Ratchet & Clank - A Watered-Down Version of the Video Games

Burnouts3s3

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I saw the movie and played the game. While I, personally, enjoyed the movie, I can't really say the critics are wrong in their assessment. The movie is very far from perfect. The 90 minute running time cuts out so much development.

In some ways it feels more like a Captain Qwark movie than it does a Ratchet and Clank does. After R&C join the Galactic Rangers, the movie shifts focus to Qwark and his struggling feelings about losing the spotlight. It's a bit cliche but Jim Ward sells the hell out of it.

The humor 'is' skewed young. That being said, I did laugh a lot. There's a gag in which a robot henchmen falls over the edge and does the infamous Wilhelm scream only for another henchmen to yell "Wilhelm!". I liked that.

But worst of all, the titular characters, Ratchet and Clank get barely anytime to interact with one another. There in maybe 2 or 3 scenes together and the movie declares them BFFs. That, of all things, is what worries me.

Who knows, maybe Angry Birds will be better.
 

Hawki

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Samtemdo8 said:
RACHECT AND CLANK HAS NOT BEEN GOOD SINCE DEADLOCKED/GLADIATOR!!!!

There I said it, this series has lost its balls because of a SEVER change of tone and direction with the first game of the Future Trilogy, Tools of Destruction. It became TOO CHILDISH and PIXAR-LIKE!!!

Don't believe me let me show you scenes from the first 4 games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pteT_UD3COE

https://youtu.be/ssAWEDrMOPM?t=896

https://youtu.be/SCFKaVPnIeg?t=464

Now this is the tone for the shitty Future Trilogy:

https://youtu.be/1pOdET5PW1I?t=167

I'm not even gonna upload Quest for Booty cutscenes. The tone is just WRONG!!!!
Word of advice - using capitalized letters en masse doesn't help articulate a point. Secondly, "childish" is a word that is rarely, if ever associated with Pixar, and for good reason. Unless you're referring to animation similarities, in which case, the comparison falls even further on its face.

Also, speaking as an outsider who's never played a Ratchet & Clank game, having watched all those cutscenes in order, cutscene four does feel the odd one out, but in a way, kind of refreshing. Cutscene 2? The joke is that the grey guy is an idiot? Cutscene 3? It's satire (albeit blatent) on sports tv (more particuarly wrestling). Cutscene 1 is a bit better as far as buracratic jokes go, but cutscene 4 manages to be humorous on its own merits. It also helps that cutscene 4 shows a demonstrable improvement in graphical fidelity.

Usually I'd go on, but as I haven't played the games, I'll stay silent. But having seen "they ruined the tone!" diatribe applied to Sonic, Crash, Spyro (and those are just the platformers, Tomb Raider is a non-platformer example), I'm pretty sure I know how this goes.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Hawki said:
Samtemdo8 said:
RACHECT AND CLANK HAS NOT BEEN GOOD SINCE DEADLOCKED/GLADIATOR!!!!

There I said it, this series has lost its balls because of a SEVER change of tone and direction with the first game of the Future Trilogy, Tools of Destruction. It became TOO CHILDISH and PIXAR-LIKE!!!

Don't believe me let me show you scenes from the first 4 games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pteT_UD3COE

https://youtu.be/ssAWEDrMOPM?t=896

https://youtu.be/SCFKaVPnIeg?t=464

Now this is the tone for the shitty Future Trilogy:

https://youtu.be/1pOdET5PW1I?t=167

I'm not even gonna upload Quest for Booty cutscenes. The tone is just WRONG!!!!
I have played all the games (it made my PS2 childhood) and I was extremely dissipointed in how the games ended up in the PS3 era, they just did not felt the same as the PS2 games.

You can watch more cutscenes and gameplay videos to understand where I am coming from if you want.

Word of advice - using capitalized letters en masse doesn't help articulate a point. Secondly, "childish" is a word that is rarely, if ever associated with Pixar, and for good reason. Unless you're referring to animation similarities, in which case, the comparison falls even further on its face.

Also, speaking as an outsider who's never played a Ratchet & Clank game, having watched all those cutscenes in order, cutscene four does feel the odd one out, but in a way, kind of refreshing. Cutscene 2? The joke is that the grey guy is an idiot? Cutscene 3? It's satire (albeit blatent) on sports tv (more particuarly wrestling). Cutscene 1 is a bit better as far as buracratic jokes go, but cutscene 4 manages to be humorous on its own merits. It also helps that cutscene 4 shows a demonstrable improvement in graphical fidelity.

Usually I'd go on, but as I haven't played the games, I'll stay silent. But having seen "they ruined the tone!" diatribe applied to Sonic, Crash, Spyro (and those are just the platformers, Tomb Raider is a non-platformer example), I'm pretty sure I know how this goes.
I was a huge fan of the games it made my PS2 childhood and was dissipointed in the direction of the PS3 games.

Comparing the 1st 4 games with the later games is like comparing Apples to Oranges
 

dragongit

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EHKOS said:
I think that was the worst adaptation. Of all time.
Really? The worst adaptation, of all time? Worse then Alone in the Dark? Worse then Resident Evil? Worse then anything directed by Uwe Boll? WORSE THEN THE SUPER MARIO BROTHERS? Really? I saw the movie, it wasn't Disney but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen. So Prince of Persia, Final Fantasy The Spirits Within, Mortal Kombat, and Silent Hill (who currently have higher Rotten Tomato ratings) are better movies?
 

