Pixar New, Pixar Ripped Off

You can seldom go wrong with a dinosaur picture, especially dinosaurs in the north woods.



And apparently a studio in the Middle Kingdom has decided "you can never go wrong with a Pixar picture":

Made-in-China movie draws fire as a copycat of Pixar's 'Cars'

The movie in question [is] “The Autobots,” produced by the animation studio Blue MTV in the southern Chinese city of Xiamen. Although the plot of “The Autobots” is not like “Cars,” its protagonist bears a striking resemblance to the lead character from the Pixar film: ... Lightning McQueen.

The movie has become the topic of a heated debate, with many Chinese film fans accusing the director of plagiarism.

“What the heck is this? Please try to compare your poster to the original one of ‘Cars’ from Disney,” Lu Hengyu, an animation director, wrote in a mocking post on his official account on the social media platform Weibo. “You call these ‘The Autobots’? Then I will make one called ‘The Decepticons’!” ...

Disney is not enthused about "The Autobots." A Disney spokesperson said: "We believe 'The Autobots' picture blatantly infringes on Disney's intellectual property rights from our 'Cars' and 'Cars 2' movies and intend vigorously to protect our copyright." ...

Sadly for The Autobots, imitating high-end American animation hasn't resulted in blockbusterhood. This particular Chinese cartoon feature has laid an egg at the Chinese box office.