XKCD Isn't Funny - #1585 - Similarities

The good people of explainxkcd tell me that this is meant as a parody of people who'll compare the plot points of two different movies and say that the movies are 'the same'. (Examples: Aladdin and Titanic, Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3, Jimmy Neutron and Chicken Little) And even though in the past explainxkcd have been LYING SMUCKS, I'm going to believe them, because I want to give Randy enough credit to assume he doesn't actually believe what's said in the first panel.

As with some previous things XKCD has parodied, my main reaction is to wonder why he's parodying them. Yes, when the example comparisons are looked at, you can easily find differences in theme and style between the movies, and they are not actually 'the same movie'. This is probably because most people don't mean 'the same movie' literally; rather, it exists as a simpler shorthand for something like 'these two movies share multiple similar plot points/characters/etc'.

Maybe it's because I'm a pretentious wannabe media critic, but I tend to find those kinds of observations interesting. It's neat seeing how the same plot can be used to deliver two completely different messages or have completely different styles. And sure, if it's a really badly done comparison, I can see that being worthy of parody, but the majority of 'the same movie' posts I've seen have been pretty well done.

This comic falls into the 'it'd be funny if it happened' crowd of XKCD comics (or, XKComics). Maybe this was in reference to a specific badly done comparison, in which case: cite your sources, Randy.

oh wait i forgot the last panel existed whopps

The ""Fifty Shades Of Red"" line isn't something someone would actually say. If you check out my examples back there in the first paragraph, you don't see the phrases "Aladditanic", "Toy Story 2½", or "Chickeneutron", and it's not just because those are all stupid phrases that should never be used. If two movies were already similar, there'd be no point in combining them.

Either Randy just wanted to be able to say "Fifty Shades Of Red" and he chose a really bad setup, or he wanted to extend things past just making fun of 'the same movie' and chose a really bad extension.