Assassin's Creed movie thread. Contain spoilers.

[polishgenius]

29 minutes ago, Martini Sigil said:

My question is, has there ever been a successful movie made from a video game?.... even toys have been the basis for successful franchises --Transformers, GI Joe-- , but to my recollection video games don't translate... even with interesting world building stories like World of Warcraft...

 

It's a weird one. In many cases you'd obviously have to be fluid in how you adapt the story but there really is no reason why it couldn't be done. But so far, even the ones not just made for a cheap cash-in have failed. Even the ones that do make major changes to the story structure in order to make the game story work as a film story. Really don't know why. Giving them to proper directors would help, of course, but both this and Warcraft were made by very talented guys, so...


At some stage Nintendo are going to bite the bullet and produce a Zelda adaptation. They'd better not fuck that up.

[The BlackBear]

Pokemon?

I was actually quite fond of the first Silent Hill film.

I heard Angry Birds wasn't totally terrible.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is pretty good.

Final Fantasy the Spirits Within is also pretty good (with a pretty decent cast,) but not really based on any of their games except VII somewhat thematically.

[generalzod]

Wow that list is some thin soup!

Eventually someone will crack it.

[The BlackBear]

Yeah it's pretty remarkable how consistently they can fuck up, you'd expect them to have made a decent one just by accident by now. Warcraft was going to be the one, then it wasn't. Then it was Assassins Creed, which clearly it isn't.

http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20151230

[Slurktan]

So I went and saw this tonight.  It was... ok up until Act 3, then it went off the rails hard.  As noted quite boring for the "future" parts and more exciting in the past, although there was a seemingly a terrible filter used for past scenes which made them not appear very good.  That may be a theater related issue.  Unlike the games the past parts are like 3 sequences taking up maybe a combined 15 mins compared to the rest of the movie being in the future.

I'm shocked at the level of actors in it and some bizarrely used,

[Crazydog7]

Wait they got

Jeremy Irons

 

for this?  Are they holding one of his relatives hostage?  How the fuck did this happen? I demand to know 

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

Unlike the games the past parts are like 3 sequences taking up maybe a combined 15 mins compared to the rest of the movie being in the future.

 What? Who thought that was a good idea?

[mormont]

8 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

My question is, has there ever been a successful movie made from a video game?

The Resident Evil movies? They weren't a smash but six of them got made and they're fun, if not completely accurate to the game.

[The Drunkard]

On 12/21/2016 at 6:34 AM, generalzod said:

Fair enough.  

But just because a device works well in a game, doesn't mean it works well in a narrative drama.  We already know what the critics think...let's see how the movie does being slavish to the gamers, as opposed to telling a story for a mainstream audience.  That's always the tough debate when adapting anything from one medium to another... What level of fan service to incorporate--- and can you make said fan service just WORK.

 I am familiar with the games, but putting on my movie-goer hat-- it all seems like hokey convoluted nonsense and an extra unnecessary device, when the drama plays out in the 15th century.  You've already got lots to swallow, the historical fiction of the war between the assassins and the Knights Templar, the Apple of Eden, and now you've got a time traveling modern day dude of the bloodline going back in time to fight.  Its just one more reason to say "huh??? Pass."  Assassin's Creed is a much more convoluted than say a simple time travel story like Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court... and based on the trailers, not in a good way. 

 

 

11 hours ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

But I haven't met a single person who thinks the modern-day bollocks in these games is interesting or necessary. It's an adaptation, so you should cut things out that won't translate well to screen. If they kept the loading screens in the films, would you still be saying that criticising the movie for being truthful to the games doesn't make sense?

I liked most of the modern stuff in the first one. It was simple and didn't intrude on the historical fun, and at the end there was that cliffhanger where the bleeding effect allowed Desmond to see all the crazy, blood-scrawled messages left around the lab by his predecessor, which was cool.

[Maltaran]

6 hours ago, Crazydog7 said:

Wait they got

Jeremy Irons

 

for this?  Are they holding one of his relatives hostage?  How the fuck did this happen? I demand to know 

The guy did Dungeons and Dragons, so this is hardly the worst film he's appeared in 

[Fez]

13 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

My question is, has there ever been a successful movie made from a video game?.... even toys have been the basis for successful franchises --Transformers, GI Joe-- , but to my recollection video games don't translate... even with interesting world building stories like World of Warcraft...