Hawki

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dragongit said:
EHKOS said:
I think that was the worst adaptation. Of all time.
Really? The worst adaptation, of all time? Worse then Alone in the Dark? Worse then Resident Evil? Worse then anything directed by Uwe Boll? WORSE THEN THE SUPER MARIO BROTHERS? Really? I saw the movie, it wasn't Disney but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen. So Prince of Persia, Final Fantasy The Spirits Within, Mortal Kombat, and Silent Hill (who currently have higher Rotten Tomato ratings) are better movies?
I'd be careful of using terms like "worst adaptation," because judging a work as an adaptation is different from judging it on its own merits (sidenote - I highly reccomend watching Lost in Adaptation). For instance, Starship Troopers, the movie, if judged as an adaptation, is terrible. If judged as its own thing however, it's a pretty entertaining sci-fi flick. To use a game example, I think the first Resident Evil movie is pretty decent. If judged as an adaptation, yes, it's lacklustre, existing on brand recognition only. If judged as a horror/action movie on its own merits, I think there's some fun to be had. As controversial as it is, I hold it up there with Mortal Kombat and Prince of Persia as some of the best live-action videogame adaptations out there.

Which is really depressing when you think about it. :(
 

EHKOS

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dragongit said:
EHKOS said:
I think that was the worst adaptation. Of all time.
Really? The worst adaptation, of all time? Worse then Alone in the Dark? Worse then Resident Evil? Worse then anything directed by Uwe Boll? WORSE THEN THE SUPER MARIO BROTHERS? Really? I saw the movie, it wasn't Disney but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen. So Prince of Persia, Final Fantasy The Spirits Within, Mortal Kombat, and Silent Hill (who currently have higher Rotten Tomato ratings) are better movies?
Yeah, you know what I take that back. The first RE and Silent Hill movies WERE better, but I was basically tired enough when making the post to forget about Postal and Prince of Persia. R&C IS a terrible film though.
 

elvor0

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Hawki said:
Samtemdo8 said:
RACHECT AND CLANK HAS NOT BEEN GOOD SINCE DEADLOCKED/GLADIATOR!!!!

There I said it, this series has lost its balls because of a SEVER change of tone and direction with the first game of the Future Trilogy, Tools of Destruction. It became TOO CHILDISH and PIXAR-LIKE!!!

Don't believe me let me show you scenes from the first 4 games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pteT_UD3COE

https://youtu.be/ssAWEDrMOPM?t=896

https://youtu.be/SCFKaVPnIeg?t=464

Now this is the tone for the shitty Future Trilogy:

https://youtu.be/1pOdET5PW1I?t=167

I'm not even gonna upload Quest for Booty cutscenes. The tone is just WRONG!!!!
Word of advice - using capitalized letters en masse doesn't help articulate a point. Secondly, "childish" is a word that is rarely, if ever associated with Pixar, and for good reason. Unless you're referring to animation similarities, in which case, the comparison falls even further on its face.
I wouldn't go there. His views on CGI and notion of what constitutes the Pixar style and tone or anything stylized and hatred there of are err...questionable.
Hawki said:
Also, speaking as an outsider who's never played a Ratchet & Clank game, having watched all those cutscenes in order, cutscene four does feel the odd one out, but in a way, kind of refreshing. Cutscene 2? The joke is that the grey guy is an idiot? Cutscene 3? It's satire (albeit blatent) on sports tv (more particuarly wrestling). Cutscene 1 is a bit better as far as buracratic jokes go, but cutscene 4 manages to be humorous on its own merits. It also helps that cutscene 4 shows a demonstrable improvement in graphical fidelity.

Usually I'd go on, but as I haven't played the games, I'll stay silent. But having seen "they ruined the tone!" diatribe applied to Sonic, Crash, Spyro (and those are just the platformers, Tomb Raider is a non-platformer example), I'm pretty sure I know how this goes.
I do agree with him however, that the later R&C games are poor compared to the original trilogy. It kind of ends up becoming a parody and poor mans version of itself. I'm....not really sure if the tone is /that/ different rather not as well executed and tired, like they ran out of ideas and were just keeping the franchise alive. The original trilogy is worth playing though, they're games that just exist for the fun of it, y'know? Like the creators just wanted people to have a good time and roll with the world they created.
 

Amaror

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Additionally the producer seem to be a bunch of d**ks.
I watched a Let's play of the game, since I don't own any consoles. The game seemed pretty good, exspecially the greatly varried weapon effects were pretty impressive.
Unfortunatly the game also contains a bunch of scenes from the movie as cutscenes. Which means that in the end all the uploaded videos got copyright-striked. And since the youtuber didn't want to risk getting enough strikes to get banned on youtube, he was forced to delete all his videos of the game.
Which is exspecially moronic considering that he got the key for the game from the publisher. So they give out keys for youtubers to play the game only to copyright-strike those same youtubers for uploading footage of the game.
 

Fijiman

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09philj said:
Why is it that video game movies are crap even when the games have a good plot, characters, and writing?
Having to smash eight or more hours of gameplay and story into an hour and a half to two hour movie probably doesn't help. That and I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the time the people making the movie just see a popular franchise, want to make some money off of it, and just look up notes from the Wiki without ever touching the actual games.

OT: I personally liked it. I will not deny that it had its fair share of problems(the fact that with the reboot they've mashed a lot of the lore and story from the original into it from the get go not helping any of them), but I wouldn't go around calling it a bad film. I probably wouldn't recommend it to someone who has never played the games before, but to someone who has played the games I'd at least suggest giving it a shot.
 

LazyAza

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Disappointing but not surprising at all. The games never struck me as movie material even as a fan who's been playing them since the original, they rely very heavily on their fantastic gameplay and incredible series of fun to traverse levels especially. I dunno why anyone thought a movie would work if they weren't willing to really explore the games universe with a little more depth and care like pixar would in their better films.