42 replies to this topic

[Brody319]

So when are we getting a gritty dark reboot in the form of a movie?

Edited by Brody319, 14 March 2015 - 01:08 AM.

[Spr1ggan]

Brody319, on 14 March 2015 - 01:07 AM, said:

So when are we getting a gritty dark reboot in the form of a movie?

That would be cool. I'd like an HBO TV series though.

[Brody319]

Spr1ggan, on 14 March 2015 - 01:15 AM, said:

That would be cool. I'd like an HBO TV series though.

Well It seems like people really like giant robots right now. So I can see it doing well if they handle it right. but I just think it should be a movie since it could get more of a budget, reach a lot more people, and the effects could be upped.

[KraftySOT]

I heard Rick Ocasek and Micheal Bay are in 'talks'.

[Brody319]

KraftySOT, on 14 March 2015 - 01:21 AM, said:

I heard Rick Ocasek and Micheal Bay are in 'talks'.

when is Micheal Bay not talking about something!
I hear he even talks to the explosions trying to tell them how to explode just right for the special effects team.

[KraftySOT]

And when did people not like giant robots?

You Canucks might not remember when our entire nation flipped its collective hat over robots from Mars. Is been popular ever since.

Especially when you pit puny forces against them. We really love that stuff. Ask Kurosawa and Ishiro Honda. I heard they got rich on the same thing.

[Alistair Winter]

The problem with Battletech isn't the lack of interest in cool, stompy robots. It's the fact that the whole Battletech lore is about as interesting, deep and unique as a cat's colon. Someone mentioned an HBO series. This isn't like Game of Thrones where there's a decades old deep universe with rich and compelling characters that break down conventional fantasy stereotypes. Actually, Battletech is a whole universe full of bad stereotypes. It's Space Samurai, Space Communists and Space Vikings versus the evil Clone Army that refuses to use contractions, like 1960's sci-fi villains.

Every time I learn something new about the Battletech universe, I just want to stab myself to dull the pain from my sudden cerebral hemorrhage. It's like reading some of the sci-fi fan fiction I wrote as a teenager.

[Brody319]

Alistair Winter, on 14 March 2015 - 02:29 AM, said:

The problem with Battletech isn't the lack of interest in cool, stompy robots. It's the fact that the whole Battletech lore is about as interesting, deep and unique as a cat's colon. Someone mentioned an HBO series. This isn't like Game of Thrones where there's a decades old deep universe with rich and compelling characters that break down conventional fantasy stereotypes. Actually, Battletech is a whole universe full of bad stereotypes. It's Space Samurai, Space Communists and Space Vikings versus the evil Clone Army that refuses to use contractions, like 1960's sci-fi villains.

Every time I learn something new about the Battletech universe, I just want to stab myself to dull the pain from my sudden cerebral hemorrhage. It's like reading some of the sci-fi fan fiction I wrote as a teenager.

its perfect for an action movie!

just need to get a group of purely attractive people (because only the attractive people made it to space)
A team of expert CGI artists
Maybe some people from PGI to do the artwork

Then just play up the stereotypes!

Make it like a half comedy half action movie. The funny can come from the stereotypes and situations, the action comes from giant mechs beating each other to death with anything within arm's reach.


But I see it as like a movie set in 3025, then 2 in 3050.
First one can introduce a few characters and the combat in the inner sphere, can show off why they are stuck in the technological dark age. Then you do one when the clans first invade in 3050, having it end about halfway in when the clans are winning and seem unstoppable. finally you do the last movie near the end of the clan invasion and having the inner sphere win.

[Weeny Machine]

Alistair Winter, on 14 March 2015 - 02:29 AM, said:

The problem with Battletech isn't the lack of interest in cool, stompy robots. It's the fact that the whole Battletech lore is about as interesting, deep and unique as a cat's colon. Someone mentioned an HBO series. This isn't like Game of Thrones where there's a decades old deep universe with rich and compelling characters that break down conventional fantasy stereotypes. Actually, Battletech is a whole universe full of bad stereotypes. It's Space Samurai, Space Communists and Space Vikings versus the evil Clone Army that refuses to use contractions, like 1960's sci-fi villains.

