WCF Game 5 Pre-show Part Two: Zoolander, Zach Braff, and, oh yeah, the Jazz

Part Two: In which I address something non-basketball related but that really sticks in my craw: Zach Braff is a F#$%ing plagiarist

HarpringSucks.com was founded on the idea that we hate liars and deceivers. People, like Matt Harpring, who somehow con others into believing they are something they are not, are worst scum of the earth because they create false expectations and hope in viewers that will inevitably be crushed time and time again. In that line I think it is our responsibility to call to task the Matt Harpring of the entertainment industry: Zach Braff.

Zach Braff was given critical and popular acclaim when he starred in, wrote, and directed his "original" work "Garden State." There's only one problem: he pretty much re-hashed entirely a Steve Guttenberg classic from his childhood. (I understand that using the word Steve Guttenberg and classic in the same sentence is somewhat odd, but stick with me here) Dear readers, I submit to you that "Garden State" is, in fact, a re-make of "Short Circuit."

Now I know what you're thinking. "Remake?! Garden State is about an actor who goes home for the first time after his mother's death in New Jersey and finds love and happiness for the first time after he stops taking anti-depressants. And Short Circuit is about a death weapon robot who starts to believe he's human and alive after an electrical storm." I understand these may not be literal re-makes, but I present to you today the proposition that Zach Braff, clever as he is, chose to metaphorically re-make Short Circuit.


Zach couldn't make a movie about a literal robot falling in love for the first time because he would have had to start writing those expensive Steve Guttenberg royalty checks. Instead, he did the next best thing: Zach made his main character an emotional robot who seeks release by being an actor where he can let loose his emotions. Just as the Robot #5 is constantly mistaken for a weapon of death even when he becomes gentle and human, everyone Braff runs into in Garden State constantly remembers him for his one film role: a retarded quarterback in a cliche-ridden sports film. Ultimately Braff is freed from his lithium induced haze by the "emotional electric storm" of his mother's death which ultimately causes him to realize the meaningfulness of his own humanity. Sound like any other movie to you?


Braff even goes so far as to metaphorically steal meaningful shots from Short Circuit. Braff's scene were he wears a shirt made from the same fabric and pattern as wallpaper in his mother's bathroom was discussed as being a great metaphor for the way we all blend into the lives of those around us, but in reality it was a blatant robbery from the scene where Robot #5 sneaks out of the Department of Defense facility by blending in with outgoing garbage cans.

Furthermore Braff makes a cruel mockery of #5's first discovery of the outside world where he meets a stray dog by having his main character's love interest be introduced in a scene where a seeing eye dog humps Braff's leg. And don't even get me started on the similarities between Ally Sheedy and Natalie Portman.


Finally, Garden State steals some of the best representational artistry from Short Circuit and makes it cheap and literal. Where Robot #5 must leap from Steve Guttenberg's van into the unknown to escape from the Department of Defense, Garden State's main characters literally scream into an abyss. Real subtlety in your film making there Zach. The movies even end the same way, with a false departure leaving the Ally Sheedy/Natalie Portman character saddened but ultimately overjoyed when Zach Braff/Robot #5 re-emerge. In essence, there was no key plot point from Garden State that was not wholly ripped from Short Circuit.


Mr. Braff, you owe the world an apology for your plagiarism. We though you might be a Richard Jefferson of film making, but at the end of the day you were just another Matt Harpring. I'm so disappointed.