reading a list of writing tips from an author and the only one of them I now remember is: Don't worry about being original; if it comes from your mind that makes it original. It's a great piece of advice that I find myself using a lot when defending recent Hollywood blockbusters like James Cameron's Avatar. Take, for a more recent example, the film Battle: Los Angeles, which I thoroughly enjoyed but has received from critics largely negative reviews, seen most in its, biased, Rotten Tomatoes review. It seemed to me that many of the reviews were bashing the movie because it was unoriginal, just another cliche alien invasion action-movie filled with explosions.
