31 replies to this topic

[VinJade]

I have been thinking for a long time on this subject and figured what the harm would be to talk about them all.

Movie:
If the Creators(Loren, Herb, ect) of Battletech could somehow manage to write a script and get it approved do you think it would do well?

Also what should it cover the great houses, the first Star League, Clan Invasion, or the SWs?
I figured it would most likely be a direct to DVD and odds are could be made in Canada where we can find some cheap no named actors to help keep the cost low.

I think my only concern would be how would we handle things like the Combine & the Capcon as that would be treading on thin ice.

on a side note: if it was liked by Hollywood never let Bay or JJ near it they would just ruin it.

The Comics:
I do believe there was once a line published before but didn't last very long and if memory serves me well I do believe it was a hit among the BT fans.

TV Show:
There was one done already but it was terrible and iirc it is hated just as much if not more than MA by BT fans.

If done correctly I think there is more than enough action & Adventurer for at lest the standard one season.

I think it would come down to computer graphics & Voice acting that could be make or break for the TV show.

What are everyone else's thoughts on the matter?
Think any of them could do well?

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

It would need to be rebooted and brought into the 2010's with a generous helping of creative liberty to grease the wheels.

They would need to come up with better and more believable explanations for BT's stone age target acquisition and tracking technology. Better explanations for the lack of nukes, fusion bombs, WMD's, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, computer malware, orbital bombardments, scorched earth policies and similar things. Or they would need to adjust canon to include some of those things.

A lot of the white main characters would need to be rebooted as being eskimo, black, hispanic, asian, middle eastern or other minorities. Americans (House of Cameron?) would have to be resurrected, lore would be rewritten into a "WHAT IF" alternate universe where americans are alive and well -- rather than extinct. Some of the straight characters would have to be gay, transexual, bisexual or lesbian to appeal to younger generations and remind everyone why its important to *hate religion*™.

And of course, the head honcho of the villain faction will need to be an actor with a similar appearance to Donald Trump.

On a more serious note if it ever does happen I hope they leave canon alone and go with some type of original story. That woud probably be best for everyone.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 27 April 2016 - 11:06 AM.

[VinJade]

Lol, you had me going there for a moment Ze.
Sad thing though is I could just see some of that crap you was joking about happening, if you let distasteful directors touch this franchise, remember the latest No so Fantastic four?

or letting Universal Studies anywhere near it because of the guy they hired from fox(who's name I think this day and age is a curse with Comic fans).

jj would somehow manage a lens flair in every single shot and or completely change character personalities,ect while Bay will just ruin it.

I personally believe as long as we have Herb & Coleman writing the script then we shouldn't have too much to worry about some hack job ruining anything.

on a side note;
I agree with that, it seems a story about an unknown person/unit and go from there would work well I think.

Edited by VinJade, 27 April 2016 - 02:20 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

Battletech is, in my opinion too big to work as a film, I would much prefer to see a TV series or better yet several shows, think along the lines of Game of Thrones, which has more than a few parallels to Battletech
Centuries after the fall of Old Valeria the Star League, the greatest civilisation the world inner sphere has ever known the 4 5 great houses are fighting over the iron throne of the Star League not realising a greater threat is going to attack from beyond the wall periphery.
of course I would hope they would reduce the sex and gore if Battletech was to go that route

if it were required to go movie, following a small Merc unit would be the way to go, I think the birth of the Grey Death Legion could work on the big screen, adapting each of the first 3 Grey Death books as a film.

to do justice to almost any other existing story would almost have to be done in a similar fashion to Game of Thrones, the only other TV show I can think of which could be compared to Battletech is Babylon 5, that sort of template could work, however Game of Thrones with Mechs would probably be a lot easier to sell than Babylon 5 with Mechs

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 28 April 2016 - 03:50 AM.

[VinJade]

Never go GOTs, that just means you have no talent if you have to rely on sex & gore for ether most or every episode.

BT has so much more going for it and done by those with actual talent, with a history far more rich than dare I say any dynasty we have in real life.

As to the GDL, um no. I don't like 'em because of whom they sided with in the FedCom Civil War and am glad they have been destroyed*(I just wish every trace of them was gone after their destruction), the story about them though is fine but I would rather go with the Eridani light horses myself as they stayed behind when the rest of the SLDF fled with Kerensky like cowards.

so seeing things from the eyes of a SLDF unit turned merc would be fun to watch and see how things had changed.
I am sure that the Writers can come up with something.

