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Post by Kilarin on Dec 11, 2007 22:42:26 GMT -5
I can't believe they actually did it. They've made "Dungeon Siege, The Movie" www.ifilm.com/video/2918472/movie/25186IF, by some miracle, it actually has a plot, it can only be because someone had the nerve to go WAY beyond the regular game. Many games don't waste a lot of time on plot. DS I had a very very simple and sparse plot. Now then, if they were SMART, it would have been: "Lands Of Hyperborea, The Movie", or even "Mageworld, The Movie", now THERE would have been a story worth watching.  |
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Post by Xaa on Dec 13, 2007 12:55:17 GMT -5
I can't believe they actually did it. They've made "Dungeon Siege, The Move" www.ifilm.com/video/2918472/movie/25186IF, by some miracle, it actually has a plot, it can only be because someone had the nerve to go WAY beyond the regular game. It doesn't - it's a Ewe Boll film. For those who read that reply and go "Who is Ewe Boll?", well, he's a German film producer. See, up until just a couple years ago, German law allowed investors to deduct any losses they had incurred in projects like films and plays directly from their taxes. So, in some macabre real-world version of Mel Brooks' "The Producers", Boll had specialized in making... Bombs. Films that were guaranteed to suck. And since the easiest place to get film rights and simple stories that can be quickly converted to a screenplay and are guaranteed to suck as a screenplay is from the videogaming community, he specialized in making film adaptations of videogame stories. Each and every one of his videogame-based films cost tens of millions to make, and totally bombed at the box office, making less than 5 million back. And bear in mind that 5 million in ticket sales doesn't mean 5 million bucks straight to the producer's pocket, folks. A large chunk of that goes to the theater owners, the film distribution company, etc, etc, etc. GPG, like most videogame companies, isn't very large, and they pretty much run on a shoestring budget between releases of games. So, when Boll approached them and asked if he might buy the film rights to Dungeon Siege for an undisclosed (but rumored to be seven-figure) amount of money, they immediately agreed, like dozens of companies before them. Boll initially was quite open about this. Here's a quote of his from a few years back: But, that's not the whole story. If the film BOMBS, you were allowed to take 100% of your losses off your taxes. As the critics universally panned his films and began making comparisons to Mel Brooks 'The Producers', well... Boll, of course, then defended his works as being high art, and adamantly denied that he intentionally made bombs for rich German investors to take advantage of a loophole in German law. He even offered to box his critics in a boxing ring, and actually did so at least once that I recall (he won, though there was quite a bit of controversy, as I recall). Well, a couple years ago, the Germans finally closed that loophole in their laws. Oh, the tax shelter still exists, but you can no longer take 100% of your losses off your taxes. All the while, Boll was defending his films, yadda yadda. But as soon as that loophole was closed, all the investors in his project at that time immediately backed out. He hasn't been able to attract investors since, and hasn't made another videogame-based film since. He says he's planning to make more, and he's bought the rights to over two dozen videogames over the years. But if he ever does make them into films, they can't have the kind of massive losses his previous films had, he'll go broke if they do. So, no, there will likely never be some film producer who will trot up to me and offer me a few million in exchange for the film rights to Mageworld. After all, they might actually make money, and that was never the point of making films like that in the first place. |
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Post by Kilarin on Dec 13, 2007 16:31:42 GMT -5
That explains so much. We can still hope for a book-to-film deal though! |
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Post by Xaa on Dec 13, 2007 17:07:58 GMT -5
We can still hope for a book-to-film deal though! Heh. Oerth would be a far better candidate for that. |
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Post by Kilarin on Dec 13, 2007 22:50:44 GMT -5
Oerth would be great. Muse could work very well to. Oerth would almost have to be entirely animated. Muse could be done live action though. Liz would have to be animated, OR, probably acted blue screen and merged in.
Actually, I think Muse would make a great movie. But Oerth is such a BIG story, that I think it might do better as a mini series. That way you could spend however many hours you needed to really flesh out the story from each book.
