43 replies to this topic

[Dragonporn]

Does it even exist? I'm talking generally about triple A quality film(CGI?) ones, not fan-made or cartoon/anime.

I'm not BT acolyte myself, barely familiar with universe, mostly from some old PC games and related website articles. But it is no secret that lore is enormous, and you don't even need to come up with full scenario from scratch, just adapt book story, or anything else with few script correction to fit the setting.

They film and produce stuff like Pacific Rim with no background, and people come running in theaters, throwing their moneys at it, while BT has gigantic fanbase all over the world companies can additionally capitalize on. Why it doesn't happening? Computer games, sure, films? Nope... Why?

Personally I'm more of Warhammer fan, both WFB and 40k, and it's the same thing. Fans are making some decent looking CGI short films, but no company wants to get their hands on it, with already existing and overwhelmingly epic stories, but instead they take on filming something like WarCraft, which was born as pure gameplay focused RTS with no real back or story, completely ripped off from well known franchises.

What, nobody want to see high quality 2h long action in any of those well known universes with tons of fans across the world? Instead, Marvel or DC every freaking year, oh c'mon...

[sycocys]

The only thing I'm aware of is that short cut that takes place in a Solaris arena though there's not really much context from what I can remember of it.

For why it doesn't happen, the most likely reason is the troll lawyers that make things like Pacific Rim much less of a legal and financial hassle to deal with.

[CK16]

Nope! No company as far as I am aware has picked up the IP of Battletech or Mechwarrior...shame really...Would easily compete with Star Wars & Star Trek on the big IF done right and propper...I wish even possibly a smaller production company could maybe look into it but sadly Topps is a total ***** it seems to work with and would shut it down really quickly. They would only want a big production so they can make the big $$$ with it, shame as they keep the physical side of things for this franchise in a limbo feel of it's going no where...

[Asym]

In the movie, District 9, there is a neat sequence of a "light mech" at the end of the movie... Some of the best CGI I've seen for a mech. It's almost an elemental armor suit of sorts....

Dean Devlin had discussed a MW inspired film a few years ago and I'm assuming that that project fell apart. This is a small niche and too serious for a movie.... Pacific Rim is about as serious as the MW universe will see I'm afraid.

[Magnus Santini]

Even the trailers for all the games are excellent, and I am sure they were made on a shoestring.

[Tatula]

I will bet that the REAL issue with a BT movie project is the licensing. The companies who own the IP for Battletech seem bent on holding it back from going mainstream.

[Stridercal]

So many have tried. So many have failed. Blame HG for their toxic ********.

But scifi is coming back these days, so maybe...

[KodiakGW]

Aloha, on 02 May 2018 - 07:57 AM, said:

I will bet that the REAL issue with a BT movie project is the licensing. The companies who own the IP for Battletech seem bent on holding it back from going mainstream.

Bingo. Don’t forget the problems with HG Stridercal just mentioned. I doubt any studio wants to sink money into paying off all parties involved so they have no legal issues when releasing the film. Besides, the only studio I can think of that has enough money to do that before production costs are even considered would be Disney/Marvel. There might be others.

Then you run into the second issue, the small rabid fan base. How many times have we seen them bark “TRO, TRO, TRO, Lore, Lore, Lore” whenever anything is done. Considering the flak Disney gets for their current products when they make decisions they think will make it appeal to a wider audience (good or bad), you think that they want the same, if not bigger, headache for a niche IP?

[GuardDogg]

What I really dislike about Pacific Rim, is two people to pilot one mech. And they are standing up doing so. Looks stupid (was going to say the R-Word).

[MechaBattler]

I suspect whoever has the movie rights is squatting on them, hoping someone will come along with an interest to buy them. While they themselves have no interest in producing anything.

[Tom Sawyer]

NO!

[Gwei Loong]

I just posted about this movie in the HG vs PGI thread because well they got a game planned for Robotech.



Battletech was originally based off Robotech and it'll be hard for anyone to actually produce anything similar.

[CK16]

Battletech was never based off Robotech though....They shared art assets early on because they got them from basically the same source in Japan....