*regardless of what MW 4 stated about them rebuilding, that isn't canon as they have in fact been destroyed.

Edited by VinJade, 29 April 2016 - 12:55 AM.

[Davegt27]

You mean people hated the BattleTech animated?

I loved that series

https://www.youtube....C7E99DD853589FD

[VinJade]

@Dave
Yes, people actually did, my group found it to be meh at best and the Graphics was bad, when the mechs get damaged all they did was more or less topple over and almost nothing from the show was canon iirc.

as for me personally I didn't hate it nor did I like it ether.

Edited by VinJade, 29 April 2016 - 06:32 AM.

[Ano]

Rogue Jedi, on 28 April 2016 - 03:46 AM, said:

if it were required to go movie, following a small Merc unit would be the way to go, I think the birth of the Grey Death Legion could work on the big screen, adapting each of the first 3 Grey Death books as a film.

I think this would be the most important bit, and what would make it work for a TV show. Following a small mercenary unit (Suomi Warders, anyone?) that was engaged in pirate hunting, contract defense, a bit of Solaris and maybe, eventually, some of the clan invasion stuff would allow them to keep BT lore and flavour but minimise some of the more problematic aspects of the older lore (Japan: Bad! China: Mad and bad! etc) without total rewrites etc. It would also allow them to quietly ignore any parts of the history that were, on reflection, a bit poorly done or tasteless or whatever.

Of course, I don't see it actually happening, BUT I think it could work. The biggest difficult would be balancing the budget: if they're going to show a lot of mech combat, then it could start to get expensive.

[VinJade]

@Wizard
I ether fell asleep or was reading a battletech novel during high school history class, it was boring as hell(still managed to pass though, lol), and didn't care for it too much. besides history is flawed, it is written by the victors and what really happened is lost to time(so I write them off as half fake/propaganda for the winners).

as to garbage like GOTs no I tend to not waste my time on trash.

Lord of the Rings, fun books(not the fan of the movies) to read.

Back on topic:
the Movie should stick to cannon, just follow a different unit, like maybe Ghost of Winter Novel, has everything we could ask for.

Or we could also go with S7 events as that is a micro version of BT.

We could also have comics covering some of the greatest hits.

[VinJade]

It is only disrespectful if the one teaching it and most of the history books was not written in a boring manner. History is in fact questionable as everything that is 'learned' from studying the past can only gleam so much from it and the rest is all guess work and what they think happened.

Hell today look at fox & NBC they could cover the same subject but each gives a different story on the subject.

which one is fact and which one is fake?
however unlike today history had no TV, Net, radio, ect and only go with what was found and or scrolls of major events that may or may not have happened.

as to GOT & 22 m people who like the book it isn't their fault that they are flawed (That was a joke by the way)

I think my issue is things like slaughtering a pregnant woman and leaving her to bleed to death(There is no plot that could truly warrant such an act in any TV show).

don't get me wrong I am not willing to turn a blind eye to things like that in BT ether as there was a novel in the BT universe(cannot remember the book off hand) where one of the scum bags that worked for the monster Sun-Tuz Laio who slaughtered an entire family and beheaded a newborn leaving the body and head so close together that when the maid went to check on the baby she picked it up and the head ether fell off or didn't come with the body.

asked the writer about it and he said that it was to show how low and how evil that unit can go(I think they was called death commandos Sun-tuz's personal body guard or something like that), still to this day I am disgusted by such actions and it is the only BT novel I had actually contemplated burning.....

back on topic
Have you ever read the ghost of winter?
there is really little in what you don't like and is in fact mostly action in 90% of the book.
as to non-canon, I am willing to over look mwo's more or less non-canon problems but this is mostly a first person shooter and unlike MW 3 or others before MW3 there is no room for story in for MWO.

However a movie in a battletech universe that isn't canon is like making Star Wars the Force awakening but cutting out all of the canon and turning it into something else that isn't SW.

Edited by VinJade, 02 May 2016 - 12:35 AM.

[VinJade]

I never stated BT was pretty, clean, and smelled like roses and I know of all that, however you don't need to include that nor should the books be sanitized, however the Clans & the IS houses from what we have been shown(outside of the Capcom monsters as I stated in one of my earlier post) almost all of the terrible things they did was ether from orbit or some quick deaths.

well outside of wob(bio weapons and nukes big no nos) as we are suppose to hate them as they are an evil faction, where is the murder of a pregnant woman was out of the blue for GOTs.

and yes I know humanity is full of such vile and evil people.

as to ignoring my mother I had a lot of times and now that she is gone I wish I could take back those times....
as to teachers I had no respect for boring teachers who could make SWs boring as hell.

