Final Words: Fiction On a True Story
The phrases "Based on a True Story" and "Inspired by a True Story" have vastly different meanings and purposes. Through this small site and a few small examples we can see the ultimate difference that is all too simple: one is true and one is not true.
What it means to be "Inspired by a True Story" is a marketing ploy, a method only to draw attention and money. As demonstrated by Slumdog Millionaire, the Hurt Locker and countless horror movies, these taglines mean nothing. It is an illusion to trick the audience that the story is not just fiction. Maybe it can happen and in the case of some horror movies, maybe it already did.
On the other hand we have "Based on a True Story..."
Now don't start thinking that these movies are any better than those "Inspired by..." If you begin thinking that way, you haven't been paying attention.
These movies deal with history and they deal with it in a dangerous way: for the public's eye and for a mass audience expecting a "true story." The audience may not know the history already, and when this occurs, they may receive a botched history lesson. Even if the audience already knows the history they are equally at risk (case in point, the minor political changes in the King's Speech). Plots get embellished, drama overtakes facts and a story is sold and not told (re: Argo).
Both of these definitions enter into what I call "Fiction on a True Story." In both cases fiction, something that is not true or accurate of the historical context, is added to a historical event. The plot, the dialogue, may be adjusted, added to, maybe even removed. What we are left with instead varies in degree. From close to truth with "Based on a True Story" to the plainest of straight fiction with "Inspired by a True Story."
There are no groundbreaking revelations here but maybe in the very least you will think twice the next time you hear those phrases...
What it means to be "Inspired by a True Story" is a marketing ploy, a method only to draw attention and money. As demonstrated by Slumdog Millionaire, the Hurt Locker and countless horror movies, these taglines mean nothing. It is an illusion to trick the audience that the story is not just fiction. Maybe it can happen and in the case of some horror movies, maybe it already did.
On the other hand we have "Based on a True Story..."
Now don't start thinking that these movies are any better than those "Inspired by..." If you begin thinking that way, you haven't been paying attention.
These movies deal with history and they deal with it in a dangerous way: for the public's eye and for a mass audience expecting a "true story." The audience may not know the history already, and when this occurs, they may receive a botched history lesson. Even if the audience already knows the history they are equally at risk (case in point, the minor political changes in the King's Speech). Plots get embellished, drama overtakes facts and a story is sold and not told (re: Argo).
Both of these definitions enter into what I call "Fiction on a True Story." In both cases fiction, something that is not true or accurate of the historical context, is added to a historical event. The plot, the dialogue, may be adjusted, added to, maybe even removed. What we are left with instead varies in degree. From close to truth with "Based on a True Story" to the plainest of straight fiction with "Inspired by a True Story."
There are no groundbreaking revelations here but maybe in the very least you will think twice the next time you hear those phrases...