[SmokedJag]

You have to clean up the rights first. Between defunct companies, reusing other people's art and the copyright troll (honestly the least of the issues since that's already being/been litigated) it's a mess. Even reading the HG lawsuit gives one a headache and a feature cinematic is also going to be released worldwide one way or another so just saying "Japan is Japan, USA is USA" is no longer an option.

Once you fix that...

I've thought before the best way to approach it is with a miniseries. The lore is really dense and there are lots of characters and vaguely related plots. The BT setting is more distinctive than giant robots, which show up in everything from Transformers to Avatar. Some parts of the setting are *cringeworthy* today (the Cappies and not-Taiwan jump to mind) or make no sense but I do think the overall background is what you want for your war robots. Cutting to the bone for a 90-minute blow stuff up with minimal dialogue likely gets minimal audience.

Edited by SmokedJag, 02 May 2018 - 10:34 AM.

[LowSubmarino]

Only director Id trust with a Battletech movie is James Cameron.

[Bonfor]

Tom Sawyer, on 02 May 2018 - 09:45 AM, said:

NO!

I always envisioned Robot Jox to take place after all the Inner Sphere wars and Clan invasions had resolved, like WWII vets who kept their Sherman tanks in their back yards to play around with and have some friendly competitions...bored grizzled vets using out-dated technology to relive their glory days.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Robot Jox is so awesome...mostly for the wrong reasons, but awesome none the less.

It has amazing visuals (the good reasons) and bad everything else. The kicker is, the bad everything else is enjoyable/laughable bad...the good kind of bad .

Really, if you like Mechs, and haven't seen this movie, it is worth it IMO.

If you want to associate it in some very loose way with BattleTech, think of it as Solaris VII the movie

[neofightr]

I never understood why the b-tech universe never took off like the transformers did for movies. I guess it was all about the transformer kids growing up to be the the movie fan base that made it a hit.

My guess is as to why b-tech never took off in hollywood is that they wanted nothing to do with the legal spaghetti going on with the japan companies.

Else battletech/mw mythos would make for a great movie if done right, surpassing the transformers movie cheese by a mile.

Edited by neofightr, 02 May 2018 - 11:57 AM.

[Dragonporn]

KodiakGW, on 02 May 2018 - 09:17 AM, said:

Bingo. Don’t forget the problems with HG Stridercal just mentioned. I doubt any studio wants to sink money into paying off all parties involved so they have no legal issues when releasing the film. Besides, the only studio I can think of that has enough money to do that before production costs are even considered would be Disney/Marvel. There might be others.

Then you run into the second issue, the small rabid fan base. How many times have we seen them bark “TRO, TRO, TRO, Lore, Lore, Lore” whenever anything is done. Considering the flak Disney gets for their current products when they make decisions they think will make it appeal to a wider audience (good or bad), you think that they want the same, if not bigger, headache for a niche IP?

Don't know about obscure interactions between companies, but I know for a fact that HBS or Paradox are hardly the wealthiest ones, although they still managed to pull off a game on that universe. If they can, why billionaire movie companies can't? I mean paying for license to all parties shouldn't be such a problem for them, it's done left and right in the industry anyway, I doubt they are THAT expensive.

On hardcore fans and lore: who cares? They build up hype, they get these fans to buy tickets, after that they can rage all they want, money payed. If it turns out success, expand on franchise doing more, if not, I doubt there would be any losses to cover, and the only downside: no more movies on it (possibly). There ARE lots of people on the fence who definitely are willing to share some cash for anything BT related.

[RickySpanish]

It's a big, fat, no from me. There is simply too much room for bastardizing the lore to fit a pg13 #generationme audience with social marxist undertones. I can imagine what they would do; A busty, hispanic rookie pilot joins The Resistance to fight off evil, mutated hoardes of all white zombies (the "clanners") who have evolved to control machinery in all its forms. Their ultimate fighting machine - the 'Mech, is a gigantic space faring battle fortress from which they carry out the subjugation of all other minorities. The pilot must learn the Way of the Jump Jet to be able to fly her BattleSuit into space to confront the evil, white, male emperor in his lair of oppulance.

No, thank-you.