Every time I learn something new about the Battletech universe, I just want to stab myself to dull the pain from my sudden cerebral hemorrhage. It's like reading some of the sci-fi fan fiction I wrote as a teenager.

Sure, there are the tendencies you speak of. However, compared to stuff like Transformers, Independence Day and whatnot Battletech has quite some depth. There is also a kind of "Game of Thrones" (especially when Com Star is involved) going on, mercenaries are used as pawns etc

[El Bandito]

Alistair Winter, on 14 March 2015 - 02:29 AM, said:

The problem with Battletech isn't the lack of interest in cool, stompy robots. It's the fact that the whole Battletech lore is about as interesting, deep and unique as a cat's colon. Someone mentioned an HBO series. This isn't like Game of Thrones where there's a decades old deep universe with rich and compelling characters that break down conventional fantasy stereotypes. Actually, Battletech is a whole universe full of bad stereotypes. It's Space Samurai, Space Communists and Space Vikings versus the evil Clone Army that refuses to use contractions, like 1960's sci-fi villains.

Every time I learn something new about the Battletech universe, I just want to stab myself to dull the pain from my sudden cerebral hemorrhage. It's like reading some of the sci-fi fan fiction I wrote as a teenager.

I have to disagree. The whole plot of Fed-Com Civil war saga (3055-3067) was pretty darn good, with lots of political backstabbing and assassinations, starting with the death of Melissa Steiner. Victor Steiner Davion had fit the role of a tragic hero perfectly, with plenty of character development. And Katherine was a real *****, even more hatable than that ***** Cercei of GoT (mostly because Katherine was actually smart). Even Sun-Tsu Liao was a magnificent ******* in his own way. I want Tom Hiddleston to play as Sun-Tsu Liao so bad.

The pre-3055 stories were pretty corny and heroes had tons of plot armor, but the Civil War saga had killed off so many likeable characters, that it became basically GoT in space. Of course, we must not talk about anything after 3067, cause things went downhill real fast.

Operation Bulldog and Task Force Serpent (3059-3060) are also a great places to start, telling the demise of the Smoke Jaguars. Everyone loves a D-Day type of movie, and the invasion of Huntress was just that.

Edited by El Bandito, 14 March 2015 - 03:19 AM.

[Otto Cannon]

You'll have to make do with this for now.


(Hint: It's as awful as you'd expect.)

[TWIAFU]

Otto Cannon, on 14 March 2015 - 03:07 AM, said:

You'll have to make do with this for now.


(Hint: It's as awful as you'd expect.)

Yea, HORRBILE!

Even high dose of lsd could not make that movie any good.


http://www.imdb.com/.../?ref_=tt_ov_vi

Edited by TWIAFU, 14 March 2015 - 03:11 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Bush Hopper, on 14 March 2015 - 02:52 AM, said:

Sure, there are the tendencies you speak of. However, compared to stuff like Transformers, Independence Day and whatnot Battletech has quite some depth. There is also a kind of "Game of Thrones" (especially when Com Star is involved) going on, mercenaries are used as pawns etc

Well, I suppose Transformers is a good example of how you can make a simple, entertaining movie without any kind of interesting plot or interesting characters, if you just play the strengths of the franchise and avoid the pitfalls of trying to make the universe more interesting than it is.

El Bandito, on 14 March 2015 - 02:56 AM, said:

I have to disagree. The whole Fed-Com Civil war saga (3055-3063) was pretty darn good, with lots of political backstabbing and assassinations, starting with the death of Melissa Steiner. Victor Steiner Davion had fit the role of a tragic hero perfectly, with plenty of character development. And Katherine was a real *****, even more hatable than that ***** Cercei of GoT (mostly because Katherine was actually smart).

Well, I'm sure there are some well-written novels, but I'm talking about the Battletech universe, the setting itself. It's kind of like Warhammer 40,000. What started out as a pretty interesting universe (although a blatant potpourri of rip-offs) was eventually made almost as corny and dumb as Battletech, but there are still some fairly good Warhammer 40,000 novels. Mathew Farrer and Dan Abnett wrote some good novels, for example.

