Video Games!
So, Sony recently announced that they'd bought the rights to make an Assassin's Creed movie (or movies). I think that the Assassin's Creed games are actually really good choices for movie adaptations. Unlike, say, Halo, there is a real story that's not just a barely-there thread between encounters. Unlike Mass Effect, there is not too much story to possibly work into the movie, nor any slightly gimmicky conceits, the removal of which would lead to a revolt. (Can you imagine a Mass Effect game where a film dictates how Shepard behaves? ::shudder:: That is too horrible to think of.) The Assassin's Creed games have, especially in Ezio Auditore, heroes that are both interesting and easy to set up as characters with a minimal amount of fuss, and that have adventures on both the large and small scales that would be entertaining.
And Ubisoft knows this quite well since they wrote and produced their own series of shorts about Ezio's father, who is barely in the games, but whose story was nonetheless compelling. (It helps that the costumes were TO DIE.) Naturally, having done so well all on their own, Ubisoft has made some pretty serious demands of Sony in return for the rights to their hottest property. As that blog points out, Steven Spielberg couldn't get the concessions out of a studio that Ubisoft got from Sony--their creative control is extensive and expansive. To that end, Hollywood types are revolted and convinced that nothing--not nothing good, which is par for the course with adaptations of video games, but nothing period--will come of it. Without Hollywood studios and their sort in the driver's seat, says one source, "The level of control Sony gave up means, effectively, that Assassin’s Creed will never - and I mean never - get made.”
Except, of course, a movie did get made. A video game company, which, if it isn't printing money off of Angry Birds or Halo, probably doesn't have nearly the amount of money even a poor Hollywood studio does, made a goddamned movie already. And it was a pretty good one, if limited in scope and setting. Ubisoft has shown that it can handle its property with a deft hand whether it be digital or no, so their having creative control above and beyond the Gods (if Spielberg can be considered as such) doesn't worry me, overly. This sneering about the movie never getting made--amidst an article cheerfully rattling off the many, many video game-to-movie failures--seems especially silly.
It also doesn't answer the question of whether a movie should be made. I know, I know, I just made a big deal about how well it would fit to cinematic form, but the truth is? It doesn't need to. I wish that more people would recognize that. I love movies as much as anyone, but there are some properties that do just fine in their own media, no cinematic intervention required. Of course, that said, I immediately imagined HBO doing Assassin's Creed series and drooled a little.
In other events, despite repeated angry swearing at the game, I finished the story for Arkham City. From start to finish, minus one awesome thing I did in the very beginning, the game is pretty inferior to its predecessor in pretty much every way. It's shorter, story-wise, than the first game, a fact which is obscured by an increased numbers of bullshit collectables. The story makes less sense and is less dramatically satisfying at its conclusion. (It shocked me to learn it was written by Paul Dini. Shame on him or shame on whoever adapted it to this muck.) It is harder to navigate. Batman is a total asshole.
This last is probably the most distressing to me. The best way to phrase it is that Arkham City is to Arkham Asylum what the WB version of Batman: The Animated Series is to the preceding seasons on Fox. Instead of a nuanced, interesting Batman, equally capable of humane restraint as terrible violence, Batman threatens people all the goddamned time and beats the snot out of thugs who have basically surrendered and are begging Batman not to hurt them. Just as Batman went from having a sense of humor and outsmarting his enemies as often as he out-fought them in the first seasons of B:tAS to being a emotionless, withholding, violence-is-the-solution robot in the WB seasons, so, too, has Batman progressed in these video games. I get that a video game will necessarily emphasize the punching and stuff part of being Batman. It doesn't mean he has to take it to talking about grinding-bones-to-make-his-bread levels of excessive violence. (Also, it doesn't have to feature punching more than anything. With over 400 tokens/puzzles from the Riddler to collect/solve, there is plenty of space to devise game mechanics not predicated on beating the shit out of dudes all the time.)
I'm very disappointed, and I'm glad that I didn't pay full price for the game, or I would be angry as well. Arkham Asylum actually managed to capture the thrill of being Batman, combining the elements of intelligence and cunning and stealth alongside the expected punch-'em-ups, to render the character in three dimensions. Arkham City has none of that joy. It's all misery-fucking-misery all the time. And don't get me started on playing Catwoman. I touched on it before, but the last level I played as Catwoman was excessive in the extreme. The word "bitch" was flung out roughly every other sentence, by the thugs and the main antagonist alike. It's disgusting, and the people who decided on that dialogue (probably all men) ought to be sat down and given a good talking-to about how saying "bitch" a lot in place of the harder swear words they aren't allowed to use if they want a T-for-teens rating a) doesn't make their characters sound more dark/edgy/menacing/evil and b) does alienate the women who play this game.
