Don't Film These Games!

[Danz D Man]

MovieBob, have you read the Halo books or researched the backstory at all?

 

[A sarcastic Bastard]

Win

 

[TheXRatedDodo]

That Sim's idea actually sounds fucking hilarious.

Now, I know a game that would make a great movie...no...a great TV show: X-Com UFO Defense.

Think about it. a team of multi-national secret agents fighting a constant war against a fucking alien empire that is invading the planet Earth with mysterious UFOs. You have so many character choices: The general commanding it all, the smarmy politicians who X-Com has to deal with it keep their funding, the squad that goes on the missions and the scientists who try to study the alien technology that the team captures, to turn it against the alien menace.

There is betrayal, as some nations secretly sign treaties with the aliens!

There are scary scenes, when the team first runs into fucking crysilids and their fucking goddamn zombies.

And finally, there is the fucking awesome climax, with the team taking on the alien base on mars, fighting desperately through hordes of aliens to set blow up the reactor and zoom home in a spaceship made from alien materials and good old fashioned human know how.


BAM! Awesome. Lets shoot it and make money.

It's already been done, and done better :3
It's called THE X FILES

 

[StarkillerisDead]

Well, Bob I've realised over time that your and my views on movies (and games) are very very different, and that's absolutely fine,your views are at least as valid as mine. I really don't think that MK thingy looks like a Saw knockoff though. other than the gore and lack of lighting there is essentially nothing in common between the two.

 

[TheArsoni5t]

Again with the Halo bashing? The expanded universe adds enough for a good movie to be made without tweaking the source material (Albeit, this would probably piss off the XBL idiot demographic...which would be a plus in my book). It'd probably be best to not base it around the Chief (although, as far as Super Soldiers go, he really isn't so bad), but it wouldn't just be a Starship Troopers clone.

In the end, I really wouldn't want to see a Halo movie, nor a movie based on any other game in that list, but the Halo bashing is getting a little old. Looking forward to your "Must Film" list

I was just about to say something when I came across this quote.

 

[Fearzone]

So, I guess the rule of thumb is: don't make movies based on games that already have weak, derivative, or overdone stories to begin with?

 

[The Root Beer Guy]

Agree with all of those except Halo. Halo could make an incredible movie. Even one based off of Fall of Reach.

 

[Uncompetative]

Halo not worth making a movie...


1) The Halo movie is ON HOLD. Microsoft have made it clear they want to make an entry at some point

2) Blomkamp won't be directing. He left to do District 9 and said he poured too much into the project, saw it slow and can't put himnself through the pain again


Now there is actually the planned scrip floating around. You clearly don't know Halo if you say it has a basic story considering the incredible depth, I was playing Halo 1 the other day and looking at the manual's descriptions I saw references that have only been fully developed in the very latest books like Cole Protocol and Ghosts of Onyx.

That said the most promising screenplay is not in Fall of Reach (I wish people would stop saying that) but in The Flood.

The original plan was to set the movie following the actions of Major DeSilva and his Helljumpers placing the Chief as a more secondary character and splitting the focus across the human struggle on the ring using Keyes as the link to bring it all together.

Frankly it looked really good and would have made an epic movie while not destroying the mystique of Chief (since Bungie have shot themselves in the foot by hiding his face all the time, means they can't show him to be just a normal human now).

Please don't take Halo: Legends either. You ignored some of the better ones in your review focussing on Origins which had massive gaps in the Forerunner history (not to mention some inconsistencies in the Human one) and the Package with it's cringeworthy line dropping (not to mention handing the humans shields in about 2545 - what???). On the other hand the Babysitter was well done albeit with an unsatisfying portrayal of the spartan's hair. All the films were done by studios who didn't have the time to check Halo canon and so were not accurate nor consistent everywhere and developed very little (this is why I feel the Babysitter made the best entry by adding while not conflicting, they accepted their limitations). Not to mention the far too short runtime.