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Post by Xaa on Dec 13, 2007 22:55:48 GMT -5
Oerth would almost have to be entirely animated. I already told my wife that if I am dead and someone makes her a movie offer on Oerth, it would have to be all computer animation. She'd work better as computer animation. Since she's so small, you would only really notice any goofs in close-up. Think "Lord of the Rings" meets "Chronicles of Narnia" on the set of "Redwall" and you pretty much have my idea in a nutshell. ;-) Huge, tremendously long movies that preserve every scene, every moment. And come out on like six DVD's per book. No way I'd make someone sit in a theater chair for six hours, after all. People gotta pee. ;-) |
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Post by charietto on Dec 15, 2007 13:03:06 GMT -5
I nearly fell from my chair, overwhelmed by a fit of hysterical laughter, when I read how the hero of the story is supposed to be called. Remembering the long posts Xaa's made at SN about the background of Farmboy and Farmgirl being unclear (to say the least), that nothing justifies their martial prowesses, their link to Norrick, that there are no suggestion about their background, that they were just nameless random characters, etc, etc... I couldn't resist the fit of laughter when I realized that the hero was a random farmboy called... Farmer. Well, I suppose it will be a bad movie. I just hope it will be a little more: a very bad movie. At least it will be funny to watch. Well, for people who, like me, happens to think that a very bad movie is actually as entertaining to watch as a good movie, provided it is very, very, very bad - with bad fx, wooden acting, ridiculous plot, etc... A bit like early-eighteen-post-Conan-Italian-heroic-fantasy movies (though they usually had the excuse to have been shot in less than a week, for a 5 digits budget, and stared no real actors but body-builders, stuntsmen, as well as some members of the crew when this was needed - so given the odds, I still think it's somewhat a wonder that they had been released, to start with). Here of course, it will be quite different - but probably for a similar result. I'm just amazed that Ron Perlman took part in this (well, maybe he needed some money  ). |
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Post by Xaa on Dec 15, 2007 13:10:37 GMT -5
I nearly fell from my chair, overwhelmed by a fit of hysterical laughter, when I read how the hero of the story is supposed to be called. Yep. His name is "Farmer." Like I said, making money is not the point of these movies. Yep. And just like in the videogame, he gets attacked by krugs. The only difference is the krugs have stolen his wife - I guess the motivation of revenge against the critters who burned his farm and killed the old man who was his friend wasn't quite enough for Mr. Bolle, he had to throw in a rather inexplicable and militarily pointless kidnapping as extra motivation for our hero to wade through an endless stream of bad guys until he reaches the end (a'la the videogame). Sergio Leone with his "Man With No Name" films showed that you can make a film on a shoestring budget and still have a great movie. The key was, is, and always will be the plot. Not many jobs in hollywood for a guy who made his name playing gentle monsters who fall in love with painfully shy women, no. |
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Post by charietto on Dec 15, 2007 14:28:20 GMT -5
he had to throw in a rather inexplicable and militarily pointless kidnapping as extra motivation for our hero to wade through an endless stream of bad guys until he reaches the end (a'la the videogame). I didn't noticed the kidnapping part of the "story" (as far as it can be called a story). "They kidnapped his wife, killed his favorite Yorkshire Medor and raped his goldfish... Beware Krugs, Farmer will get his revenge." I wonder if there will be goblin miniguns or rocket launchers in the movie, given Jason Statham previous performance, it would be normal... This is completely different. Not only the plots are good, but you have to add the way the movies are filmed, the music, the well chosen actors, etc, etc... Looking at Sergio Leone movies, it is indeed not so obvious that they have been done with shoestring budgets. Lots of movies made with low budget are actually quite good, provided the director is a bit inventive and has some talent, if the plot is good, and if the actors are able to perform correctly. I recall a fair amount of nice sci-fi, horror or detective B-movies from the early 70's, mostly Italians or US, with some good enough plots, and a Yul Brynner, Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Lee Van Cleef or another thrown into to flesh out an important character. But at that period, B-Movie was not compulsorily standing for Bad-Movie. Today, it seems that directors are finding it quite hard to end up with a good movie without a pharaonic budget, and the top stars of the moment (no matter if they're actually able to correctly perform or not, as long as they are stars). And even in movies supposed to make money, the plot is not usually the best part! For what is Italian Heroic Fantasy movies, I recommend you "Thor the Conqueror". Tonino Ricci is definitely not Sergio Leone ! I don't know if there was a policy similar to the German one in Italia at that period. But, after "Conan the Barbarian" release, there have been an awful lot of Italian Heroic Fantasy movie, ranging from "watchable" to "ultimate bomb" ("Thor the Conqueror" is part of the second category). I think they rather tried to surf on the wave to actually make money out of it. Though I still envy Italians. Someone who would want to make a Heroic Fantasy movie in France would not have a shoestring budget, but no budget at all! . You forgot "The name of the rose"! Well, ok, he falls in love with a girl, but she doesn't look like so shy ! *Scratches head* I know! In "The war of fire" (or "The quest for fire", I don't recall exactly the English tittle), he's not the one who fall in love! Well, I must admit that I like actors who look different than the average Hollywood standard. |
