Originality whats originality? Well ill tell you what makes it original.
I like how Lanning relates the races to what Insect colonys are like. Its profound. It makes it more Alien like as oppose to Earth Like. Thats seperates Earth to Oddworld. Sure its original to relate things of Earth to our imaginary world because you have to. If you don't it would suck and it won't be convinceing. All fictional movies and games use this method when they go into creating their worlds. They base everything you would find on earth to their world then they would add their own vision which afterwords gives you a profound look on everything.
but there is a fine line where you must stop and start putting into motion the reality of another planet so that you can get across to the audience that this is not earth its another world. In order for the audience to be convinced that this game or movie is takeing place on another planet and not earth starts at that line. If everything was like Earth then your not looking at Oddworld your looking at earth. you have to add your imagination to the earth related things. This is the only effective way that will convince your audience so that they say "ooh what an interesting place or planet this is!" Thats what makes it original its the combination of imagination and reality. If everything was like Earth on Oddworld then it would be to boreing to watch and if everything was imagined and not based on real earth things then it won't be convinceing. In other words it would take away the realisem of it. You see realisem and fiction go together like the Ying and the Yang! The goal here is to make it so convinceing that you would say "yea maybe this place does exist in the Universe because it looks so real like and then be convinced this is another world we are seeing. Thats the magic we all see in these films and games. Its all Hollywood!
And Oddworld is a perfect example. So to finnish, Everything on Oddworld is Earth like but what makes it original is the combination of the alien likeness of the world and the Earth likeness. The difference between our world and our imaginary world is that fine line between reality and fiction. Its a work of art!
Its convinceing that it is another planet but its even more convinceing that this other world looks and sounds real. Thats the originality of it!
