Escape to the Movies: Prince of Persia

standokan

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There is a good movie based on good film now, but is there a good game based on a good movie?

BTW final fantasy made a good movie from a game first didn't they? #cough# sarcasm #cough#
 

Fappy

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Jan 4, 2010
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I might have to watch this movie now... oh and by the way... I just received some disturbing news. Apparently Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes is supposed to be involved in the new TMNT movie: http://www.deadline.com/2010/05/platinum-dunes-steers-turtles-relaunch/

God help us all.
 

dashiz94

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Apr 14, 2009
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You know what I got out of it?

If a good video game movie is based on a game with a good story, then surely any other game with a good story would have a good movie adaptation, amirite?

Seriously, SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS. Come the fuck on Hollywood, that is a gold mine you are neglecting.
 

dashiz94

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Puddle Jumper said:
Hey, Bob, here's a few good games based movies: Tomb Raider,

Euh ... Euh ... yeah, Tomb Raider. Maybe even Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

There's a lot more not bad movies though like In the Name of the King: A dungeon siege tale, Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat and a boatload more animated movies from Street Fighter to once again, Resident Evil.
Mortal Kombat? That was a god awful movie. Despite the fact it was based on a cheesy game.
 

Hyper-space

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Pseudonym2 said:
xitel said:
You know, in response to all the "whitewashing" complaints, I have to say... get over it. They picked the actors they thought would be best in the roles, race or ethnicity be damned. They could have gotten a middle eastern actor to play the prince, yeah, but that doesn't mean he'd have been necessarily as good an actor in the role. I actually applaud the fact that they didn't focus solely on their appearance and went with acting talent instead. I mean, look at Michael Cera. He keeps getting cast as an awkward teenager because he looks like one, but he's not a good actor in those roles. The casting director picked the actors that would best carry the story of the movie, and that's the important thing.
You don't think the fact that Hollywood can't or won't find any good middle eastern actors is very damning? I think it goes back to Hollywood's bullshit assumptions that minorities can identify with white people but white people can't identify with a minorities people. That's why Barbershop is a "black movie" but any john Hughes movie isn't a "white movie."

Why are so many Hollywood movies criticizing the war in Iraq now? It might have done some good six or seven years ago.
I think its more like "hey, Jake Gyllenhaal is a big-name actor with an athletic physique who has the good fortune of being a good actor, why don't we give him the lead role?".

But anyways on to the review. I have already seen Prince of Persia, so i'm a bit confused over Bob's statement that the ending will leave some people angry. I mean seriously, it was a good ending, a simple time-travel twist that doesn't overly-complicate a otherwise good story.
 

Grahav

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Mildly good isn't enough for the VG movies blast off. It must be of gargantuan excellency to put credit in the industry.

Also, in the end, it is really based on the old Holywood visions of middle east. Incidentally a game used this vision and the producers caught it.
 

MovieBob

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UtopiaV1 said:
I think you stuck your neck out there for no reason, don't be suprised if someone bites you for it. Don't forget Judaism is a religion, not an ethnicity.
JUDAISM is a religion. However, the term used was "The Jewish Peoples," which much of anthropology classifies as a "race" - if not also an "ethnicity" - originating in the Middle East (note that the map depicts a period and area of the ancient Middle East, not the modern state of Israel) and subsequently migrating throughout the rest of the world; though one recognizes that this is one of those areas where the actual "split" between seperate cultures and seperate races is increasingly nebulous.

Primarily, it's in there because I found it interesting that Gyllenhaal is recieving the lion's share of grief over the film's casting of "white" actors in Middle Eastern and/or Persian roles, when in the not-too-distant past he wouldn't have been considered "white" to begin with (neither would any of the main cast except for Gemma Arterton, really.)
 

soapyshooter

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Jan 19, 2010
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FUCK THAT! The ending of Lost was great. Unless you missed the point. They weren't able to address all the issues because of ABC's ridiculous time restrictions. More answers are coming on the DVD set
 

Mr. Socky

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As a fan of action movies, I liked it (I've already seen it). And as a fan of the Prince of Persia franchise, I also liked it. Win-win for me.
 

Daveman

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Jan 8, 2009
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I really liked it and I thought the prince of the movie matched the prince of the game so I don't really care if it's historically accurate or whatever. I'd figure the people wanting realism would be more pissed of with the whole rewinding time thing. (Also I thought the original Persians were Caucasian anyway, can't remember where I heard that)

SUSPEND YOUR DISBELIEF.

I thought it was lots of fun because the free-running scenes were better than anything Bourne ever did and the sword fighting was better than... lots of things.

Also I heard loads of people saying it's like an analogy for the real middle east with "weapons... that don't turn out to be there... and a war justified on their presence" but frankly I didn't feel that coming through at all.

But yeah, I felt they made a great movie without tarnishing the name of my favourite video game plot ever.
THAT SAID the thing about "destiny" at the beginning and end. Anyone else think it was a shittier version of the "time is an ocean in a storm" speech from the game?


Also "Moviebob" IF THAT IS YOUR REAL NAME, wtf is wrong with the ending? I fucking loved it. It had a hint of cheese, balanced out with awesome seasoned on top and it fit with the plot.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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Pseudonym2 said:
xitel said:
You know, in response to all the "whitewashing" complaints, I have to say... get over it. They picked the actors they thought would be best in the roles, race or ethnicity be damned. They could have gotten a middle eastern actor to play the prince, yeah, but that doesn't mean he'd have been necessarily as good an actor in the role. I actually applaud the fact that they didn't focus solely on their appearance and went with acting talent instead. I mean, look at Michael Cera. He keeps getting cast as an awkward teenager because he looks like one, but he's not a good actor in those roles. The casting director picked the actors that would best carry the story of the movie, and that's the important thing.
You don't think the fact that Hollywood can't or won't find any good middle eastern actors is very damning? I think it goes back to Hollywood's bullshit assumptions that minorities can identify with white people but white people can't identify with a minorities people. That's why Barbershop is a "black movie" but any john Hughes movie isn't a "white movie."

