Escape to the Movies: Prince of Persia
- Thread starter MovieBob
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population of Hollywood: about 130,000.xitel said:
population of the Middle East: about 350,000,000, give or take some tens of millions. That's just counting people actually in the Middle East, not people of Middle Eastern descent.
I'm sure they could have found a person among all those people that could do the job as well as Jake Gyllenhall. Just saying. Statistically. They picked white actors from Hollywood, not because they are the best that ever was, but because they were conveniently nearby. I'm not saying it was a racist statement, but let's be clear. Jake Gyllenhall was not "the best" person in the world to carry the story of Prince of Persia. He's a really good white actor who is an appropriate leading man for a Hollywood action thriller, story be damned. That's all.
It actually ended pretty much the same way how the first Sands-game ended (I presume Bob hasn't played the game).
So I think it was nice that they stayed true to the original and avoided from trying to re-invent the wheel.
So I think it was nice that they stayed true to the original and avoided from trying to re-invent the wheel.
Two things I find fun about this is // One: they are making a game based off the movie which normally is fine (even thou as a game designer I hate game that are made to go along with films are they are rushed and feel like they serve no real purpose apart from making a little extra money for the people how own the copyright of the movie) But in this case it kind of feel like the people behind this forgot that it already has games backing it and during the production someone when 'Hey I know what we need to have, a tie in game, since that is the norm nowadays when it comes to big budget summer blockbuster, which this movie is of course going to be!'
Just cos everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you have to
The second thing was a 'so far' moment I had while watching this, Bob mention that this is the first 'good' movie to come out of Hollywoodland that was based on a video game // Now I might give that to him but the 'so far' moment came when I remember that WoW is been made into a move, or more specifically the book 'Rise of the Lich King', which plots of course of Arthas and his fall from grace into becoming the Lich King, so as this maybe the first it will not be the best
-M
Just cos everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you have to
The second thing was a 'so far' moment I had while watching this, Bob mention that this is the first 'good' movie to come out of Hollywoodland that was based on a video game // Now I might give that to him but the 'so far' moment came when I remember that WoW is been made into a move, or more specifically the book 'Rise of the Lich King', which plots of course of Arthas and his fall from grace into becoming the Lich King, so as this maybe the first it will not be the best
-M
It's interesting the comment you make about how you thought the first good Video Game Movie would be have the power-ups and quests. Prince of Persia didn't really have power-ups or quests, it was as a game, rather cinematic in it's design.
As I'm sure others have commented, the only thing separating the game from the movie is that the game needed to be about 10 times as long, ergo was padded out with puzzles, platforming, and repetitive battles. Hollywood had an easy job here I think, I have yet to see it but as long as they cut and paste from the right source all that's left is making it flow well and look pretty.
Game mechanics really don't translate well to movies, I'd guess that's why this movie is supposedly 'the first'. You need a story that can stand as a film without hints back to mechanics and interactivity. Really that's the reason we have Movies and Games and not a single media to the ring of "SUPER VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT X".
As I'm sure others have commented, the only thing separating the game from the movie is that the game needed to be about 10 times as long, ergo was padded out with puzzles, platforming, and repetitive battles. Hollywood had an easy job here I think, I have yet to see it but as long as they cut and paste from the right source all that's left is making it flow well and look pretty.
Game mechanics really don't translate well to movies, I'd guess that's why this movie is supposedly 'the first'. You need a story that can stand as a film without hints back to mechanics and interactivity. Really that's the reason we have Movies and Games and not a single media to the ring of "SUPER VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT X".
I would like to start this post my stating the fact that I am not racist!!! Now I would like to point out the reason an AMERICAN made movie would not use real middle eastern people. It's because Americans do not like people that can't speak English clearly. And the amount of racist people in that country would it is jest best for them if they don't expand this field. You know with the war and all that kind of crap. I guess all in all I am trying to say Americans only like Americans.sievr said:
IanBrazen said:
Just to elaborate, even though I believe Silent Hill is the best video game movie, it still isn't a great film. It's just better than the other video game movies.
However I believe that will all change if some rumours do come true. E.g Mass Effect movie and Bioshock movie.
If they are made as well as the games have been, we could be in for a real treat.
Someone's probably already said this (no I'm not going to hunt through 9 pages) but I just replayed Sands of Time and the prince is... well... really WHITE. For a Persian prince. They made him even whiter for Warrior Within and suddenly a lot more persian for Two Thrones, but to be honest I found him kinda ugly there. (EDIT: Maybe that's my white-boy preference, who knows?)Baby Tea said:
Also, if you want Yakuza stuff with African guys (or to be honest they actually look more Polynesian) then Tokyo Tribe looked pretty intense (then they did that screaming-in-the-eyes thing for like 30 seconds in episode 2 and completely ruined it).
