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Based on a true story means that some of the events are based on real life occurrences, but the writers have also made up a lot of it to make the story more interesting and more coherent.

"Inspired by a true story" means that essentially none of it is true, but the moviemakers want you to think it's true so you'll be more inclined to go see the film or read the book.

Movie producers and marketers in Hollywood know that people are more likely to see a horror movie if they think it's based on a true story. So, they deliberately attempt to blur the line between fiction and the truth, by claiming that movies are "inspired by a true story" and pretending it's the same thing as being "based on a true story." Basically, they lie and say it's a true story when it's not.

"Inspired by a true story" is a deceptively misleading phrase. As I've said many, many times in response to the myriad, "Is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre real?" questions, ALL stories are "inspired by a true story." ALL writers get their ideas from real life.

Occasionally, a great idea will just come to you, seemingly out of the blue (or in a dream), and you have no clue where it came from. But most of the time, that's not how writing works. Writers don't just magically come up with ideas from nothing. Rather, they get their ideas from things they see, hear, read about, and experience in the real world.

A good example is the Hostel movies. Writer/director Eli Roth got the idea for the Hostel movies from a website that a friend showed him, which advertised a "murder vacation" in Thailand, where, for $10,000, you could shoot someone in the head.

So, when the Hostel movies came out, they were touted as "inspired by a true story." Roth doesn't even know if the website was a hoax or not!

Another example is the movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is "inspired by" the real story of the serial killer Ed Gein.

But Ed Gein did not live in Texas, he did not belong to a family of killers, he did not murder his victims with a chainsaw, and he never stalked and killed a bunch of teenagers who were passing by his house.

Out of the entire movie, only two, possibly three little details are true: 1) Ed Gein wore the skin of his victims like clothing. But unlike the fictional Leatherface character, Ed Gein made a whole suit out of women's skin, complete with breasts and a vagina. Leatherface only wore a mask of human skin.

2) Ed Gein gutted his victims and hung them in his house, similar to how the victims in The Texas Chainsaw Massacrewere treated.

3) Ed Gein may have eaten some of his victims' remains, although this has not been proven to be true.

The movie claims to be "inspired by a true story," yet none of the events shown in the film ever happened in real life! It's called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, yet it didn't happen in Texas, it didn't happen with a chainsaw, and it wasn't a massacre!

As I said, ALL fiction writers get their ideas from real life. For example, the idea for the Freddy Krueger character came from a creepy vagrant who frightened writer/director Wes Craven when he was a child. The man wore a hat and sweater similar to Freddy's.

Craven got the idea about dying in your sleep from a few cases of people who had horrible nightmares and believed that if they fell asleep they would die.

So, A Nightmare on Elm Street could be called "inspired by a true story," even though none of the events shown in the movie ever happened in real life.

Many of Jane Austen's characters were based, at least in part, on herself or people she knew. According to Hollywood moviemakers, then, Pride and Prejudice is "inspired by a true story."

Nearly all of Stephen King's main characters (the male ones, anyway) are pretty much self-portraits. They're all variations of himself. So, according to Hollywood, then, all of Stephen King's stories are based on true stories.

Additionally, Stephen King got the idea for Ellen Rimbauer and the Rose Red mansion from Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mansion. No one has ever died or gone missing in the Winchester Mansion, and the life of Sarah Winchester was absolutely nothing like the life of the fictional Ellen Rimbauer. But Hollywood filmmakers would be happy to call Rose Red, "inspired by a true story," just so you will be more likely to see the film.

The idea for the movie The Strangers came from a number of different real life home invasion crimes. So, The Strangers is labeled "inspired by a true story," even though nothing that happens in the film ever actually happened in real life.

There have also been many, many men who fell in love with married women. According to Hollywood, then, Casablanca is "inspired by a true story."

There have been plenty of innocent men convicted of crimes, and there have also been plenty of criminals who've escaped from prison. Apparently that makes The Shawshank Redemption"inspired by a true story."

There are plenty of hotels that are supposedly haunted. So, apparently, that makes The Shining "inspired by a true story."

And there are plenty of murders that have occurred on trains. So, again, that would make Murder on the Orient Express"inspired by a true story."

The Caribbean is a real place, and throughout history there have been pirates. So, Pirates of the Caribbean can be called "inspired by a true story."

Plenty of men have attempted to have their wives murdered, and failed. So, Dial M for Murder and its remake, A Perfect Murder, can be called "inspired by a true story."

EVERY story is inspired by a true story. So, "inspired by a true story" is a meaningless phrase that was invented by Hollywood for the sole purpose of tricking people into buying more movie tickets.

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13y ago
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13y ago

Based on a true story mean they took facts from the original happenings and used them in the storyline of the movie, though not all occurrences in the movie did actually happen.

Inspired by a true story means the movie has a slight basis on real occurrences, but the majority of what takes place in the movie never really happened.

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Q: What is the difference between based on a true story and inspired by a true story?
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