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Post by Xaa on Dec 15, 2007 14:43:21 GMT -5
"They kidnapped his wife, killed his favorite Yorkshire Medor and raped his goldfish... Beware Krugs, Farmer will get his revenge." Okay, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the "raped his goldfish" bit. No idea - but given that flamethrowers and miniguns are in the game, I wouldn't be surprised to see them in the movie. Yeah. There isn't a single film that Yul Brynner starred in that sucks - they were all great. Lee Van Cleef also hasn't starred in a single film that sucked. Now, Kirk Douglas... He starred in a couple stinkers, yeah. But you'll find the majority of his career is full of tremendously good films. If you can find it, check out a film called "The Vikings." He plays a bad guy... Well... Not really a the BAD guy, but... Damn, the plot is too complicated, you'd have to see the film to understand. Fabulous action scenes, it's a tremendous movie. Also, one of Douglas' best performances was in a little-known film called "The Villain", which also starred a very young Arnold Swarzenegger. Douglas played the bad-guy, and the entire film was... Well, it's a comedy, and it's kind of based on the old Warner Brothers "Road Runner" cartoons. Kind of. You have to see it to understand what I mean, but it's basically a live-action cartoon. And it's hilarious. As for Robert Michum... Well, he starred in a lot of movies that did well at the box office, but I don't like because I found them boring. He did better once he made the transition to TV, he was a regular on several very good TV shows. Damn... They just don't make actors like those guys today. Particularly Yul Brynner. You MUST see "The King And I", starring Yul Brynner. Fabulous film. Don't get a subtitled version, though, subtitling just never captures the nuances of language well, particularly going from English to French or French to English. There are so many subtleties of speech that just don't translate between our two languages. Vou versus Tou, for example - in Modern English, there's no difference, the word is "you." There USED to be a difference in Shakespeare's day (informal Thee versus formal You), but not today. In French, though, you can insult someone badly by using the wrong term - and that's a subtlety that just doesn't come across well at all. |
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Post by charietto on Dec 15, 2007 19:33:54 GMT -5
If you can find it, check out a film called "The Vikings." ... it's a tremendous movie Agreed! This is one of the movies I'm watching over and over quite often. I haven't seen this one yet. But I'll do as soon as possible - it took me a Google Search to find the French tittle! The one I prefer amongst is "box office" movies is "Yakuza". There's actually one movie I saw once, starring him, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster (another actor I like!), where they're all somewhat disguised, and that was quite funny. It's a detective story, about some inheritance, which starts, if I recall correctly, with a strange message intercepted on an airplane radio (I don't recall exactly, I saw this one a long while ago, and I can't manage to remember the tittle). Seen it, several times, in French, English, color, and even black and white on a very old TV 15" screen . And even in French, grey shaded on a small screen, it is still a great movie . But it's true it's quite different in English. I always try to watch original versions when I can (It's not only a translation problem, there's also the dubbing problem. Sometimes, dubbing is well done. Sometimes not at all. So it is quite deceptive. A well dubbed bad actor can end up looking great while a badly dubbed good actor may end up sounding stupid). But Yul... Which actor nowadays would be able to play both the King of Siam, the Pharaoh of Egypt, the King of Hebrews, Taras Bulba, an Indian mutiny leader, a post apocalyptic knife wielder or an android, and to look equally credible depicting each one of them? |
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Post by Xaa on Dec 15, 2007 19:53:32 GMT -5
But Yul... Which actor nowadays would be able to play both the King of Siam, the Pharaoh of Egypt, the King of Hebrews, Taras Bulba, an Indian mutiny leader, a post apocalyptic knife wielder or an android, and to look equally credible depicting each one of them? Patrick Stewart. He, like Yul Brynner, was classically trained and had a great deal of theater experience before he did movies. Aside from him, however, there just aren't any actors of that caliber today. Of course, a large part of this is simply the current hollywood film machine. Films aren't made to make art, today, they're made to make money. In Yul's day, they made films to make art AND money - both considerations were equally important. That's how the "B" movies got their name, you see. They were made for the express purpose of making money, and showed up on the "B-List" at theaters that showed two films at once in the fifties. Some of these 'B movies' were accidentally high art, but that was never their intent. |
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Post by charietto on Dec 15, 2007 20:10:37 GMT -5
Hey, you're right! I was not thinking about him, shame on me! I should have remembered Captain Picard!!! I didn't knew the B-list thing. Thank you for the precision .
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Post by klakabush on Dec 16, 2007 22:11:05 GMT -5
jesus christ, this movie will SUCK!
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Post by Xaa on Dec 16, 2007 22:44:48 GMT -5
jesus christ, this movie will SUCK! Ewe Boll made it, that's pretty much a given, yes. ;-) |
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