Comments on: Finally, a good video game movie?

Finally, a good video game movie?

jmarq — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:15:38 -0800

Neill Blomkamp the director for the Halo movie does his first interview regarding the film. Tempbot, Tetra Vaal, Alive in Joburg discussed previously. New links for Tempbot, Alive in Joburg. A showreel that has Tetra Vaal, a 4 minute adidas "movie" called Yellow, his citroen ad which revived the possibility of live action Transformers (for good or ill) and 3 commercials. Also 3 videos he's done (apparently he doesn't have much taste in music, but likes hot girls in bands). Fluffy Starr Bif Naked LiveonRelease. Uwe Boll he is not (I hope).

By: jmarq

jmarq — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:17:25 -0800

forgot to mention, all the titles are projects he directed.

By: daq

daq — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:36:15 -0800

Dude, this guy rocks. I loved Tetra Vaal and Alive in Joburg. Those 2 alone are worth looking at as far as the proper use of framing and delivery of action with special effects. Then there's his seemless digital works. He gets lighting and perspective down right with the insertion of rendered content. Joburg is one heck of a creepy short film too. The Adidas short, Yellow, shows his ability on short notice and with limited budget it would seem as well. Not as spectacular as Tetra Vaal and Joburg in my opinion, plus the reliance on humans for the action was a little weaker than his previous shorts. I also did not know he did that citroen commercial. That is awesome.

By: vorfeed

vorfeed — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:41:17 -0800

Tetra Vaal was cool, very Patlabor-ish. From the interview, it sounds like this director is serious about making a decent movie... though I wonder if his good intentions will survive the usual Hollywood process.

By: daq

daq — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:45:05 -0800

Actually, Tetra Vaal reminded me more of Appleseed. That that's just my inner anime geek talking.

By: rafter

rafter — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:46:19 -0800

A standalone of Yellow with links to the other Adicolor spots. Pink is the best.

By: quin

quin — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:45:52 -0800

I've been seriously excited about Halo since I heard he was attached. His previous works suggests that he is one of the few people who might be able to pull this off. Also, since Peter Jackson is an executive producer, the details and quality will be high. He doesn't put his name on just anything anymore. Finally, a good video game movie? Harrumph! I liked the first Resident Evil.

By: jmarq

jmarq — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:02:01 -0800

Harrumph! I liked the first Resident Evil. i loved it too, entertaining doesn't = quality though

By: pierrepressure

pierrepressure — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:23:23 -0800

May I say, the "government official" actor guy in the Alive in Joburg short, that's my dad. Go dad! The funny thing is I didn't know he was in it when I first saw the movie through the FPP. "Hey, that voice kinda sounds like my... DAD!"

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:30:35 -0800

Harrumph! I liked the first Resident Evil. For that matter, even Doom was good, solid, brain-dead fun. And Silent Hill was a substantially better horror flick than the bulk of the crappy wussed-out-to-get-PG13 movies out lately.

By: Captaintripps

Captaintripps — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:53:45 -0800

I love Live on Release! They make me feel statutory!

By: dozo

dozo — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:53:53 -0800

Holy shit, Wonder Woman!

By: quin

quin — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 20:15:36 -0800

jmarq : i loved it too, entertaining doesn't = quality though Actually when dealing with a video-game adapted movie, I would argue that entertaining does equal quality. I mean, you have to consider the source here, we aren't talking about material that could be turned into Citizen Kane or anything. Though video-games are beginning to see some serious quality in the writing department (Undying, Eternal Darkness, etc) Halo ain't it. Don't get me wrong, I truly loved the game and it's sequel. But purely from a story standpoint, they would have been smarter to make Marathon, rather than Marathon 5 (which is essentially what Halo is.) Still, I am very excited by the prospect of this film and I'm nearly certain that they will get my dollars at the door. (I need to see a trailer before I'll commit totally, but I'm not too worried.)

By: quin

quin — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 20:18:44 -0800

Err, make that Marathon 4, I forgot that the original was a trilogy (there have been so many mods, it's easy to lose count).

