Gears of War Movie: A Harder "Lord of the Rings"

[Superbeast]

I too am angered by the "It'll be LotR but BETTER" style he'd thinking of.

The Lord of the Rings managed to offend it's die-hard (pun intended) fanbase. Copying the style of the films will 1) mean you have to pay attention to the film, and it won't be a mindless action flick (I couldn't stand ANY of the Fast/Furious films, and think Wanted is the daftest film to come out in a fair while) and 2) It'll annoy the fanbase.

That's not a good criteria for a film for which the selling point is 1) the action and 2) the existing fanbase. At least LotR could attract people who were never aware of the book and still give them a pretty good idea what it was about and be an epic scenery-fest of a film (and the musical score is pretty good too).

Ah well, maybe I'll be surprised and it'll be a good film. But given the nature of the source material and the director's previous works...I'm sceptical.

 

[Gamer137]

I have just now lost almost all hope for the movie industry. If they could just grow a brain and realise that game based movies have not sold or been received well, they would stop this crap from happening. I am waiting for the day when the video game industry comes to an concenses that no publishers will sell the rights for movies, but now im just dreaming.

 

[Mr0llivand3r]

as long as there's Locusts' heads exploding and a really good, really funny, really black actor to play Cole Train, then it's fine by me

 

[black lincon]

If they're doing a trilogy I can only hope they don't just do movie versions of the game, I'd like to see some of the pendulum wars. I know that would mean that there would be no locust in the first movie but they could do it all they way up to E-day and have the first locust hole pop up and a corpser shoots out and then the movie ends. Tell me that wouldn't be a cool ending for the first movie. I would have to go back and check on the exact time the war with the locust has been going on but it was several years before the first game even started, there could be some cool things to happen within that time frame. I know I shouldn't get my hopes up for a videogame movie but I can't help but be somewhat exited.

 

[ampa451]

All aboard the coletrain

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

I have just now lost almost all hope for the movie industry. If they could just grow a brain and realise that game based movies have not sold or been received well, they would stop this crap from happening. I am waiting for the day when the video game industry comes to an concenses that no publishers will sell the rights for movies, but now im just dreaming.

This is disheartening, why do people not understand the concept of advancement?

The first movies sucked,
the first movies based on books sucked,
the first movies based on comic books sucked,
the first movies based on video games sucked.

Notice the pattern? Soon enough video games will be the source for masterpieces like The Lord of the Rings and The Dark Knight, they simply haven't grown into the industry yet.

I don't think Gears of War will be such a film (but anything's possible), I do however believe that it won't suck.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

as long as there's Locusts' heads exploding and a really good, really funny, really black actor to play Cole Train, then it's fine by me

Bernie Mac?

...is dead.

This movie will suck. The games are so shallow they could never translate. Hell, deep games don't translate. This game will die, horribly, repeatedly, like Gigli.

 

[Mr0llivand3r]

as long as there's Locusts' heads exploding and a really good, really funny, really black actor to play Cole Train, then it's fine by me

Bernie Mac?

is dead.

even if he was alive, he was too old to play a young football player type black man

 

[Gamer137]

I have just now lost almost all hope for the movie industry. If they could just grow a brain and realise that game based movies have not sold or been received well, they would stop this crap from happening. I am waiting for the day when the video game industry comes to an concenses that no publishers will sell the rights for movies, but now im just dreaming.

This is disheartening, why do people not understand the concept of advancement?

The first movies sucked,
the first movies based on books sucked,
the first movies based on comic books sucked,
the first movies based on video games sucked.

Notice the pattern? Soon enough video games will be the source for masterpieces like The Lord of the Rings and The Dark Knight, they simply haven't grown into the industry yet.

I don't think Gears of War will be such a film (but anything's possible), I do however believe that it won't suck.

Taking a passive entertainment format and turning it into another can be done easily once understood. However, this is interactive to passive. The reasons we play video games is for the gameplay. You can't adapt it to a movie format without getting rid of interactivity, which is what video games are built around to begin with. You can't expect a tower to stay how it is if you remove the bottom levels. It will instantly crumble.

 

[sneakypenguin]

I suppose i'm one of the few that would be interested in a GeoW movie, yeah it won't be an Oscar winner or be revolutionary, but I will bet it shall be entertaining. Which is the reason I see movies generally I don't see them to be wowed by some new story, or art style. I see them to be entertained and escape for a few hours from work/school. A GeoW movie should fit the bill nicely, decent sci-fi setting and story, perfect opportunities for R rated language and violence. Sounds to me like a good way to spend a saturday afternoon after work.

