In the wake of the signing of a rather expensive HALO film deal, and the delaying of HALO 3 to coincide with the film release, I've been thinking, do we really need a HALO film? Game to film adaptations rarely work well (Tomb Raider while tolerable, certainly was no masterpiece and the Final Fantasy film lost a lot of money). The upcoming Doom film looks immediately forgettable or lamentable (although I hold onto the naive hope that self-reflective scriptwriters will use the line, "The Rock's gonna put the smackdown on your gaming ass!", but I'm not entirely confident on the front!). In the meantime, the wonderful HALO-generated Red Vs Blue machinima series now has competition from This Spartan Life for funniest machinima to date. Host Damian Lacedaemion's HALO-world talkshow with heavy weapons is absolutely fantastic (and, for a communications studies academic, a wonderful critique of sensationalist media!). That said, with machinima getting better and better, do we really want a HALO film, or films created using HALO? I for one, fear the HALO film, but hope to see HALO machinimation reaching new heights!
Meanwhile, Machinima.com led me to the Sponsorhood, a very amusing parody of Rooster Teeth's Strangerhood (which is the oddball, bizzaro second-child of the Red Vs Blue team). The Strangerhood has never really worked for me, and I think the critique explict in the Sponsorhood is rather apt!
Also, the winners are in for the USC/EA Sims 2 machinimation competition; you can view and download the winners here.
[Cross-posted from my blog Ponderance.]
Article comments
1 - deano
"The Rock's gonna put the smackdown on your gaming ass!"
BEST QUOTE OF THE WEEK!
Seriously the problem with movie adaptations of video games is that few games have the plot and story chops to handle a movie adaptation.
Doom is minimal story, maximum carnage - the fun element is in blowing the heads off of evil mutant creatures from the nethermost depths of hell. Why they are here? who they work for? - muy unimportante questions! Just shut up and shoot. makes for a fairly short and uninspiring film because with Doom - you want to be inflicting the carnage, not watching it.
There are better potential movie/video game cross-overs out there but they would require a bit more thought and care to adapt. I'm thinking of possibly Half-Life (which, like Doom, shoots everything but at least does it with a plotline...) or Thief 2 (which had a plot arguably better than most Hollywood productions).
Most movie adaptations are looking for a quick fix - a fast, easily made buck that rides on the coattails of familiarity and branding. Not unlike their obsession with sequels and remakes...
2 - SOS
I Think a Halo movie could be big if it has a good enough storyline and dialogue.
3 - Aether Seraph
Of the potential Halo movie, why the script boggle? I mean keep it clean, and simple, The original Halo plot works, subspace jump to an unknown corner of the galaxy; stumble upon forerunner installation,(enter the cheif) get shot down, escape ship intact, search for survivors, rescue captain, encounter flood, learn the truth of the installation, and destroy it to save earth from destruction. (Close curtains standing ovation)And we dont have to worry about who is playing cheif, Cortana however...