I guess you could make a decent action movie if you just had a very specific vision and presented a very narrow view of Battletech. This is one of the things earlier Mechwarrior games did rather well, I think. And it's part of the reason I was so surprised when I started really learning more about the Battletech universe, to find it very shallow, naive and uninteresting.

[Goosfraba]

Alistair Winter, on 14 March 2015 - 03:16 AM, said:

I guess you could make a decent action movie if you just had a very specific vision and presented a very narrow view of Battletech. This is one of the things earlier Mechwarrior games did rather well, I think. And it's part of the reason I was so surprised when I started really learning more about the Battletech universe, to find it very shallow, naive and uninteresting.

So, like Star Trek or almost every other sci-fi universe out there.

[Nightmare1]

KraftySOT, on 14 March 2015 - 01:21 AM, said:

I heard Rick Ocasek and Micheal Bay are in 'talks'.

Michael Bay? Puh-lease no! Everything he touches turns into nothing but bombastic CGI held together by a laughably thin excuse for a story plot.

How about Joss Whedon or Guillermo del Toro instead?

[Nightmare1]

Marack Drock, on 14 March 2015 - 01:07 PM, said:

Alien Resurrection

Complete Self parody of the Alien series that contributed nothing to the franchise other than killing it till AvP which in turn killed it again. He was also the Co-writer for Waterworld. And then he made the two Captain America movies which were good only because there had never been a good Captain America movie but they had paper thin plots with more gaping holes than in Prometheus. Joss is a NO!

Del Toro is one of two reasons that the Hobbit movies were so screwed up (Peter Jackson used much of his old scripts after he took over the project). He was also the continued writer for all three of those movies.... so yeah he screws up anything written in stone by Authors. He also did the paper thin Pacific Rim that was only successful because kids and adults, wanted to see big robots fighting monsters to trigger childhood nostalgia. He also did the dreadful Hellboy series that was so boring IMO and bland without a cohesive plot... ugh. So no not him.

If anyone we need: Steven Spielberg who makes magic from whatever he touches, JJ Abbrams (he is not allowed to touch special effects though), Ridley Scott, James Cameron, or whoever it as who directed Predators (because that movie was a hopeful gleam into the future of possibly good movies).

*Pssst* My favorite two movies are Captain America (1 followed by 2) and Pacific Rim!

I could go for Spielberg, although lately a lot of the stuff with his name on it has been subpar. I think he's getting a bit old. I really don't like James Cameron though. Avatar was just too weird, lol.

[S3dition]

Marack Drock, on 14 March 2015 - 01:07 PM, said:

Alien Resurrection

Complete Self parody of the Alien series that contributed nothing to the franchise other than killing it till AvP which in turn killed it again. He was also the Co-writer for Waterworld. And then he made the two Captain America movies which were good only because there had never been a good Captain America movie but they had paper thin plots with more gaping holes than in Prometheus. Joss is a NO!

Del Toro is one of two reasons that the Hobbit movies were so screwed up (Peter Jackson used much of his old scripts after he took over the project). He was also the continued writer for all three of those movies.... so yeah he screws up anything written in stone by Authors. He also did the paper thin Pacific Rim that was only successful because kids and adults, wanted to see big robots fighting monsters to trigger childhood nostalgia. He also did the dreadful Hellboy series that was so boring IMO and bland without a cohesive plot... ugh. So no not him.

If anyone we need: Steven Spielberg who makes magic from whatever he touches, JJ Abbrams (he is not allowed to touch special effects though), Ridley Scott, James Cameron, or whoever it as who directed Predators (because that movie was a hopeful gleam into the future of possibly good movies).

You do realize that they didn't use Whedon's original script for that movie, right? When he saw the screener, he asked Fox to remove his name from it because it only contained about 10% of his work. They declined so they could use his name as a selling point.

[Anjian]

El Bandito, on 14 March 2015 - 02:56 AM, said:

I have to disagree. The whole plot of Fed-Com Civil war saga (3055-3067) was pretty darn good, with lots of political backstabbing and assassinations, starting with the death of Melissa Steiner. Victor Steiner Davion had fit the role of a tragic hero perfectly, with plenty of character development. And Katherine was a real *****, even more hatable than that ***** Cercei of GoT (mostly because Katherine was actually smart). Even Sun-Tsu Liao was a magnificent ******* in his own way. I want Tom Hiddleston to play as Sun-Tsu Liao so bad.

