The anti-plagiarism system was developed by TUSUR student Eugene Garin. In a letter to Russia's Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky and head of the Russian Cinematographers Union Nikita Michalkov, Garin explained how the system evaluated a 96% similarity between the plots of the two movies.
"There is a striking resemblance between the storylines of the two movies," the letter reads, as cited by RIA Novosti. "The characters' social roles and interaction, evolution of social environment in these two films are completely the same. This indicates that the creators of Star Wars trilogy plagiarized the original plot of "Kashchei the Immortal" with minimal author's contribution to the development of the copied story."
Garin asserted that his system detected a similarity between the protagonist characters Luke Skywalker and Nikita Kozhemyaka; their love interests Leia Organa and Maria Morevna; and master Yoda and magician Father Mushroom, as well as similarities in their actions and behavior.
According to TUSUR vice-principal Roman Mescheryakov, Garin's anti-plagiarism system doesn't use textual matching but, instead, searches for similarities in story development and character action, therefore "plagiarism" wouldn't be the proper word to describe the matches. He stated that he would consider the similarities to be an "inconscient adoption of the plotline."
On his page in a Russian social network Garin wrote that his work is not about seeking money, especially in light of the fact that he is not a rights-holder for the Soviet-era artwork, but, if monetary awards were handed out, they would likely exceed hundreds of millions of dollars.
"It is about depriving the plagiarists of prestigious awards," he suggested, "Particularly, George Lucas's Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation."
