They are extremely similar, just with different twists.
shareOh, definitely. But although I like both movies, this one is better...mostly because of Sonia Braga (Sigourney Weaver is cool, but Braga she ain't).
Death is...whimsical today.
If you happen to think that USA is a banana republic in disguise, then you'll buy the preposterous and insulting Dave, which by the way, was inarguably stolen from this charming comedy. Moon Over Parador is a comedic exaggeration. Dave is an insult, and only one in a long line of films that have found the ultimate in evil
and created a cinematic character to openly satirize this horrid evil.
Not Hitler, not Stalin, not Mao, but, in fact, George H.W. Bush. (Bush-41). There is no limit on the political stupidity in Hollywood, none at all.
Um.. maybe both films were based on Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080979/)?
share[deleted]
Thank you lol. The plot is not an original idea either. Many of stories have used replacement look a likes in their stories many of times. Each story just adds a few different elements.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2604794/
[deleted]
Or, perhaps all of them owe something to Robert Heinlein's novel Double Star:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Star
I think there are several movies which have borrowed from Chaplin's "The Great Dictator." "Moon Over Parador" is an excellent adaptation.
shareIt's based on Charles Booth's short story/play called and The Magnificent Fraud, adapted for the screen in 1939, which predates Chaplin's The Great Dictator.
shareLet's not forget the late Victorian novel The Prisoner of Zenda" which has been filmed quite a few times, too.
share[deleted]
[deleted]
I think this basic plot is much older than either Moon over Parador or Dave. Robert Heinlein's Double Star (same basic plot: A nobody impersonates a powerful politician who just died), was written in 1956. The Prisoner of Zenda, which had basically the same plot as Dave, Moon Over Parador, and Double Star, was written in 1894. So, the specific story of "A nobody impersonates a powerful politician who just died" plot dates back at least a century.
Related plots, such as "A nobody, through some fluke, suddenly finds himself in a powerful position where he doesn't really belong," is even older. Bruce Almighty. The Distinguished Gentleman. King Ralph. The Pope Must Die. Trading Places. Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. The list goes on.