Hero Factory Simililarities

[Mephek]

Brain Attack: Attack Of Valve Game Creatures!

Lets see.. the brains are very similar to Half Life Headcrabs. Heck, Lego even used a similar sound effect from the headcrab sound in Half Life 2. Don't forget the way the brains are deployed, exact same way the Half Life Headcrabs are deployed. Kinda funny that the ships look similar too.

I honestly would have been less skeptical of this being a ripoff if there wasn't another obvious valve copy in this line.. but.... Bruizer is almost exactly like the Left 4 dead charger. A big mutated brute with one stubby arm, and one gigantic arm. Both in the same place on both beings. Left arm is huge, right arm is stubby. Doubt it's a coincidence. As I said above, they copied another Valve concept.

Invasion From Below:

This one is obvious. Pacific rim.

Google the word "Kaiju" and you'll see a bunch of things that look like the "beasts" in the line.

Saw one that looks like the queen

One that looks like jaw beast

Two headed one that looks like splitter

Yellow flying thing that looks awkwardly similar to Flyer Beast

Mech VS. Monster in a city area. Kinda funny..

Agree? Disagree? Discuss!

[vexorian]

It is doubtful any of this is copyrighted. Concepts can't be copyrighted. Some names may be trademarked though, which is an entirely different thing and HF is not apparently using any of those names.

And of course, It is silly to think that Half-Life invented brain aliens or that pacific brim invented mechs/kaiju.

[Lyichir]

Yeah, the brains are hardly like headcrabs. If anything, the sound effect being similar could be considered an homage. But really brain-like mind-control parasites aren't a new idea, and were in fact used by Lego before: remember the Krana from Bionicle? The brains are essentially the same thing with less subtlety.

Regarding the Invasion from Below line, there seems to be more of a clear inspiration from Pacific Rim. But again, that's an homage, not a ripoff (unless you think taking any inspiration is a ripoff, in which case Pacific Rim itself is a ripoff of the original Japanese kaiju films).

Lego has a long and storied history of making themes based on pop culture. Adventurers was an homage to Indiana Jones, whereas Pharaoh's Quest was an homage to The Mummy series of films. Alien Conquest was a send-up of alien invasion B-movies, and Mars Mission drew more from the "space horror" genre pioneered by Alien, and Galaxy Squad drew a lot from "bug-themed" alien warfare like in Starship Troopers or Ender's Game. The 2007 Castle theme was based a lot on high-fantasy like Lord of the Rings. Alpha Team was sort of a send-up of things like The A-Team, and Agents was an even more blatant send-up of the spy film genre exemplified by James Bond films (or even the earlier parody of the genre, Austin Powers).

If Hero Factory's latest waves are ripoffs, then all of these fan-favorite Lego themes are also ripoffs. But that's an awfully tall order.

[Aanchir]

"Concepts" as vague as these are not under copyright and are not even POSSIBLE to copyright. Even Pacific Rim was borrowing a lot of its kaiju and mecha concepts from other media, such as Japanese mecha anime and giant monster movies (a genre which, in Japan, is called — guess what — "kaiju"). There's a difference between plagiarizing other media and referencing or drawing inspiration from other media. In this case, the LEGO Group is definitely doing the latter.

As for similarities between Half-Life and Brain Attack, I don't entirely see it. Half-Life didn't invent the idea of mind-controlling parasites, not even ones that latch onto a person's head. And physically, the headcrabs in Half-Life and the brains in Hero Factory barely even resemble each other on a superficial level. Headcrabs are fleshy, blob-like creatures with four long legs and no tail, while the brains in Hero Factory are brain-shaped creatures with six short legs, bright red eyes, long tails, and lots of spikes.

[Vinyl Scratch]

How could Hero Factory rip-off a movie that is a homage to Kaiju films? That's ripping off a ripoff Kaiju film.

Just because two things are similar doesn't mean they're copied. Homages exist you know?

[WARHEAD]

You do know kaiju just means giant monster in Japanese, right? Also, mind controlling parasites are a sci-fi concept from back like the fifties.