Boy we are so off topic it isn't funny and this is the last time I will reply to anything not related to the Topic at hand....

Speaking of SW the latest one isn't that far off actually and easily believable to be part of the canon universe.

However BT is different you cannot have anything BT related without some form of lore with in it.
you seem the type to bore easily so the S7 events during the Fedcom civil war is fast paced and action packed along with being a microcosm of the entire IS.

Then there is the Ghost of Winter, had you not read it I recommend you do so, it is fast paced and action packed as well.

Edited by VinJade, 02 May 2016 - 10:22 AM.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

VinJade, on 27 April 2016 - 02:17 PM, said:

Lol, you had me going there for a moment Ze.
Sad thing though is I could just see some of that crap you was joking about happening, if you let distasteful directors touch this franchise, remember the latest No so Fantastic four?

or letting Universal Studies anywhere near it because of the guy they hired from fox(who's name I think this day and age is a curse with Comic fans).

jj would somehow manage a lens flair in every single shot and or completely change character personalities,ect while Bay will just ruin it.

I personally believe as long as we have Herb & Coleman writing the script then we shouldn't have too much to worry about some hack job ruining anything.

on a side note;
I agree with that, it seems a story about an unknown person/unit and go from there would work well I think.

Maybe I'm crazy but I kinda liked the last Fantastic Four.

It could have been better but no way was it as bad as Spectre or a lot of other stuff I've seen lately.

Truth be told I've only read Wolves on the Border and a few other BT books I can't remember the titles of I think were written by Michael Stackpole and featured Justin Xiang as the lead and 1 other book where Joanna of Jade Falcon was the lead. I have all the BT books stored away on disc somewhere but have never gotten around to reading them.

My brain just turns into a puff of smoke when I think about what a BT live action series or film would be like I couldn't begin to guess. If it were up to me I might draw parallels between how MMA fighters train and how the mechwarrior lifestyle is portrayed with some navy seals or special forces elements thrown in and some world history in terms of wars and conquests. I can't say I know BT well enough to begin to do it justice.

Rogue Jedi, on 28 April 2016 - 03:46 AM, said:

Battletech is, in my opinion too big to work as a film, I would much prefer to see a TV series or better yet several shows, think along the lines of Game of Thrones, which has more than a few parallels to Battletech
Centuries after the fall of Old Valeria the Star League, the greatest civilisation the world inner sphere has ever known the 4 5 great houses are fighting over the iron throne of the Star League not realising a greater threat is going to attack from beyond the wall periphery.
of course I would hope they would reduce the sex and gore if Battletech was to go that route

if it were required to go movie, following a small Merc unit would be the way to go, I think the birth of the Grey Death Legion could work on the big screen, adapting each of the first 3 Grey Death books as a film.

to do justice to almost any other existing story would almost have to be done in a similar fashion to Game of Thrones, the only other TV show I can think of which could be compared to Battletech is Babylon 5, that sort of template could work, however Game of Thrones with Mechs would probably be a lot easier to sell than Babylon 5 with Mechs

I was thinking mechwarriors could be like the spartans from the movie 300. They would be trained from birth to be the best warriors, strategists and leaders in the galaxy. If it took the form of an original story the background would be the culture, stories and mentality that arose to reinforce their respective systems of producing intergalactic badasses. The lead characters would just be examples of how the limits we place on human capacities can be prone towards being narrow minded and shortsighted. And how much more potential people have and how much more they're capable of than we typically give them credit for. Eh something like that.

VinJade, on 29 April 2016 - 12:53 AM, said:

Never go GOTs, that just means you have no talent if you have to rely on sex & gore for ether most or every episode.

BT has so much more going for it and done by those with actual talent, with a history far more rich than dare I say any dynasty we have in real life.

As to the GDL, um no. I don't like 'em because of whom they sided with in the FedCom Civil War and am glad they have been destroyed*(I just wish every trace of them was gone after their destruction), the story about them though is fine but I would rather go with the Eridani light horses myself as they stayed behind when the rest of the SLDF fled with Kerensky like cowards.

so seeing things from the eyes of a SLDF unit turned merc would be fun to watch and see how things had changed.
I am sure that the Writers can come up with something.

*regardless of what MW 4 stated about them rebuilding, that isn't canon as they have in fact been destroyed.

In a way I thought the new animated Justice League movie "God and Monsters" where Superman is the son of a ruthless dictator in an alternate universe was worse.