The first Tomb Raider and the first Mortal Kombat were both decent movies that were both box office successes (both also had absolutely terrible sequels). And if we define 'success' as just 'made a profit for the studio' I think there's been quite a few others; though they were mostly terrible.

7 hours ago, Slurktan said:

 Unlike the games the past parts are like 3 sequences taking up maybe a combined 15 mins compared to the rest of the movie being in the future.

That... just sounds terrible. Even if they didn't want to eliminate the future stuff (which I think they probably should've), they absolutely should've minimized it to the greatest extent possible. There's nothing wrong with making a hokey action adventure historical fiction movie; and in fact that's likely to do better than an overly complicated high concept science fiction movie.

[generalzod]

1 hour ago, Maltaran said:

The guy did Dungeons and Dragons, so this is hardly the worst film he's appeared in 

Irons Agent:  There's an offer for you to play the proper British Chauffer  in "Transexual Clown Car:  The Movie."  It costars an up and comer named Carrot Top and someone named RuPaul.  There's also a CGI werewolf.  There's technically not a script, just random dialogue written on cocktail napkins.

Irons:  Sounds positively dreadful.   How much does it pay?

Irons Agent: 5 million for 3 weeks. Ian McKellan is next on their list. 

Irons: I'm IN!  Suck it, Gandalf!

[Fez]

17 minutes ago, generalzod said:

Irons Agent:  There's an offer for you to play the proper British Chauffer  in "Transexual Clown Car:  The Movie."  It costars an up and comer named Carrot Top and someone named RuPaul.  There's also a CGI werewolf.  There's technically not a script, just random dialogue written on cocktail napkins.

Irons:  Sounds positively dreadful.   How much does it pay?

Irons Agent: 5 million for 3 weeks. Ian McKellan is next on their list. 

Irons: I'm IN!  Suck it, Gandalf!

The guy owns a castle, and its not even his primary residence. That upkeep has got to be expensive.

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

The first Tomb Raider and the first Mortal Kombat were both decent movies

It's no Street Fighter.

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me... it was Tuesday."

[Fez]

35 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's no Street Fighter.

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me... it was Tuesday."

Problem is that as great as Raul Julia was; everything surrounding him in that movie is a hot garbage fire.

[KiDisaster]

17 hours ago, generalzod said:

Good point.  I think that's essentially why Peter Jackson cut Tom Bombadil from the LOTR movies. It would have gummed up the story. 

Tom Bombadil was the highlight of Fellowship. 

I never finished Two Towers. Probably due to lack of Bombadil. 

[KiDisaster]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

The first Tomb Raider and the first Mortal Kombat were both decent movies

Have you seen it recently? Because I liked it as a kid but I watched it a few months ago and it's astonishingly shit  

[generalzod]

8 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

Tom Bombadil was the highlight of Fellowship. 

I never finished Two Towers. Probably due to lack of Bombadil. 

The book or the movie? 

I think when the best video game movie you can cite, the Rolls Royce, is Resident Evil you're looking at a genre that is craptacular.

the first director that makes a great movie based on a videogame should  get the Nobel Prize.  It seems as hard as curing Polio.

[Fez]

9 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

Have you seen it recently? Because I liked it as a kid but I watched it a few months ago and it's astonishingly shit  

Not in a long while; but my memory has always been that the second one is complete shit but that the first one wasn't bad.

Even if it is though, it still has the 5th highest nominal domestic box office take of any video game movie (and came out 4 years before any other video game movie in the top 10) and has the second highest rotten tomatoes score of any video game movie I think (34%, beyond only Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at 44%). So by the numbers its doing pretty good.

[generalzod]

6 minutes ago, Fez said:

Not in a long while; but my memory has always been that the second one is complete shit but that the first one wasn't bad.

Even if it is though, it still has the 5th highest nominal domestic box office take of any video game movie (and came out 4 years before any other video game movie in the top 10) and has the second highest rotten tomatoes score of any video game movie I think (34%, beyond only Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at 44%). So by the numbers its doing pretty good.

In other words it's the world's tallest midget.