>When the film was released, some viewers noticed that Atlantis: The Lost Empire bore a number of similarities to the 1990–1991 Japanese anime television program Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, particularly in its character design, setting, and story. The similarities, as noted by viewers in both Japan and America, were strong enough for its production company Gainax to be called to sue for plagiarism. According to Gainax member Yasuhiro Takeda, they only refrained from doing so because the decision belonged to parent companies NHK and Toho. Another Gainax worker, Hiroyuki Yamaga, was quoted in an interview in 2000 as: "We actually tried to get NHK to pick a fight with Disney, but even the National Television Network of Japan didn't dare to mess with Disney and their lawyers. [...] We actually did say that but we wouldn't actually take them to court. We would be so terrified about what they would do to them in return that we wouldn’t dare."
>Although Disney never responded formally to those claims, co-director Kirk Wise posted on a Disney animation newsgroup in May 2001, "Never heard of Nadia till it was mentioned in this [newsgroup]. Long after we'd finished production, I might add." He claimed both Atlantis and Nadia were inspired, in part, by the 1870 Jules Verne novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. However, speaking about the clarification, Lee Zion from Anime News Network wrote, "There are too many similarities not connected with 20,000 Leagues for the whole thing to be coincidence." As such, the whole affair ultimately entered popular culture as a convincing case of plagiarism. In 2018, Reuben Baron from Comic Book Resources added to Zion's comment stating, "Verne didn't specifically imagine magic crystal-based technology, something featured in both the Disney movie and the two similar anime. The Verne inspiration also doesn't explain the designs being suspiciously similar to Nadia's."
Atlantis and Nadia drew from the same sources of Jules Verne, Edgar Cayce, and Ignatius Donnelly, the latter two of which are responsible for the whole "Atlantis had magic crystal technology" thing seen in Atlantis media over the years, plus Disney invested way too much energy into ripping off Hellboy before just hiring Mignola when it came to creating the character designs. Helga was an Ilsa stand-in from the start after all.
The whole thing reeks of ignorant butthurt Annofags that swear up and down that his work is way more deep and religious then "Anno just wanted to make a bunch of Toku references". The Kimba/Lion King stuff had a greater leg to stand on then the Nadia/Atlantis stuff ever did.
Ryder Thompson
>As such, the whole affair ultimately entered popular culture as a convincing case of plagiarism. is that why literally no one remembered this until this year for some reason
Xavier Miller
it's literally the same thing as Kimba/Lion King where the main characters kind of look similar and they have a similar premise so OBVIOUSLY one ripped off the other wholesale
Jaxson Kelly
They're not really that similar, though I'd be surprised if Mignola wasn't at least subconsciously influenced by Nadia when he knocked up the character designs. I vaguely remember him saying years ago that his daughter likes anime, so who knows, maybe they watched it together.
Juan Richardson
I can't get over how the beginning of Atlantis is identical to Stargate.
Nathan Torres
They’re both pretty good. I think Nadia’s high points are higher, but it’s really held back by the fifth (?) of the show on the desert island, which were shit. Atlantis is more consistent, but that is sorta the relative advantages of being a 40 episode series compared to one movie. They both have really really good side-casts, and Milo and Jean (barring the island) are both great. Kida and Nadia are the weak links, and though I think it shows more with the more time that Nadia gets she’s also hotter I don’t really care about the copying thing, because I enjoy both of them, so I’m glad that both of them exist regardless.
The directors did admit to Castle of Cagliostro inspiring part of the ending, so you could follow that Miyazaki thread over to Laputa, which Nadia itself ripped off.
Ian Turner
>They created a whole language for this fucking movie
Did they think this was going to be a whole franchise or something?
Jacob Mitchell
yes? Did you not pick up on Atlantis 2 being three episodes of a potential series stitched together?
Jeremiah Foster
We went over this before, why are you posting about it again?
paying a linguist is a drop in the bucket compared to VA costs.
Parker Powell
Yes. The show mentioned was going to crossover with Gargoyles and everything and Imagineering wanted to use Atlantis as a retheme for the Disneyland subs and as the basis for a volcano roller coaster at Disney World that would switch from a sitdown to an inverted track midway through.
Besides the language, there was a shitload of backstory for the city and the Shepherd's Journal that ended up in guidebooks. Atlantis was very much Disney trying to make something appealing to teenage boys, but it got mogged by Shrek.
Dominic Roberts
Is Atlantis 2 worth a watch?
Andrew Jones
Crystals are a central part of almost every incarnation of magical technology in fiction
Also Atlantis was so good and then they got to Atlantis and the movie just falls apart
Ethan Nguyen
Nadia is better.
Mason Watson
This, and even if Atlantis was a 100% concious rippoff of Nadia it would be better anyway for not having the fucking island arc.