VinJade, on 01 May 2016 - 06:40 AM, said:

@Wizard
I ether fell asleep or was reading a battletech novel during high school history class, it was boring as hell(still managed to pass though, lol), and didn't care for it too much. besides history is flawed, it is written by the victors and what really happened is lost to time(so I write them off as half fake/propaganda for the winners).

as to garbage like GOTs no I tend to not waste my time on trash.

Lord of the Rings, fun books(not the fan of the movies) to read.

Back on topic:
the Movie should stick to cannon, just follow a different unit, like maybe Ghost of Winter Novel, has everything we could ask for.

Or we could also go with S7 events as that is a micro version of BT.

We could also have comics covering some of the greatest hits.

History really is biased, one might say its heavily revisionist and outright fabricated in many cases. It definitely is written by the victors. Extremely ugly topic but it is true. There are plenty of facts and evidence to support this that don't help me to sleep better at night knowing them.

Game of Thrones is a bit too morally relativistic for my tastes. Most stories reinforce the notion that if people are moral good things will happen to them and if they are immoral bad things will happen. GoT is morally relativistic in that it suggests that it doesn't matter whether people are moral or immoral -- fate is disjointed and separate from one's actions, words and intentions.

I'm still watching GoT though, not because I think its good or particularly enjoy it moreso because I need something to watch on tv when I work out and there isn't much on other than GoT.

VinJade, on 02 May 2016 - 12:09 AM, said:

It is only disrespectful if the one teaching it and most of the history books was not written in a boring manner. History is in fact questionable as everything that is 'learned' from studying the past can only gleam so much from it and the rest is all guess work and what they think happened.

Hell today look at fox & NBC they could cover the same subject but each gives a different story on the subject.

which one is fact and which one is fake?
however unlike today history had no TV, Net, radio, ect and only go with what was found and or scrolls of major events that may or may not have happened.

as to GOT & 22 m people who like the book it isn't their fault that they are flawed (That was a joke by the way)

I think my issue is things like slaughtering a pregnant woman and leaving her to bleed to death(There is no plot that could truly warrant such an act in any TV show).

don't get me wrong I am not willing to turn a blind eye to things like that in BT ether as there was a novel in the BT universe(cannot remember the book off hand) where one of the scum bags that worked for the monster Sun-Tuz Laio who slaughtered an entire family and beheaded a newborn leaving the body and head so close together that when the maid went to check on the baby she picked it up and the head ether fell off or didn't come with the body.

asked the writer about it and he said that it was to show how low and how evil that unit can go(I think they was called death commandos Sun-tuz's personal body guard or something like that), still to this day I am disgusted by such actions and it is the only BT novel I had actually contemplated burning.....

back on topic
Have you ever read the ghost of winter?
there is really little in what you don't like and is in fact mostly action in 90% of the book.
as to non-canon, I am willing to over look mwo's more or less non-canon problems but this is mostly a first person shooter and unlike MW 3 or others before MW3 there is no room for story in for MWO.

However a movie in a battletech universe that isn't canon is like making Star Wars the Force awakening but cutting out all of the canon and turning it into something else that isn't SW.

I'm not certain if George Lucas endorsed the star wars extended universe novels as being canon.

I think Lucas hated the EU books going so far as to have the sarlacc pit edited to include a mouth to try to prove to people that Boba Fett couldn't have escaped it.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 02 May 2016 - 06:00 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

I Zeratul I, on 02 May 2016 - 05:54 PM, said:

I'm not certain if George Lucas endorsed the star wars extended universe novels as being canon.

I think Lucas hated the EU books going so far as to have the sarlacc pit edited to include a mouth to try to prove to people that Boba Fett couldn't have escaped it.

the Sarlacc Mouth ^{(like most of the changes in the "Special Editions")} was apparently part of Lucas's original vision for that scene, he just could not afford to do it with early 80s technoligy.

Until Disney purchased Lucasfilm the rule established by Lucas was that the books, comics and games were considerer canon unless they were directly contradicted by something in a film or TV show.

I was rather disappointed by the removal of the EU novels from Star Wars Canon, there was so much great stuff in those hundreds of books, however they took a completely different path to the new film

[VinJade]

@RJ
iirc GL said "There are two universes, Mine and then everything else"

which means he didn't see anything outside of his movies as canon.

Though seeing as Disney ruined that for all of you SW fans I feel bad for all of you.

