Movie-to-game and game-to-movie adaptations have been fairly common since the inception of the interactive entertainment medium. What's less common, however, is the book-to-game tie-in, and even more rare is the book-to-game-to-movie gamble, but that's exactly what Tom Clancy's popular Rainbow Six franchise is poised to attempt.
The book and first entry of the game series landed on shelves almost simultaneously, though I wonder how many people really noticed. When I envision the audiences for these two mediums, they rarely intersect in my mind. Grizzled guys who like books about war probably aren't tinkering with their PC's innards, slipping in that mighty 4MB video card just to experience the action of the novel for themselves. Maybe I'm wrong.
Either way, both endeavors enjoyed a modest amount of success. Clancy is still writing about the adventures of Jack Ryan and John Clark and company, and this year's upcoming Rainbow Six: Las Vegas marks the thirty-somethingeth entry in the game series, which spans eight years and at least ten different hardware platforms.
Sometimes Hollywood is a little slow to notice things, since it's just now getting together a team to produce a movie based on the mega-franchise. But before we get into that, I want to make sure we're all up to speed on where the series has been, where it is, and where it's going.
The Book
First published in the summer of 1998, the story involves radical political elements left over from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as well as a respected biotech firm in the U.S. plotting to release a highly toxic biological agent at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Naturally, each side has their own reasons for wanting this to happen.
Both sides play one another to their respective benefit, with Team Rainbow caught in the middle. The hope of the Easterners is that it will strike a blow politically against the countries who have made things so difficult for their way of life, and to make a decent profit along the way. However, these elements are unaware of the ulterior motives of the biotech firm, which range from making soaring profits off an antidote to the plague to leveling the playing field and getting man back in touch with nature by essentially reducing the world's population to 1/10 of what it is presently.
Article comments
1 - Deano
I haven't played the game series at all but the book was, well episodic at best. Some parts were excellent, while others dragged intermittably, and the overall "evil environmentalists" SPECTRE-like plot to cleanse the world was a bit ...well, I was going to be diplomatic and say unrealistic but let's be blunt and say: stupid.
My hope is that the film draws more from the game then the original book.
2 - -E
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3 - Mark Buckingham
It took me a long time to get through the novel, much longer than it took to finish the game(s). I got hung up in some of the dry sections, but the more actiony segments made up for it, some of which weren't in the games at all.
Still, as unrealistic as the plot may seem, I know some save-the-world types who, given the proper motivation and means, might just go over the edge in their quest to save the world from humanity. Either way, the plots in a novel like this NEED to be big and crazy, just to make the victors seem that much more accomplished.
Sure, the games are more popular now than the book, but the games don't have the narrative needed to craft a compelling script out of. Just the characters. We'll just have to wait and see which way they go with it.
4 - Deano
I've been reading Tom Clancy since he first came on the scene with Hunt for Red October (still his best book) and he went seriously adrift in the 1990's with an inability to find a good "enemy" after the fall of the Soviet Union...I think Rainbow Six reflected that problem.
5 - Lion King
"The hope of the Easterners is that it will strike a blow politically against the countries who have made things so difficult for their way of life, and to make a decent profit along the way. However, these elements are unaware of the ulterior motives of the biotech firm" What a load of nonsense! Have you read a book?
6 - Mark Buckingham
Yes, about three years ago now, and it's getting a bit fuzzy. Do you have something useful to contribute?