Nothing New Under the Sun: A Not So Original Idea

an opinion written on a whim

  In our current world everyone wants to be the first to think of something, especially in the world of literature.  But many writers will hit a near inevitable road block.  This road block is unintentional plagiarism. Not a the illegal kind, but the kind which very few writers can escape.  For instance a writer begins to relate a fantasy story set in a futuristic space world only to realize that his wonderful idea is merely a mediocre imitation of Star Wars.  Or perhaps the muse grants one a vision of a rough tough and  tumble explorer who dodges  traps to get to untold riches, and within the first few pages finds out his lead role is ann Indie impostor. The problem seems to lie in that every good idea is taken. There is nothing new under the sun.

  This idea itself is by far not entirely new itself, in fact it is over two thousand years old. The concept is the work of the Hebrew king Solomon, who had everything money could buy, built cities and rule his world with wisdom.  Solomon wrote the book of  ecclesiastics in which he states that everything in life is repetitive vanity and there is nothing new under the sun. Nothing new meaning all we have is ideas circulated over and over just told from a different angle and with a different name and cast.  We see this often in the literature and cinema world, ideas are used over and over the only thing that keeps them going is altering it in some way, changing how the plot works and shaking up the story. 

The best way our plagiarismic road block is successfully conquered is when the idea plagiarized is made better than the original. Taking a flop and revamping it in a such a way as to make it better and more interesting. The ways of doing this are shifting the plot and its outcome, reversing roles, adding interesting and catchy dialogue, and unforgettable characters. Before Captain Jack Sparrow any movie with pirates as the main theme was a destined flop. The use of this technique is become more widely used as every TV show and movie strive for their own character to make the movie, Riley from "National Treasure", Abby from "NCIS", that ever so loved gun-gun from Star Wars Phantom menace. However as we progress we seem to slip back into the same cycle of repetitiveness and again the words ring true, nothing is new under the sun.

 Another approach is to take a movie and present it in a light that has never before been seen. This technique was used with the movie Avatar whose story line is far from complete originality but introduced the place and visuals in such a way that the observer cannot help but be drawn in. However as others try to copy such a spectacle they restart the vicious cycle. 

In conclusion we are only as tall as we get from standing on the shoulders of those before us, There really seems to be nothing new under the sun.