The Halo Universe is massive and could take any story placed in it, people are too quick to jump on Reach forgetting that the in media res generated by the escape from Reach was part of the charm that strengthened Halo as a game.

I doubt any of this will get through to any but people who have actually played the games and understood the story rather than simply declaring it bad (I have seen this 1st hand, Friend: "Halo story is crap" Me: "What about ..." Friend: "What?/Oh I skipped that cutscene"). People seem to have the idea that because Halo has fun and mindless (online, in campaign it's more tactical) gameplay it can't have a story.

Anyways just used this account to make a quick post refuting the stuff here.

Bob, please don't make such brash statements without a basic knowledge of the Halo universe (or even oh, I don't know, the fact that a screenplay has been written and is damn good). Stick to what you know and ask someone who does know if you have gaps, you don't have time to play 4 games and read 7 novels, we get that, just don't ignore them.

I've always thought it would make more sense to follow the storyline of the Arbiter in a trilogy, with Master Chief as a walk-on cameo.

 

[josemlopes]

What has the MK reboot similar to SAW? What? The gore? C´mon, its going to be more based around fighting, like the game. The fight with Baraka and Jonhy Cage was like a demonstration of what the fights may look like

 

[RTR]

Hey Bob, here's what I think would be a goood idea for a future Intermission: what makes an action movie a good movie? AKA go into detail about what, in your opinion, separates something like The Losers or Michael Bay from The A Team or GI Joe and when is it OK to have something like District 9 where there's certainly action but no one's having the time of their lives and the action is not front and center in the movie.

 

[pigmy wurm]

Hardcore fans of the Halo story love the Arbiter, actually.

Oh thats good, maybe it was just the small subset that I have run into.

And read the books. John-117 is a much deeper character then what you see in the games, as previously stated in the thread.

1st, isn't most of his interesting character development set before the first game with his training. Also he has a problematic catch-22, he is his most impressive when he is solo, but a solo character gets boring so he would need other marines around him to actually develop, which would make him less impressive. But, my bigger issue is just how "awesome" he is. He is an incredibly powerful cyborg and like with superman, it is really hard to create enough tension when you don't feel your hero is truly in danger. Again, it is not impossible to make the movie, but the most likely solution would be to just make it into a starship troopers rip off, and no-one wants that.

here is a blog where I explain my thoughts more: http://screwattack.com/blogs/Mise-en-Pixel/Halo-the-Movie-why-it-wont-work

 

[Eldarion]

MovieBob, have you read the Halo books or researched the backstory at all?

If it isn't in the games why should it count?

 

[Namewithheld]

That Sim's idea actually sounds fucking hilarious.

Now, I know a game that would make a great movie...no...a great TV show: X-Com UFO Defense.

Think about it. a team of multi-national secret agents fighting a constant war against a fucking alien empire that is invading the planet Earth with mysterious UFOs. You have so many character choices: The general commanding it all, the smarmy politicians who X-Com has to deal with it keep their funding, the squad that goes on the missions and the scientists who try to study the alien technology that the team captures, to turn it against the alien menace.

There is betrayal, as some nations secretly sign treaties with the aliens!

There are scary scenes, when the team first runs into fucking crysilids and their fucking goddamn zombies.

And finally, there is the fucking awesome climax, with the team taking on the alien base on mars, fighting desperately through hordes of aliens to set blow up the reactor and zoom home in a spaceship made from alien materials and good old fashioned human know how.


BAM! Awesome. Lets shoot it and make money.

It's already been done, and done better :3
It's called THE X FILES

No.

No.

And no.

The x-files and X-com are completely different. One is a conspiracy based horror show, the other is an action/sci-fi mix.

its like trying to compare...I don't know, Dan Brown and Heinlein.

 

[Larsirius]

Being a major Halo fanboy and know-it-all, I'm going to say that I'd rather destroy every piece of Halo related material on Earth than seeing a Halo movie be made.