The pre-3055 stories were pretty corny and heroes had tons of plot armor, but the Civil War saga had killed off so many likeable characters, that it became basically GoT in space. Of course, we must not talk about anything after 3067, cause things went downhill real fast.

Operation Bulldog and Task Force Serpent (3059-3060) are also a great places to start, telling the demise of the Smoke Jaguars. Everyone loves a D-Day type of movie, and the invasion of Huntress was just that.

Sorry but no one really likes these kind of stories for cinema or TV series other than the History Channel.

Trying to do a Game of Thrones show is way too obvious right now, just as doing another zombie or apocalyptic virus or time travel or superhero genesis show, and it won't work unless you got some really really brilliant writing behind it in the caliber of GRRM, and Battletech simply ain't it.

Trying to create a scifi show and have elements of European royalty is confusing and needs a lot of explaining.


What kind of story do you want to tell? This is not an end and end situation but rather an either or.

Is this about a fantasy story with throne level intrigue? Or is this about robots fighting?

And here is another problem with Battletech. Its not science fiction enough, dealing mainly about space or about aliens and truly alien worlds, nor capable of telling a technological parable like District 9 or Ghost in the Shell; nor does it have a strong fantasy core other like dragons.

Transformers succeed as a franchise because it is very simple. The whole franchise can be explained in a sentence. It is full of iconic memorable characters whose names are easy to pronounce. Characters are flat but they are consistent. The universe itself has a deep mythos. The rules behind its technology are that simple yet magical --- mechs that transform. And everything about it is visually cool.

Walking tank? Not magical. Its mundane. Unless you got lots of them desperately fighting alien creatures for the survival of the human species.

What makes the Transfomers come alive is because they are ALIVE. Piloted mechs themselves are not very interesting outside of an animated context. Why? Because they are just vehicles. You wonder why of all the animated robot series, only the Transfomers reached this universal iconic level that it does. People love machines that come to life.

Edited by Anjian, 14 March 2015 - 07:23 PM.

[El Bandito]

Anjian, on 14 March 2015 - 07:21 PM, said:

What makes the Transfomers come alive is because they are ALIVE.  Piloted mechs themselves are not very interesting outside of an animated context.  Why?  Because they are just vehicles.  You wonder why of all the animated robot series, only the Transfomers reached this universal iconic level that it does.  People love machines that come to life.

Gundam and Macross series disagree.  I can also refute your other points about how BT universe is not good enough for a good movie plot, but I simply do not wish to invest time on it.

IMO, the Michael Bay Transformers movies were utter trash that tarnished my childhood memories, nothing more.

Edited by El Bandito, 14 March 2015 - 07:43 PM.

[Anjian]

But the Michael Bay movies did sell. And sold a lot of tickets.

Gundam and Macross series have yet to produce a really good live action movie. But they have something the BT universe lacks --- a true science fiction + space feel.

Refute? There is nothing to refute. Cinematic charisma is something you either have or you don't. Star Wars sucks as a scifi universe but guess what, it has a massively strong cinematic charisma. It is a universe, a franchise that is imagined first in art and images.

The media industry does not work on plots. It works on imagery. Powerful imagery.

Pacific Rim worked because the robots are really massive. Massive robots create powerful imagery. The bigger the better (why new Godzilla and new Enterprise are both so much bigger than the originals). Pacific Rim plot sucks but there is something really awesome about giant robots mashing up giant monsters.

The Transformers are not as close in size but they extrude a powerful imagery due to their intricate animations and mind blowing transformation sequences.

Many anime robot shows blows. Bad plots, bad characters. But so what? Its all about imagery. As long as it is 110% no 200% bad ass.

Never mind the plot, we are making a movie that is literally like a 2 hour car chase. Script writing is looking for an excuse to blow up things.



Do you watch Fast and Furious for the plot? Hell no.

This series has a far far bigger chance of getting Hollywood rights. Why? Because its filled with compelling imagery and bad assery.

Edited by Anjian, 14 March 2015 - 08:06 PM.