Harold ramis died

[eastyy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/26327020

that really sucks

[Dogg Thang]

Sucks.

[yesteryeargames]

Rip Egon , such sad news

Time to break out ghostbusters tonight .

[endo]

"I collect spores, moulds and fungus". Quite literally now

[Guts]

^ Classy.

R.I.P. It's sad to see all these actors of my childhood pass away one by one, but that is an inevitable part of life that you just have to accept.

[Atticus]

Sad news. I never need an excuse to watch Groundhog Day but I'll be giving it a viewing this week.

[MartyG]

I think I'll have to watch Ghostbusters this evening as a tribute.

[kryss]

Oh ****. Groundhog Day for me when I get home too then.
Damn shame.

[QualityChimp]

I watched Groundhog Day on Saturday. It's a phenomenal film.

Sad times and it's a real loss. Ghostbusters is one of my favourites and the film wouldn't have worked without his straight-man character explaining the science MacGuffins.

I can't help but think it would be ironic if he came back as a ghost, though.

[briareos_kerensky]

Sad, sad news indeed. RIP, Harold.

[smouty]

I watched Groundhog Day on Saturday. It's a phenomenal film.

Me too. I always try to watch it in February
Sad news.

[Sketcz]

Everyone on Facebook and Twitter is talking about the death of Harold Ramis, who co-wrote Groundhog's Day with Danny Rubin. I'm just going to mention that Groundhog's Day actually plagiarised the work of author Richard Lupoff, who tried to take them to court, but gave up after the film studio's lawyers dragged it out. This knowledge taints whatever happy memories I have of Ramis' work. A talented man, yes. But it's not cool to take another guy's idea and use it as your own. I'm fairly sure no one on the internet is going to mention this. Wikipedia used to have it on the Groundhog's Day page, but it was removed at some point, presumably because no one wants any negativity or controversy regarding Groundhog's Day.

The whitewashing of history really bugs me.

"The story was also adapted -- actually plagiarized -- into a major theatrical film in 1993. Jonathan Heap and I were outraged and tried very hard to go after the rascals who had robbed us, but alas, the Hollywood establishment closed ranks. We were no Art Buchwald. After half a year of lawyers' conferences and emotional stress, we agreed to put the matter behind us and get on with our lives."
- Richard Lupoff talking about Harold Ramis' Groundhog's Day

Quote taken from:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071115030531/http://www.fanac.org/timebinders/lupoff.html

Author:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Lupoff

His story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12:01_PM

[nakamura]

RIP Ramis. Genuinely liked him growing up and involved in some great movies.

[QualityChimp]

It's an interesting point, Sketcz, and I think the Hollywood lawyers ganging up is rotten behaviour.

However, as an author yourself (the excellent Beyond Aukfontein, available from Amazon ), you must know yourself that trying not to infringe on other people's work is incredibly tough. I was impressed how little your book reminded me of other post-apocalyptic stories, you must have dismissed some ideas as you wrote it and discovered other stories had the same ideas.

Although Lupoff's "12:01" has a repeating timeloop plot, it's a short story that is started when the protagonist gets electrocuted and then repeats the same hour on repeat.

There is another story, "Replay" by Ken Grimwood where the 43-year-old character awakens in his 18-year old body and relives his life again in different ways. This is also acknowledged as an influence to Groundhog Day, especially as there is no explanation for the event. This is a more likely reference point.

Tom Cruise is about to star in "Edge of Tomorrow", based on the Japanese novel "All You Need is Kill", which uses a 1-day loop to explain an alien invasion.

I saw the nonsensical "Looper", which lead me to see the excellent "Primer" and read the classic sci-fi "By His Bootstraps".

"12 Monkeys" has a neat loop to tie the story up and even Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" tells of a man who travels back in time to cause the destruction he was originally sent to prevent.

Are New Game+ modes in video games a form of story loop?

There are many other literary examples of time loops too, so whereas I don't dispute some shenanigans went on, it's also possible that Lupoff saw an opportunity to make some money by suing the studio for making a film with a similar premise.

Even Picasso said "Good artists copy but great artists steal".

Surely being inspired by someone to create something new and different is being creative, especially when the end result is as fantastic as Groundhog Day, that probably betters 12:01, if it really was an influence?

[wakka]

The idea of a looping day has appeared in loads of ****, as QC ably states above. The story of 12:01 doesn't even resemble that of Groundhog Day. What's more, it was Ramis and Danny Rubin who invented the film's characters and jokes, which are what made it the film it is and made it successful.

The dude is dead, who cares if he kinda-maybe ripped off an idea for one of his movies from a random short story.

The point is, he made Ghostbusters. And Stripes. And Groundhog Day. RIP Harold.