Anyways back to the Topic;
If the movie covered a book like Ghost Of Winter or even the S7 events during the Fed Com civil war it would do well as there isn't a lot of 'talking' in it, sure there are some slow parts but then there are in every movie, Pacific Rim, SW, ST, ect but if a movie is nothing but action, sex, fighting, or what not then it isn't a movie.

and if they went outside of canon you will have a lot of very p***ed off Fans, hell people on these forums whine and moan about lore purest now, think how bad it would be if a movie went and didn't go by canon?

[VinJade]

have you ever read Ghost of Winter?
or any of the S7 books during the Fed Com civil war?
if not then you should, you wouldn't be disappointed.

Edited by VinJade, 03 May 2016 - 04:31 PM.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

I'm more bummed that Aaron Allston and AC Crispin died than I am about EU not being canon. I remember AC Crispin used to hang out in the author's lounge on AOL and I chatted with her a few times. Nice lady.

I for one never expected the EU books to be canonized. It seemed like there was just no quality control, vetting process or central authority like one would expect with a collection of canonical works. Some of the things authors did like creating the sun crusher and exar kun's ghost coming back to haunt people make me wonder what their editing process was. The yuuzhan vong, ysalamiri, cortosis ore and other plot devices were kind of tongue in cheek. Like VinJade said Lucas commented on the extended universe and things he said weren't very flattering. There might be a Lucas quote somewhere that shows Lucas did intend to show people Boba Fett couldn't have escaped the sarlacc with his CGI edits. Its vague and I don't remember if it was a rumor on TFN or something that was confirmed.

If I had a dollar everytime Vin Jade mentioned Ghost of Winter in this thread...

I'll look at my BT book collection and if I have Ghost of Winter maybe I'll read it.

[Rogue Jedi]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 03 May 2016 - 05:30 PM, said:

Also AC Crispin wrote the only great Star Wars books (well besides Timothy Zahn). Like seriously I thought the rest of the EU was kinda crap. Granted the BattleTech universe has been pretty lacking too... cough Wolf Pack cough.

if you think only Crispin and Zahn wrote great Star Wars books then you and I have very different tastes, yes they both wrote some great books but my favourites were by Allston, Stackpole and Anderson.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 03 May 2016 - 05:30 PM, said:

I wonder if the S7 and Ghost of Winter books are the only ones he has read. Because he sure brings them up a lot. I'd be richer than Trump if I had a dollar for every time he brought up those mediocre books.

Good BattleTech is stuff like the Jade Phoenix Trilogy, or the Blood of Kerensky.

Also AC Crispin wrote the only great Star Wars books (well besides Timothy Zahn). Like seriously I thought the rest of the EU was kinda crap. Granted the BattleTech universe has been pretty lacking too... cough Wolf Pack cough.

Its almost like... VinJade wrote S7 / Ghost of Winter (or has ties to the authors) and is plugging their own work.

Timothy Zahn, AC Crispin, KW Jeter, Michael Stackpole, Aaron Allston, Matthew Stover, Drew Karpyshn. Those are some of the decent SW authors whose names I can remember. A lot of EU stuff is so cheesy and cliche.. I don't know what to say about it. The quality of writing in the scifi/fantasy genre outside of the EU is often better than the quality of writing inside the EU.

[VinJade]

I also own Double Blind, Jade Phoenix Trilogy, ect.

I even have Far Country, so in other words I have every single novel produced to date.

and if you think GOW was boring and nothing but pure action than you actually never read the book.

[Rogue Jedi]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 04 May 2016 - 12:59 PM, said:

Also what is boring is completely subjective. As I said before I am extremely picky. I though Ghost of Winter was BORING. It was a straight forward plot with nothing new or innovative that I haven't read 10 times before in other books (the only difference being mechs). It is MY OPINION and I AM ALLOWED TO THINK THAT YOUR PRECIOUS BOOK IS BORING IN MY OPINION.

yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, just because one person thinks something is brilliant does not mean others will, and that is fine provided we can all accept that not everyone will share our opinions.

I personally could not get into Lord of the Rings, I gave up when after 2 months I was only about half way through Fellowship, if I get into a book I will usually have it finished inside a week, in many cases ^{(including most of the Harry Potter series at 700+ pages)} inside 24 hours of picking it up.

I tried reading A Game of Thrones after seeing the first season of the show ^{(I love reading a book after watching a film based on it, that is usually very entertaining, I avoid reading a book first because if I do that the film tends to be a huge disappointment)} , but the "bad" spelling was massively frustrating to me, for the sake of my sanity I quickly abandoned my plans to read that series.