Looks Like A Mikado Rip-off

[HighPlainsDrifter]

i saw this trailer today on the net at IMdb and thought to myself Mikado!

i am floored to see how similar the trailer is to the episode.

please check it out and tell me what you think

Untraceable

also check out Imdb info on the movie, the board messages also disscusses how it ripoffs Mikado

Untraceable-

[hippyroo]

Looks pretty good. Just because it's a cyber-murder doesn't make it a rip off. I don't think MLLM holds a patten on cyber-murder stories? The idea that every person visiting the website speeds up the death reminds me of an old Outerlimits or Twilight episode in which a person had this box (I think) and somehow by using it they were hurting someone else in real life. In the end the box owner became a person in another box.

[Guest Heath328]

It wouldn't be the first time someone ripped off 1013 product ... to dismal effect.

I'm guessing this movie is going to be "Untraceable" in box office records.

[The Old Man]

Very interesting link Joe! Thanks for sharing.

Its obvious that the Millennium episode really inspired the writers of this film but what a great story to begin with. The whole website/murder thing is even more relevant today in terms of fast broadband video and the incredible popularity of sites like Youtube providing such potential massive audiences.

In the trailer, there is a bit where the FBI is asking people not to view the site as they are essentially accessories to murder - so I ask you, if you were aware of a sick website like this where your visit/hit hastens the demise or hurts a victim, would you be so intrigued as to take a look? Would you, could you? Is it human nature?

[hippyroo]

Since cable news would show me the pictures 20 to 30 times every hour, I wouldn't have to go to the site myself. How sad.

[Guest Heath328]

Very interesting link Joe! Thanks for sharing.

Its obvious that the Millennium episode really inspired the writers of this film but what a great story to begin with. The whole website/murder thing is even more relevant today in terms of fast broadband video and the incredible popularity of sites like Youtube providing such potential massive audiences.

In the trailer, there is a bit where the FBI is asking people not to view the site as they are essentially accessories to murder - so I ask you, if you were aware of a sick website like this where your visit/hit hastens the demise or hurts a victim, would you be so intrigued as to take a look? Would you, could you? Is it human nature?

Some of it unfortunately is inherently a part of human nature.

Just look at how popular Web sites are now that host videos of real car crashes, animal attacks, etc.

Before the rise of video sharing, you could get the same material from hour-long reality specials ("When Buildings Collapse," "When Planes Crash," "When TV Networks Run Out of Ideas ...")

Before reality specials, you might just rubber-neck at accident scenes as you pass by.

As far back as the Roman Empire, people would go to the Coliseum to see gladiators or animals kill each other or watch Christians be ripped to shreds or burned alive.

Man's capacity for voyeurism and violence hasn't diminished, despite our advances in technology. We just continue to find new outlets for the baser parts of our nature. Technology has only made it easier for us to seemingly distance ourselves from the blood.

Having said that, I couldn't knowingly participate in the death of another person by visiting such a Web site. Logging on would make me an accessory. I certainly wouldn't want someone else to watch my murder online.

Edited December 29, 2007 by Heath328

[ethsnafu]

Though it may garner audible groans I am a huge fan of the Hostel movies but the most naseous element of their creation is in the truth that Eli Roth was pointed towards a website that offered those with enough financial means the chance to purchase the ability to end human life. Whilst most people assume that the Hostel movies are nothing more that gore-drenched pornography they were actually inspired by a chance encounter with a sparse site, all simple text and foreign script, urging the affluent to actualise their fantasies with regards to human torture.

May God spare us from this.

Eth.

[Guest Heath328]

Reminds me of what Mike Atkins said in "Gehenna."

Evil always stares back at you with a human face.

[Guest massofspikes]

Don't know if this show has any fans 'round these parts, but, even considering MillenniuM's quality--and I apologize in advance for this--I still believe Homicide: Life on the Street to be/have been the greatest drama in network television history. (I've heard that The Wire--sort of Homicide's non-network, foul-mouthed, even uglier [if that's possible] brother--to be better, but I don't get HBO...or any television channel, for that matter. Yes, I'm one of those TV snobs. )

In any case, during Homicide's last season, they aired an ep entitled "Homicide.com," in which a serial killer was broadcasting his murders over the 'Net, too, hacking/cracking into pre-existing websites and doing his deeds via video-feed. Granted, HLOTS had a year's worth of experience with the still-new-to-many medium in order to more realistically portray 'Net-based goings-on than MM did. (There was nothing as goofy as a hit-count-meter that advanced in real time, and the vid-cam footage wasn't depicted as being as terrible, resolution-wise, as on MM, but--thank goodness--not as good as on some programs and movies during those days, when the events on one side of the lens came through to the other end, broadcasting as smoothly as one of those picture-in-picture features televisions used to offer.) Unlike both "The Mikado" and Untraceable (which is so far garnering terrible reviews), the killer's decision to do so was never predicated on website attendence. He would merely use spoofed email addresses to send invitations among college campuses to witness what most believed initially were staged performances. Again unlike on MM, the killer was eventually apprehended.

What's interesting about this is how such similar plot devices can "work" on two different dramatic formats. I get the tentative impression that most MM fans thought "Mikado" was, if not great, than at least good, while most HLOTS fans consider(d) "Homicide.com" one of its lowest moments--pandering, too sleek, too hi-tech, too sexy for a show that was more adept at depicting the soul-eroding nature of investigating homicides in the second most murderous city in America, a blighted metropolis where 90% of its slayings are as complex and exciting, motive-wise, as Doper A got sold baking-soda instead of heroin by Slinger B, so A came back on him...and not with a receipt, either. And then hundreds of variations on that theme. You have to say this--Frank Black may work with sick and dangerous criminals, but there's never a dull moment in *his* universe. (Well, actually, the two fictional universes intertwined thanks to the workhorse efforts of Richard Belzer, who played his Homicide character, Detective Munch [now with one of the many Law & Order spin-offs], in an episode of the X-Files, which crossed with MM, as we all know. Hmmm...Peter Watts must have a twin, then, too, because a man looking JUST like him played a grieving father on a 4th-season episode of Homicide.)

Now, as for who got what idea from whom, it's impossible to tell. Something interesting, though, coincidence-wise: "The Mikado" aired 2-6-98, "Homicide.com," 2-5-99.

Edited February 1, 2008 by massofspikes