I think I'm ready to go back to playing Dead Rising 2: Off the Record now. Sure, all the female characters saunter instead of walking, and they all make passes at Frank "I-look-like-my-Mama-took-a-shovel-to-my-face-when-I-was-baby" West, but you know what? People don't say BITCH at or about women all the time. Somehow, the gross objectification of women that you see onscreen is less irritating--probably because it's not onscreen for all that long--than having to endure constant cat calls/threats of rape from NPCs for the hours you play the game.
And Ubisoft knows this quite well since they wrote and produced their own series of shorts about Ezio's father, who is barely in the games, but whose story was nonetheless compelling. (It helps that the costumes were TO DIE.) Naturally, having done so well all on their own, Ubisoft has made some pretty serious demands of Sony in return for the rights to their hottest property. As that blog points out, Steven Spielberg couldn't get the concessions out of a studio that Ubisoft got from Sony--their creative control is extensive and expansive. To that end, Hollywood types are revolted and convinced that nothing--not nothing good, which is par for the course with adaptations of video games, but nothing period--will come of it. Without Hollywood studios and their sort in the driver's seat, says one source, "The level of control Sony gave up means, effectively, that Assassin’s Creed will never - and I mean never - get made.”
Except, of course, a movie did get made. A video game company, which, if it isn't printing money off of Angry Birds or Halo, probably doesn't have nearly the amount of money even a poor Hollywood studio does, made a goddamned movie already. And it was a pretty good one, if limited in scope and setting. Ubisoft has shown that it can handle its property with a deft hand whether it be digital or no, so their having creative control above and beyond the Gods (if Spielberg can be considered as such) doesn't worry me, overly. This sneering about the movie never getting made--amidst an article cheerfully rattling off the many, many video game-to-movie failures--seems especially silly.
It also doesn't answer the question of whether a movie should be made. I know, I know, I just made a big deal about how well it would fit to cinematic form, but the truth is? It doesn't need to. I wish that more people would recognize that. I love movies as much as anyone, but there are some properties that do just fine in their own media, no cinematic intervention required. Of course, that said, I immediately imagined HBO doing Assassin's Creed series and drooled a little.
In other events, despite repeated angry swearing at the game, I finished the story for Arkham City. From start to finish, minus one awesome thing I did in the very beginning, the game is pretty inferior to its predecessor in pretty much every way. It's shorter, story-wise, than the first game, a fact which is obscured by an increased numbers of bullshit collectables. The story makes less sense and is less dramatically satisfying at its conclusion. (It shocked me to learn it was written by Paul Dini. Shame on him or shame on whoever adapted it to this muck.) It is harder to navigate. Batman is a total asshole.
This last is probably the most distressing to me. The best way to phrase it is that Arkham City is to Arkham Asylum what the WB version of Batman: The Animated Series is to the preceding seasons on Fox. Instead of a nuanced, interesting Batman, equally capable of humane restraint as terrible violence, Batman threatens people all the goddamned time and beats the snot out of thugs who have basically surrendered and are begging Batman not to hurt them. Just as Batman went from having a sense of humor and outsmarting his enemies as often as he out-fought them in the first seasons of B:tAS to being a emotionless, withholding, violence-is-the-solution robot in the WB seasons, so, too, has Batman progressed in these video games. I get that a video game will necessarily emphasize the punching and stuff part of being Batman. It doesn't mean he has to take it to talking about grinding-bones-to-make-his-bread levels of excessive violence. (Also, it doesn't have to feature punching more than anything. With over 400 tokens/puzzles from the Riddler to collect/solve, there is plenty of space to devise game mechanics not predicated on beating the shit out of dudes all the time.)
I'm very disappointed, and I'm glad that I didn't pay full price for the game, or I would be angry as well. Arkham Asylum actually managed to capture the thrill of being Batman, combining the elements of intelligence and cunning and stealth alongside the expected punch-'em-ups, to render the character in three dimensions. Arkham City has none of that joy. It's all misery-fucking-misery all the time. And don't get me started on playing Catwoman. I touched on it before, but the last level I played as Catwoman was excessive in the extreme. The word "bitch" was flung out roughly every other sentence, by the thugs and the main antagonist alike. It's disgusting, and the people who decided on that dialogue (probably all men) ought to be sat down and given a good talking-to about how saying "bitch" a lot in place of the harder swear words they aren't allowed to use if they want a T-for-teens rating a) doesn't make their characters sound more dark/edgy/menacing/evil and b) does alienate the women who play this game.
I think I'm ready to go back to playing Dead Rising 2: Off the Record now. Sure, all the female characters saunter instead of walking, and they all make passes at Frank "I-look-like-my-Mama-took-a-shovel-to-my-face-when-I-was-baby" West, but you know what? People don't say BITCH at or about women all the time. Somehow, the gross objectification of women that you see onscreen is less irritating--probably because it's not onscreen for all that long--than having to endure constant cat calls/threats of rape from NPCs for the hours you play the game.