Why are so many Hollywood movies criticizing the war in Iraq now? It might have done some good six or seven years ago.
I think people are simply looking to pick a fight where there isn't one when it comes to accusations of "whitewashing". It's sort of like saying The Rock wasn't Egyptian, yet he played "The Scorpian King" not once, but twice, and the DVD of the movie actually went so far as to say that unlike the generic "Prince Of Persia" this was loosely (very loosely based) on a real person.... showing a mace with the Scorpian Emblem to point to there being a tribal king who used that symbol somewhere down there at some time... well you get the point.

Also when it comes to swapping other ethnicities it's not viewed as any big deal, I mean when you have a Korean guy playing a Japanese guy, when those two nations/cultures arguably hate each other, why does nobody make a big deal about that? (referring to "Ninja Assasin").

In general I think both politics, and race contreversy, should more or less stay out of fantasy films, video games, and similar things. I am simply put tired of it.

To put things into perspective, when you look at the artwork for the video game, the guy they picked looks pretty close to the picture. Someone could have claimed years ago that the protaganist in "Prince Of Persia" doesn't seem Persian enough, but nobody did until they made a movie.

Furthermore, I can't think of any decent Arabic actors that could have pulled off the character. Heck, I can't think of any decent Arabic actors at all off the top of my head. However to be honest, I don't think that itself is a racial issue either, as much as the fact that you don't see that many ethnic Arabs going into acting (and it takes a lot to succeed in that business), just like how people complain "why aren't there more Black super heroes" yet at the same time I can't think of many black guys who write comic books either.

See, for an ethnicity to become really represented in something that is as competitive as most "artistic" businesses like movies, or comics, you need for a lot of them to get involved and pull ahead in the competitive shark tank that affects everyone involved (and it's about as impartial as you can get). You see a decent number of Asian characters in comics and Asian actors in movies, but then again there are decent numbers of them working in both industries and have been for a while, as time went on there were successes and it changed the industry. Heck you see "Hong Kong Action Cinema" and "Anime" having an influance on Western film making (and vice versa), and the same thing with comics with western and eastern comics being interwoven.

I guess what I'm saying is that if your an Ethnic Arab and something like this bothers you, then maybe you might consider trying for a career on stage? Your not guaranteed to succeed, but if enough people do it, your going to see enough ethnic talent where if someone is going to do an Arabian Nights movie, they'll have a choice of properly ethnic people to perform the roles.

Such are my thoughts at any rate, to me this seems like bellyaching for the sake of bellyaching.

Maybe he can actually do it, but I'd challenge a massive film critic like Moviebob to pick a properly ethnic actor who he thinks could have pulled off this role as well as the guy they chose... considering the source material, and what the character is supposed to look like. Honestly, for all the whining, I don't think the hypothetical guy who should have gotten this role actually exists.
 

MasterSplinter

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MovieBob said:
I really am sorry about that. For what it's worth, if you stop the player at about 4:30 you can get basically everything about the movie without having to hear the "Lost" jokes ;)
Cool, I´ll do that.
Also, thanks for the response, really appreciate it.
 

L0ki

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Jul 11, 2008
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i personally cant give this movie the title "first good movie based on a game" for the fact that prince of persia the sands of time movie and game are two completely different stories. the game happens all in one castle. everyone minus the male and female lead and villain are "sand zombies" and the mission is to stab the dagger into the giant hourglass containing the sands of time again to undo all this hell. so even if the movie is good or not it only has the name and the concept of a dagger that can rewind time relating the game and movie
 

crystalsnow

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Good review, but dammit, why does everyone forget Hitman when talking about video game movies? Hitman wasn't bad. Not the greatest movie, obviously, but it wasn't crap.
 

Travdelosmuertos

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Apr 16, 2009
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I don't understand how people could rag on the ending and ALSO enjoy the Sands of Time ending. They're essentially the same thing. Also, the voices in the game are ALSO British. The original Prince is voiced by a white guy from Ohio.

This video is the final boss and ending to the first PoP:Sands of Time game. Now, voice your opinions about the ending and their British-ish accents. They're staying true to the game, which is very important for fan service and for consistency.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blFVK1u0vnA

Ben Kingsley LOOKS like the Vizier. Jake Gylenhaal LOOKS like the Prince (and he's a good enough actor to carry the part). Please, try to argue against that, he's a dead-fucking-ringer for Dastan, especially from the Warrior Within box art.
 

Dak_N_Jaxter

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Oct 23, 2009
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Dude, the flag thing. Its really no biggie.

I half expected the movie to be decent, and I can't help but share your indiference.
I've never seen any of these Arabian movies you talk about, but after all the crappy video game movies, I woulda though a good one would be more momentous.

Offtopic - The Lost ending thing, I really agree that they focused too much on the alternate timeline ending.
Its like, they spent 6 years building up this great mythology and back story, but it got shafted by a last season side story.
Needless to say, I enjoyed the ride, but the ending was kind of unsatisfying.
 

IWCAS

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Jul 28, 2009
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I can't wait to see this, and sorry for getting off topic, but I think a Final Fantasy movie would go over really well. Am I the only one? Must include original music like Zanarkand. Who doesn't love that song? Again I apologize for getting a little off topic.
 

Wolcik

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I'm glad to know that there is a good "game" movie now. Anticlimatic as it is - it's good news.
Will watch it :)