Edited January 18, 2014 by WARHEAD

[TheRedGuy]

Would you mind giving us pics of the Kaiju you describe as being so similar to the Hero Factory ones?

[Leewan]

How could Hero Factory rip-off a movie that is a homage to Kaiju films? That's ripping off a ripoff Kaiju film.

Ripoffception.

I agree with the other ones, of course there are references to well-known concepts, but no plagiarism at all. It's like saying that the Jumpers are obviously copied on 2005's minifig-scaled Visorak, which proves, once again, that Hero Factory is a crappy ripoff of BIONICLE.

[DraikNova]

Hell, even the original 1954 Godzilla movie could be considered a ripoff of an even earlier one, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. For that matter, writing anything is a ripoff of the first written words ever. The same goes for movies, comics and pretty much any media.

[Front]

Look at the text on many of the new parts introduced in HF 2014, and it says copyright LEGO 2012.

Erland

Part Design

[Shakar]

Let me guess, you wanted to make a thread but you were out of ideas, right?

[Mephek]

Nobody is mentioning how Bruizer is a ripoff.

The title was a bit of a bad word choice admittingly, but I feel the rest to be similar.

[Rick]

Agree? Disagree? Discuss!

I'm sure you get more insightful replies if you introduce the topic as a true discussion topic. This has everything to do with your tone, choice of words (title included), etc. I have changed the title of the thread and I hope this can turn into a civilised discussion about the similarities/differences mentioned.

[wghost]

Nobody is mentioning how Bruizer is a ripoff.

Because it's so evident it's not: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheRightHandOfDoom?from=Main.RightHandOfDoom

[Bfahome]

Nobody is mentioning how Bruizer is a ripoff.

Of what? Any of the probably millions of the big bulky strong characters that have been used over the years?

Large right arms were not invented in 2008.

(They were invented in 2005, duh.)

Threads like these are almost always about how something was copied from some other media (usually within the past few years) while ignoring the fact that the idea has been used and reused since the beginning of civilization.

[Timeline15]

Mephek, you obviously don't know the difference between "rip-off" and "homage". The reason the beasts look like pacific rim Kaiju is because LEGO were trying to reference that genre of movie, and the most recognisable movie of that kind to many kids is pacific rim.

The brain concept is a wide ranging thing too, I assure you valve didn't invent it. The same is true of the large arm on bruiser. You could just as easily say they ripped of Transformers rotf Megatron. Or you could say that the entire invasion from below line was ripping off power rangers, or Godzilla, or Japan as a whole. but no one does say that. because that would be STUPID.

[obsidianheart]

Ugh, I don't even know why you're posting, forums are obviously just a rip-off of BBS's.

(I am totally just kidding here, don't jump on me)

[Mephek]

Thanks for the title change. Much better.

The reason I suspect the brains/charger to be a copy is how both are present in games from Valve.

Charger being a bulky grey thing from Left 4 Dead

Brains being a parasite from Half Life.

I wouldn't be so skeptical about lego being inspired by these ideas if they both weren't from a common source.

[Vinyl Scratch]

The reason I suspect the brains/charger to be a copy is how both are present in games from Valve.

Of course, a Zombie is the same thing as a wild animal possessed by an outerwordly entity.

You could say Stringer is a copy of the Engineer due to both having a cowboy personality.

[exxtrooper]

Pacific Rim itself is also based on a wide-variety of old japanese films and anime.

[Bfahome]

I wouldn't be so skeptical about lego being inspired by these ideas if they both weren't from a common source.

Valve is in no way the source for any of these ideas.

[Mephek]

Valve is in no way the source for any of these ideas.

Not really a source, more like.. a commonly known place where they are scene. Both major ideas are present there coincidentally

[Bfahome]

Not really a source, more like.. a commonly known place where they are scene. Both major ideas are present there coincidentally

It's almost like they're commonly used story devices.

[Timeline15]

It's almost like they're commonly used story devices.

This. just this.

Also, so much nostalgia from your account pic bfa

[Mandate]

The headcrabs from Half-Life came from Aliens, and you're really going to compare a Left 4 Dead zombie to a single set instead of the many LEGO sets featuring a bad guy with one guy having a bigger arm than the other?