I was browsing the Internet Movie Database message board for the new movie “The Condemned” that is about to be released on April 27. Everyone seems to be outraged about the movie because to them, it is a rip-off of “Battle Royale,” a Japanese movie made in 2000.

“Battle Royale,” which I haven’t seen, had to do with a group of Japanese ninth-graders being stuck on an island for three days and forced to kill each other with the winner being granted freedom.

“The Condemned” has a similar premise, at least the island and freedom part. However, the “players” are 10 convicted death-row inmates, and the world gets to watch the whole thing unfold like reality TV. Imagine it as a real “Survivor.”

The movie stars former World Wrestling Entertainment star “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as the main character and the film’s trailer reminded me of “The Running Man” from the ’80s with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“The Condemned” appears like it is an action-packed satire or mediation on violence in today’s society and how close we might be coming to seeing just this sort of thing on our television sets in the future.

I’ve heard from friends and message board posters that originality is dead in Hollywood. I disagree. I don’t think originality is as important as presentation and production values. Every movie, like every joke a comedian tells, is just a re-telling or re-packaging of something that has already been done. It’s old.

I can’t really understand why these people can make these claims, because movies in themselves are re-makes and the same basic ideas are mixed and matched.

Being original is like being unique. If everyone is supposed to be unique, then it defeats the inherent “originality” of people (or films, in this case). While I would love to see some different takes on old classics and would like to see some new ideas get used in the movies,

I also understand that a lot of the “new” is really much of the old when it comes to storytelling and that movies are no exception.

Hopefully, the detractors will get that through their heads.