 

[Trako]

I usually get very worried about these sort of movies. It seems that they just stick the recognizable title of a game franchise on the movie and expect it to win over fans just on name recognition alone. It's one thing to make a movie based on the story of the game, which would work, because stories transcend media. However, trying to recapture elements of gameplay in movie form is kind of like watching someone else playing a game. It would be like filming a disembodied hand flip the pages of a novel and waiting about 6 minutes in between to let people read. Or worse yet, be a decent movie, but because it is named after an established franchise, but has no affiliation at all to said franchise, ends up being a cruel misrepresentation of the game industry's artistic legitimacy.

It is rather possible to make a good movie, as long as the story is the vehicle, not the effects or cast or setting. Interactivity is the main experience of playing a game, and some games have no story, some have a bare minimum backstory, and some have a richer experience that can only be condensed into film media. It's often said the book is always better, and there's a reason for that. A game movie will never be better than a game, but it can evoke interest in a game franchise, or show the unwashed that games actually CAN and DO have stories rather than being regarded as manslaughter simulators and brainwashing tools for the military.

I long for the day that a game-based movie is based on the actual property it represents, is affected by Hollywood as little as possible, and has a compelling side story, or even the main story given a fresh perspective. Oh, also Uwe Boll loses all interest in game related movies forever.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

as long as there's Locusts' heads exploding and a really good, really funny, really black actor to play Cole Train, then it's fine by me

Bernie Mac?

...is dead.

Wait, what? When did that happen? I really liked him.

Complications with Pnemnia. Checked into a hospital for what looked routine and never checked out, I believe.

 

[Calax]

Having seen what the guy did to the source material for Wanted, I have to say, I don't think that Gears is going to go very well.

The comic version of Wanted was the main characters were all supervillians who ran the world and did what ever the fuck they wanted (the main character kills an entire supermarket and it' doesn't make the news). The Movie version, they're an order of assassins who each are able to slow down time, hit bullets with bullets, and curve the bullet trajectory. Oh and did I mention that the whole "code" crap in the movie is Bullshit?

Just read Wanted and watch the movie and realize how much this is going to suck.

 

[Northern]

I hope someone from Epic is onboard here. I found Gears 2 to pretty much be a movie - loved it. Like Sin City, where Frank Miller basically directed it, I'd rather someone from Epic stepped in. Or rather Epic took hold of the whole movie.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Taking a passive entertainment format and turning it into another can be done easily once understood. However, this is interactive to passive. The reasons we play video games is for the gameplay. You can't adapt it to a movie format without getting rid of interactivity, which is what video games are built around to begin with. You can't expect a tower to stay how it is if you remove the bottom levels. It will instantly crumble.

You're right, you can't make a game into a movie. But there's no reason you can't make a movie based on a game. The good directors just haven't got into it yet.

 

[Raven28256]

Ewww...None of those movies mentioned were any good. I now officially have zero expectations for the Gears of War movies.

Actually, I had zero expectations to begin with, for several reasons.

1. It is a video game movie...As in, the type of movie Hollywood turns to when they want to make a quick buck with little effort by exploiting a pre-existing franchise with a large following.

2. It is a movie based on a game that I honestly would not give two shits about in any other form. Really, I'll be painfully blunt: Gears of War makes, I think, a really fun shooter...but it is TERRIBLE at everything else. Generic plot, stereotypical muscle-headed cliche action heroes, and so on. Really, I don't play Gears because I find the story engaging and the characters compelling; I play it because it is fun AS A VIDEO GAME. When you take away the video game aspect and make Gears work on its other..."qualities..." It falls on its face. One thing I hated about Gears 2 was the larger focus they put on the plot and characters because, frankly, Epic can't stop to realize that those parts of Gears are fucking terrible. I didn't feel emotionally connected to Dom, or sympathize with him on his quest to find Generic Damsel in Distress or whatever her name was; I rolled my eyes and said "Oh dear God, the game is suffocating me with melodrama."

This is why the idea of a Gears of War movie is unappealing, just like the Gears of War novels*. The fact that they are being done by a two-bit hack of a director that knows less about Gears than your average cheerleader knows about the current economic climate of Uzbekistan just adds to it.

*My cousin got that novel at our family Christmas party...I cringed. I mean, I had just let him burrow some Tom Clancy (The novels he actually wrote in his prime, like The Sum of All Fears and Clear and Present Danger, not all the ghost writer shit) and Michael Crichton...And he rather read THAT? His brother likes fucking TWILIGHT! Most of my FEMALE friends don't even read that. Yeah, that family has some shitty taste in books. Good taste in games, TV shows, and movies (When not considering that his brother went to see the Twilight movie)...but not with books.

 

[irrelevantnugget]

Oh dear. I hate LotR. They'd better not be serious about this.