There are several reasons. Firstly: movies based on games will never be good, because of the very different narrative standpoints of the media. Secondly, a Halo movie couldn't have Master Chief as a protogonist, because he doesn't show any emotions through that half of ton MJOLNIR of his, and the movie would have to star some other character, and would have MC as a big supporting character. Thirdly, making a Halo movie would require actors; actors who doesn't look anything like the characters the fans have grown to know and love. Finally: like Halo Legends, which was mostly crap(except for Homecoming, the Package and Origins), a Halo movie would be full of artistic licenses(read: canonical inaccuracies.), which is tearing hard on a fanbase that is trying to keep track of and maintain a canon much deeper than what meets the eye of the average Halo player. We don't want the franchise to turn into Star Wars Expanded Universe or Star Trek.

IF a Halo movie was to be made, and made into something other than a generic sci-fi shooter, it would have to dive into the mystical realms of the Forerunner aspect of the franchise, something which is so deep and complicated that it wouldn't fit in a 2 hour blockbuster.

 

[Larsirius]

@Eldarion: Because it's considered canon, and involve much richer stories, plotlines and character. The novels fill in between and around the games.

 

[lukemdizzle]

A halo movie would be amazing IF... it is more based on the arbiter. I don't know why he was never accepted amongst most halo fans his story and the story of the decay of the covenant is deep. It reflects upon religious fanaticism, cultural gullibility, racism, redemption and the morality of defiance. the arbiter kicks ass and if they through the chief and humanity in as parallel stories to highlight how the arbiter and the chief essentially play the same role in their individual cultures but are being forced to fight each other because of lies. O and I almost forgot huge space alien battles on an ancient space station, tell me that wouldn't be a kick ass movie

ps. the halo books aren't very good. Ive read all of them and they expand the universe but thats about all. The covenant story is by far the best in terms of plot

 

[Larsirius]

@lukemdizzle: The Arbiter has been praised by the majority of the Halo Community for those exact reasons.

 

[ultimasupersaiyan]

When it comes to some games making a movie out of tem is a piece of piss. COD4 and COD:MW2 are easily done since the story is a vague part of it, same with Halo and Gears. Other games like God of War, Uncharted to name a few have intricate storys that a movie adaptation just couldn't fullfill properly if at all. One of the biggest problem with games to film adaptation is the fact that the people behind it are not fans! Place a fan who's a director or just and fan I suppose and it will be reasonable or possibly great. Look at the Watchmen movie, Zack Snyder was apparently a fan of the original source material and that's one of the best movies anyone can see.

In short fans should make video games as movies, not Hollywood companies with no souls.

 

[TheXRatedDodo]

That Sim's idea actually sounds fucking hilarious.

Now, I know a game that would make a great movie...no...a great TV show: X-Com UFO Defense.

Think about it. a team of multi-national secret agents fighting a constant war against a fucking alien empire that is invading the planet Earth with mysterious UFOs. You have so many character choices: The general commanding it all, the smarmy politicians who X-Com has to deal with it keep their funding, the squad that goes on the missions and the scientists who try to study the alien technology that the team captures, to turn it against the alien menace.

There is betrayal, as some nations secretly sign treaties with the aliens!

There are scary scenes, when the team first runs into fucking crysilids and their fucking goddamn zombies.

And finally, there is the fucking awesome climax, with the team taking on the alien base on mars, fighting desperately through hordes of aliens to set blow up the reactor and zoom home in a spaceship made from alien materials and good old fashioned human know how.


BAM! Awesome. Lets shoot it and make money.

It's already been done, and done better :3
It's called THE X FILES

No.

No.

And no.

The x-files and X-com are completely different. One is a conspiracy based horror show, the other is an action/sci-fi mix.

its like trying to compare...I don't know, Dan Brown and Heinlein.

Let it be known that I was far from being serious :3