Movie Pitch: Robotron The Movie

[tongodeon]

For some reason I was just thinking of what a movie version of Robotron would look like. Would you watch it? With the harsh, simple, brightly-colored geometry, the echoey reverb sound effects, and the lasers and dudes with exposed glowing brains I'd watch it for the art direction alone.

Comments

[mmcirvin]

The way these things work, I'd figure that anyone actually making a movie of Robotron would probably ignore the game's look, and that would be the only reason to watch it.

The 1980s Eugene Jarvis/Williams look, with all the right angles and pulsating glows and dot explosions, was incredibly distinctive, one of those things that never quite gets out of your head--but it was very predicated on the limitations of primitive 8-bit arcade technology, and I'm not sure it would even look right done more slickly.

[tongodeon]

I'd figure that anyone actually making a movie of Robotron would probably ignore the game's look

Did you see "DOOM"? They got the look down pretty well. Well enough that the first time the hero walked on the screen I said to myself "that must be the hero - he looks just like the head of the dude in the middle of the status bar in the original game".

Movies screw up an awful lot of things, but they can turn reference art into finished movies pretty well. Check out the extra production footage in The Matrix, the Star Wars movies (any of them), Superman, The Abyss, or pretty much any other big sci fi film. You need to have a good concept artist, but if he gets it right then the rest of it is easy.

[glaucon]

well hell, if they're going to do that, they might as well do Joust.

[tongodeon]

To clarify, I came up with this idea on my own. This isn't a piece of secret information that I overheard from anyone. Any similarity between any actual movie in production is not only coincidental but a big surprise to me.

Also: perhaps joust. Or perhaps there's a way to write Joust, Robotron, and Galaga into the same movie.

[glaucon]

Or perhaps there's a way to write Joust, Robotron, and Galaga into the same movie.

now *that* I would pay to see.
perhaps some sort of Tron like situation where our protagonist is trapped in some sort of video game reality and has to fight or die. could do Joust, Robotron, Galaga, a couple others (Tempest? Qix?), before s/he finally gets forced to play a live actional Super Pac Man and opts for death instead.

[tongodeon]

I'm thinking *not* TRON-like. First it's predictable, and second the real world always seems lame and dated, and third it means you end up with the "and then he woke up and it was all a dream!" ending.

I'm thinking it'll be just an immersive movie in its own world without any sort of parallel universe jumping or other connection between theirs and ours. A world where there are giant ostriches and glow in the dark brains and invading insect spaceships and lots of boopy exploding lasers in a black and glowing color palette. That would be the shit.

[cdk]

If it looked like the game, I'd be there opening night without fail.

But what I'd be really interested to see is how they represent the "I just need to save 7 humans in a row before I die" ethic from the game.

[mkb_cbr]

If the movie had any kind of real budget, then Hollywood would fuck it all up.

However, I have some fond memories of entire summer days devoted to Robotron playing on my Apple ][, so I'd see the move anyway.

[wisn]

What stuck with me about Robotron and other Williams games wasn't the blocky artwork nearly as much as the pulsing color sequencing they used at every opportunity.