Now, to diverge completely onto my own thing here (again, someone's probably mentioned it) but am I the only person who gets the impression that MovieBob hasn't actually played any of the SoT games? If he's mentioning the ending it's not enough that we 'saw it coming 20 minutes in' - if you've played the games you already saw it coming before you walked into the theatre. Also, he never makes a detailed or even precise reference to any game. The best we've got is "a pastiche of every previous Arabian Nights-type fantasy flick", which is about as precise as saying "It's in the Arabian Nights setting". We got that, move on.
Where's the part where he compares bits of the movie with the corresponding bits from the games? Where's the "Well there's no Dahaka. Shame, he was a bad-ass"? There's not even mention of the princess having a completely new name (or the prince finally having a name at all).
I mean it wasn't a bad review, it told me what I needed to know, it just didn't tell me what I wantedto know as a fan of the series.
excellent jab at Lost at the end. what a stupid fucking show. i got 3 episodes into season 1 and i could tell that tripe wasn't going anywhere.
Went to watch it witha friend 3 days ago. Bob's review was just about spot on! Personally, I didnt mind the movie at all and this is from a person that has played 2 of the PoP games (not the animated one)
I'm sorry but this movie was a mess. Clash of the titans was a lot better and I can't see a reason to go see this movie at the cinema, unless ... you have a lobotomized girlfriend and you are overdue to walk her out of the house.
Modern-day Iran is nowhere near India. True. However, modern-day borders are often only tangentially related to the great empires of old. The Roman republic and empire spread further than modern Italy. India used to be balkanised into many different independent states. Pharaonic Egypt at various moments in time ruled as far south as most of Sudan, and as far north as Lebanon. Turkey is a mere shadow of the Ottoman Empire, whch ruled pretty much the entire Middle East and the Balkans for centuries. Achaemenid and Sassanid Persia, the two great Persian empires, were much, much larger than Iran is today. The Achaemenid empire especially is one of the largest empires in the world (IIRC not in the top-whatever, but still significant enough to be worth mentioning). Their lands stretched from Anatolia (Turkey) to the Sinai (and IIRC they occupied Egypt at some point too), north to the Caucasus and Central Asia (now home to a gaggle of tiny post-Soviet states) to the Indian Subcontinent. The Persian empires, be they Achaemenid, Sassanid, Hellenistic Seleucid or any I'm forgetting, always had close ties to India, and trade (and warfare) was rife. The pride of the Persian armies were the war elephants, imported from India (and often with Indian handlers to boot).
Even disregarding the common border on land, trade and other contact would be very much possible by sea. There's a reason it's called the Persian Gulf - and it opens into the Indian ocean. Coastal trade was very common since long before the Achaemenids, and it remained a major factor for long after the Sassanids. Persian, Arabian, Indian and even Chinese traders made the Indian Ocean a hotbed of commerce, connecting everything from the African East Coast to the Pacific in one giant interwoven web of trade.
One other constant factor of the various Persian and Arabian empires, right up until about the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, was a very tolerant cosmopolitanism, and people from various races and various geographical backgrounds could become rich and powerful on their own merit. So an Indian vizier, or at least one of Indian descent with visible Indian traits, is a distinct possibility.
Just my ?0.02 on the matter of historical relations. It's kind of my thing. It's amazing how little people actually know about history, and even more amazing that they don't realise just how little they actually know even if they're aware of it. But that's a whole different rant.
Even disregarding the common border on land, trade and other contact would be very much possible by sea. There's a reason it's called the Persian Gulf - and it opens into the Indian ocean. Coastal trade was very common since long before the Achaemenids, and it remained a major factor for long after the Sassanids. Persian, Arabian, Indian and even Chinese traders made the Indian Ocean a hotbed of commerce, connecting everything from the African East Coast to the Pacific in one giant interwoven web of trade.
One other constant factor of the various Persian and Arabian empires, right up until about the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, was a very tolerant cosmopolitanism, and people from various races and various geographical backgrounds could become rich and powerful on their own merit. So an Indian vizier, or at least one of Indian descent with visible Indian traits, is a distinct possibility.
Just my ?0.02 on the matter of historical relations. It's kind of my thing. It's amazing how little people actually know about history, and even more amazing that they don't realise just how little they actually know even if they're aware of it. But that's a whole different rant.