By: Iridic

Iridic — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:07:38 -0800

I'm a little wary of the Halo movie. It's going to be a real challenge to hang a film on a hero whose face is always concealed behind a reflective visor. Of course, V came out okay with a similar handicap, but the anarchist V was a rather more interesting character than the Master Chief, who's something of a cypher. A faceless, generic tough guy makes for a good first-person shooter protagonist, but an unpromising screen hero.

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:51:53 -0800

For those of you who were wondering how he does a lot of his special effects, I know for a fact that the Citroen commercial was done in Shake. (I saw a demo on shake that featured the scene dissected into its respective parts, it was really cool). As a bungie fan, I am excited to learn more about this guy's work, he knows how to integrate CG and real life and not go over the top. I mean the tempbot and Tetra Vaal are just amazing. I can't wait to see what he has in store for Halo.

By: geekhorde

geekhorde — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:57:48 -0800

Yes, I can't wait for the movie of Halo to come out. But they should change the title to Consider Phlebas to be more true to the source material.

By: Jon Mitchell

Jon Mitchell — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 23:28:52 -0800

True that. I wish this guy was actually making Consider Phlebas rather than the Halo story, it's much more compelling. Actually after seeing him use documentary style footage mixed with SF, this guy would be just perfect to film The Player Of Games. I can just imagine some slick, gritty drones-eye footage of the oppressed Azad underclasses, it would be unbelievably awesome. Oh well, there's at least a chance Halo will turn out to be an intelligent, stylish SF flim, those shorts had incredible atmosphere considering their length.

By: chrominance

chrominance — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 23:30:47 -0800

Ooof. LiveOnRelease? Must've been before his robot-themed shorts. But then I guess there's no excuse for the Bif Naked video. I can't say I'm too keen on Halo the movie, because I was never keen on Halo the game. When the game begins to mock its own repetitive level structure (cf. the levels "Wait, It Gets Worse!", "But I Don't Want To Ride The Elevator!", "Fourth Floor: Tools, Guns, Keys to Secret Weapons") you know the developers have no respect for you as a gamer. If the game is this mindlessly repetitive, I shudder to think how bad the movie will be. I'd hold my breath for Half-Life: The Movie, but actually I don't think it could be done any better than the games themselves, and so I hope they never try. To see a relatively sophisticated game experience reduced to a bog-standard action movie would be a shame.

By: NationalKato

NationalKato — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 07:37:51 -0800

I don't think I've ever read a thread about something Bungie has done without someone throwing Marathon into the mix.

By: quin

quin — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 10:55:51 -0800

NationalKato, I would argue that there is good reason for that: [geek mode activated] There are many similarities and homages in Halo to Bungie's earlier work. First and most obviously, the Marathon logo appears all over the Halo universe, and the rocket launcher bears the same name in both: the SPNKR (an obvious play on the word 'spanker'). The connections are less obvious as well: In Marathon, you play an advanced security cyborg who's weapons and equipment are far more advanced than any other human on the ship. In Halo, you play the Master Chief who's power-armor and training, well, makes you more advanced than any other human on the ship. In both games you are following the orders of an Artificial Intelligence, and at some point you are put in a situation where you begin to get conflicting orders from a different AI. In both cases, these conflicting orders put you and everyone else in harms way. In both games you begin fighting one enemy race only to have a far worse enemy race appear and start trying to kill you both. Both games are also heavily story driven and rely on a sense of claustrophobia to heighten the mood. Please understand, that when I say that Halo is just Marathon 4, I mean it as the highest compliment. Marathon was hugely ahead of it's time, and if you go through and just read the story laid out through the terminals, it's evident that even back then, Bungie had a great capacity for story-telling.

By: Amanojaku

Amanojaku — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 16:17:36 -0800

Please understand, that when I say that Halo is just Marathon 4, I mean it as the highest compliment. Marathon was hugely ahead of it's time, and if you go through and just read the story laid out through the terminals, it's evident that even back then, Bungie had a great capacity for story-telling. Amen, brother. It's nuts how much historical and mythological trivia they managed to pack in those games and still have it all make a surprising amount of sense.