OldBoy

With the lines being blurred between what is original and what is based on something else i truly have no idea what movie is actually an original concept these days. Something not based on a book or god forbid a remake of another movie.

I would have said "Cloverfield" as maybe the last one i saw, but it looked a lot like "The Host" and i think that one did it much better. As well as "The Host", i would probably say Neil Marshall's "The Descent" as being an original and well done concept (at least to the best of my knowledge).

So what movie of late was truly original?

PopcornTreeCt

Children of Men

Lastyear

Children of Men was based on a novel by P.D. James.
Eastern Promises,Pan's Labyrinth were original scripts.

leacha

Being John Malkovich was the first to come to mind.

chase3001

I clicked this thread thinking Chldren of Men.

tanman

Ratatouille

TGM

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

hardercore

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
There Will Be Blood

Oddly enough, both are technically adaptations.

Jay G.

Originality is overrated. I like movies that are good.

Dr Mabuse

second that... what a great movie...

i thought of...

'Adaptation'...

i really liked it... quite original stuff...

amplified

There Will Be Blood, even though it was loosely adapted from Oil.

islandclaws

I'd have to say Cloverfield as well. Though the actual concept itself isn't original, the fact that they shot a giant moster flick like they did certainly was.

Maxflier

Cloverfield.

RichC2

I love the Descent but felt it was one of the more derivative movies out there. Still the best horror flick of the past few years.

For me, There Will Be Blood. Cloverfield had fantatic execution but I'm not sure I'd call it original, and I liked it better than The Host.

FinkPish

How was Cloverfield's concept truly original? The Blair Witch Project did the same thing 8 years ago.

Calculon

The Birth of a Nation

Jay G.

I must've missed the giant monster rampaging through the forest in that film.

FinkPish

The basic concept of shooting the whole movie on video cameras is the same though. That's what I was talking about. If you are going to get that specific about a movie's concept, then every movie would be considered wholly original. And if you want to go with the concept of a monster rampaging through a large city, then Cloverfield has been beat by decades by Godzilla et al. It took two non-original concepts and made something original from it, but I wouldn't call that truly original at all, just derivative.

SterlingBen

Lexx

Mondo Kane

Tiramisu (Hong Kong)

Jay G.

See, that's my problem with overrating originality. What does "truly" original mean anyway? Blair Witch's premise had been used by other films before it, such as The Last Broadcast and Cannibal Holocaust. The mockumentary format has existed for even longer, it was just a matter of time before someone applied it to the horror genre. Godzilla was beat to the punch by films like King Kong and The Lost World, and even the stories of giant monsters attacking humans goes further back to Greek myths and the like.

If you deconstruct a film far enough, you'd probably find that no film can really be considered "truly" original, since every film borrows from those that have come before. While it's nice to celebrate films that aren't completely derivative, and take the path less traveled, I think originality sometimes gets too much emphasis, over other aspects of a film, like general quality.

JPRaup

Cloverfield
Children of Men
The Fountain

Jay G.

I just have to say that I've seen both films and they don't look anything alike. The filming styles are completely different. Besides the look, the creatures are of vastly different sizes and strengths. The only real story similarity is that the main characters are more-or-less normal people, but other than that the differences are too numerous to count.

OldBoy

wow! "Pan's Labyrinth" fits the bill perfectly!! good call!

Dr Mabuse

'Izo'... very original stuff there...

'Memento'...