Why Computer games don't make good movies

Bandit LOAF said:
No one pays $40 million to finally develop the movie version of three or for sentences of text from Claw Marks. (No characters, nothing familiar to anyone but a few hard core weirdos on the internet...)

Actually a lot of movies fit the criteria of "no characters, nothing familiar to anyone but a few hard core weirdos on the internet".
 
No one pays $40 million to finally develop the movie version of three or for sentences of text from Claw Marks.
Compared to a whole new storyline with no basic at all in the history of the games?

I'm honestly surprised that you, with all your knowledge of the WC universe, Would say that McAullife only had a few words. We know Knight was there, and then theres Action Stations to refer to, the same can be said for SM2 with Freedom Flight.
 
Compared to a whole new storyline with no basic at all in the history of the games?

I'm honestly surprised that you, with all your knowledge of the WC universe, Would say that McAullife only had a few words. We know Knight was there, and then theres Action Stations to refer to, the same can be said for SM2 with Freedom Flight.

First of all, for Knight you're thinking of the Enyo Engagement, not the McAuliffe Ambush.

And yes, I know lots of things about McAuliffe. The average person buying Wing Commander doesn't care in the least. The average person going to see a movie cares even less. The only people who care are we few hard core fans, and no one makes a movie for us.

You license a franchise like Wing Commander for a movie to take advantage of the elements that made the game popular - the characters, the concept, the story... you don't make it to expand a 150-word summary of a battle from the games manual.
 
Actually, the movie to me seemed like a nice synthesis between WC1 and WC2. We see the Tiger's Claw, Rapiers, the Concordia, Tolwyn, Taggert as a spec ops agent, inpenetrable shields, skipper missiles (albeit this is actually from WC3), and Angel as a Wing Commander.

We can chalk all this up as part of the game universe (which, somehow it all actually fits). But, what I think Roberts came up with was a nice way to make WC1 and 2 (and to a lesser extent, WC3) mesh into one film.

With this in mind, he did a very good job.

Compared to a whole new storyline with no basic at all in the history of the games?

I'm honestly surprised that you, with all your knowledge of the WC universe, Would say that McAullife only had a few words. We know Knight was there, and then theres Action Stations to refer to, the same can be said for SM2 with Freedom Flight.

All of the sources cross eachother at some point. Claw Marks and the KS manual mess up at the Enyo Engagement. Furthermore, Claw Marks and Action Stations don't really share the same outlook for the McAuliffe Ambush.

So why is it so bad that Roberts had a new vision and look for 2654?
 
First of all, for Knight you're thinking of the Enyo Engagement, not the McAuliffe Ambush.
Ah I stand corrected. Goes to show what happens when you post from school without any reading material handy.

So why is it so bad that Roberts had a new vision and look for 2654?
Let me get this straight. Most people here start to explain away the odd occurances in the movie (typo's, completely new design, fugly kats...) Yet when somebody say.....the WC Saga team, who are keeping within the established timeline, change one little detail in ship design then people start complaining?
 
Let me get this straight. Most people here start to explain away the odd occurances in the movie (typo's, completely new design, fugly kats...) Yet when somebody say.....the WC Saga team, who are keeping within the established timeline, change one little detail in ship design then people start complaining?

Do you actually need us to explain the difference between the creator of Wing Commander and some guys adding ships to Freespace 2?

(... and regardless of what should be an obvious difference in authority, you're living in some kind of crazy fantasy world if you think people *don't* complain about all aspects of continuity on a daily basis. The reason you know people are willing to "explain away the odd occurances" is because people "start complaining" about the movie, in exactly the same way that they're arguing about fan made projects.)

(... and even beside this, critiquing a fan made project is a completely positive process. When Saga does something dumb like forgetting which side the conning tower on the Lexington is, the community pointing it out is *helping* the project. Assuming a fan mod hasn't decided they have some undue, big-headed authority over continuity, such as the one you've implied they should in your very odd post, then they should be very happy that people are willing to point out little problems like this for them to fix.)
 
Let me get this straight. Most people here start to explain away the odd occurances in the movie (typo's, completely new design, fugly kats...) Yet when somebody say.....the WC Saga team, who are keeping within the established timeline, change one little detail in ship design then people start complaining?

Firstly, I never said anything about WC Saga.

Secondly, WC games (except Prophecy) = Chris Roberts, WC movie = Chris Roberts. WC Universe = Chris Roberts. Now need I really say more.

You might not like the look, but to expect a movie to be made from the cartoon like effects from the original WC are just asinine. Of course things were going to change for the production of a major motion picture!

My only real complaints these days about the movie is the casting. I am not much of a Matthew Lillard or Freddy Prinze Jr. fan, although I know why they were cast.
 
The problem with WC is not that it had an original story inspired in the game, but that it was not very good. If they had a great story with the same problems - real or not - to fit with the games, the end result would be much better.
 
My only real complaints these days about the movie is the casting. I am not much of a Matthew Lillard or Freddy Prinze Jr. fan, although I know why they were cast

What was the reason??
 
In my opinion wc movie is way off the original idea of wing commander as some sort of "world war 2 in space" story.

why was there any need for this poor and childish pilgrim plot?
i really can't see the need for it.

if they wanted to make 1 good movie then it should have looked like this:
Prologue: Parts of WC1 plot
First movie part: parts of wc2 plot , up to the concordia disaster
main and final movie part: wc3 plot

or, a totally differnt idea:
why doesn't the movie follow the Hobbes charakter, the story of a traitor...

if they wanted to make a trilogy:
episode 1: wc1+wc2 mixed together
episode 2: wc3
episode 3: wc4

NO NEED FOR ANY MYSTERIE PLOT !!
 
What was the reason??

Most people will tell you it was because they were 'popular' stars. I would argue, though, that when the movie was cast and filmed in 1998, they *weren't* really stars. The only became 'famous' for a series of bubblegum teen movies which began around when Wing Commander was released.

I think the movie's casting is probably one of its legitimately most interesting aspects. The contrast between the wet-behind-the-ears rookies being pretty American boys and all the hardened veterans being a very diverse European cast is interesting to say the last.

why was there any need for this poor and childish pilgrim plot?
i really can't see the need for it.

As we've already discussed in this very thread, a story requires conflict. Blair's role in the original game is to occasionally nod when Halcyon gives him an assignment or when Angel tells him how many missiles it takes to destroy a Dralthi. He has virtually no lines and he certainly never fights with anyone about anything.

Turning Wing Commander into a 'movie script' the first time meant having all the characters hate Blair for blowing up the Tiger's Claw. That exact story doesn't work for the 'introduction' movie, but the Pilgrim concept is exactly the same idea -- a reason for the main character to be at odds with everyone else.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Turning Wing Commander into a 'movie script' the first time meant having all the characters hate Blair for blowing up the Tiger's Claw. That exact story doesn't work for the 'introduction' movie, but the Pilgrim concept is exactly the same idea -- a reason for the main character to be at odds with everyone else.

Well, there would have been other ways to make all people hate Maverick, that don't include this pilgim crap.

Just an example: Blairs Dad was officer in the navy, rival to tolwyn, ungilty punished as traitor or coward -> they hate his son, and history seems to repeat itself.
 
Well, there would have been other ways to make all people hate Maverick, that don't include this pilgim crap.

Just an example: Blairs Dad was officer in the navy, rival to tolwyn, ungilty punished as traitor or coward -> they hate his son, and history seems to repeat itself.

That's... pretty much exactly what the Pilgrim story is, though -- Blair's dad is treated as a traitor for marrying a Pilgrim woman and no one trusts Blair in the present war because of this.

While I have little interest in the mechanics of the religion, the idea of the Pilgrim War interests me a lot.

It's an interesting analogue for the Mexican War or World War I (in American terms - World War I was something very different for Europe). American history has these two big examples where the men who went on to run our big famous wars learned their craft and gained their positions because of how they served as young men in a 'prequel' conflict.

I think the novel got the concept exactly right, with there being a resentment between officers who fought in the war and those who were too young, and a lot of bullheadedness on the part of those (like Tolwyn) who had come of age in the last war.
 
But the difference between your WWI analogy and the pilgrim plot is blair's supernatural capability of navigating through jump-points.

That's poor storytelling and has nothing to do neither with wwI nor with the original wing commander concept.
 
But the difference between your WWI analogy and the pilgrim plot is blair's supernatural capability of navigating through jump-points.

That's poor storytelling and has nothing to do neither with wwI nor with the original wing commander concept.

It seems pretty meaningless to me. Hey, he can do math real fast! So what? It doesn't affect the games in the least.

If anything, the ability to "navigate a jump point" (which practically does boil down to doing some calculations really quickly, even as shown in the movie) really serves only to explain why Blair would (at this time) already be part of the template for the GE programme.

(Another interesting consideration is that it also may factor into why Tolwyn chose Blair to lead the jump through the Pulsar in 'Expendable'...)

(And it's not really poor storytelling, because it served a clear purpose in terms of the story of the movie - Blair can save the day at the end using the ability that he was shunned for at the start. That's a very basic, solid story idea.)
 
It's not just "fast calculating" as you described it.
The pilgim heritage brings religious and supernatural aspects to wing commander that never were mentioned in the past of the games.
You're interpretation of blair as a very talented young guy goes false. You're consideration of blair been chosen for tolwyns ge programm is the consideration of a hardcore wc fan (and even therefor its very, very weak), but a "normal" wing commander player or a normal movie watcher won't even think of such a consideration.
For him, it is what you said: basic, solid story telling
And this basic and solid would i describe as uninspired and poor story telling.
 
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