17 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

I firmly believe the world needs a Battletech movie. A blockbuster.
ANd if not the world, than at least me and all the fans. But i'd prefer it to be a movie that can appeal to a "mainstream" audience, at least in the way Avengers, Batman, Lord of the Rings or Star Wars appealed to a mainstream audience. (e.g. geeks gone mainstream)

For this, I believe the movie will need some impressive Battletech fight scenes - but also characters with meaningful development and interaction, some type of intrigue or investigation. Maybe a heroic journey.

I love stealing ideas, I mean getting inspired by other stories. But I haven't actually read any Battletech novels, I only played Battletech computer games.

So my idea is that it will be a heroic journy, based losely on the plot of the Crescent Hawk's Inception.

The basic plot is - there's a Star League cache on a Steiner world, agents from Steiner and Kurita are trying to find it - Kurita decides to launch a surprise attack the planet in a hope that this can negate Steiner's headstart.
Our hero is in the middle of it, as his father is a key agent working for Steiner.

• Escpape from Training Grounds (unlike in Inception, I'd probably have someone be with the hero at this point, the mechanic for example)
  
• Reaching the Starport and meeting a friend of his father - meeting violently disrupted.
  
• They save a group of Steiner agents under attack by Kurita mechs. The agents worked on forming a resistance against the Kurita, while still hoping to find traces of the cache. Female leader of these agents immediately catches the interest of our hero.
  
• They attack a Kurita outpust that has captured a few agents, in a hope of using their com system to set off a message to Steiner. They free a few agents and find the location of the final puzzle piece to the cache, but the comm system is sabotaged by one of them - he is caught in the act and killed.
  
• As they reach the scientist, the romantic interest reveals her true nature - as the are ambushed by Kurita agents and Mechs, she reveals she was a double agent and flees with the information (unwilling or unable to kill the hero)
  
• The hero - with some losses - manages to escape and follow her to the cache - a fight ensues, and she is forced to flee as further Steiner troops arrive - what they didn't know was that the sabotage attempt of the com system failed - the hero's friend, the mechanic, has managed to repair it, but the hero told him not to share, not convinced that there was really only one traitor.

So we have:

• - Heroic Journey - from Cadet to a true Mechwarrior with strategic grandmaster ambition
  
• - Mech Combats: Training Grounds, Kurita Outpost, Ambush at the Scientist
  
• - Physical Combat: Starport Meeting, Kurita Outpost (enemy agent), Star League Cache
  
• - Love Interest: The female Double Agent - being a double agent should hopefully make it not too Holywood cliché
  
• - Intrigue - Double Agents, plan within a plan

So, what would your movie idea look like?

[Greyrook]

Let's see how that Hawken live-action series thing goes, and then we can talk. Too many franchises have been ruined or at least defamed by poorly executed movie tie-ins.

[Dymitry]

Decision at Thunder Rift.

[Sander the Shark]

I think the original MechWarrior (PC - 1989) plotline would make a decent movie script, as would MW2:Mercs.

[MustrumRidcully]

Sander the Shark, on 15 September 2012 - 10:08 AM, said:

I think the original MechWarrior (PC - 1989) plotline would make a decent movie script, as would MW2:Mercs.

I don't remember enough about the original Mechwarrior 1 plot, and I've not palyed MW2. But the part I remember on MW1 may be true. I suppose a problem is the timeline was relatively long, not sure how well that works in a 2 hour movie. but it could, and it had some neat "Human elements" - that were only text boxes back then, of course, with a screenshot of some bar. But shady bars are always a good backdrop in a movie.

[Morang]

Decision at Thunder Rift, for sure. Very mainstream book. If box office will be good - perhaps Jade Falcon trilogy then, 3 films, like LOTR.

[Man T Core]

MustrumRidcully, on 15 September 2012 - 09:36 AM, said:

I firmly believe the world needs a Battletech movie. A blockbuster.
ANd if not the world, than at least me and all the fans. But i'd prefer it to be a movie that can appeal to a "mainstream" audience, at least in the way Avengers, Batman, Lord of the Rings or Star Wars appealed to a mainstream audience. (e.g. geeks gone mainstream)

For this, I believe the movie will need some impressive Battletech fight scenes - but also characters with meaningful development and interaction, some type of intrigue or investigation. Maybe a heroic journey.

I love stealing ideas, I mean getting inspired by other stories. But I haven't actually read any Battletech novels, I only played Battletech computer games.

So my idea is that it will be a heroic journy, based losely on the plot of the Crescent Hawk's Inception.

The basic plot is - there's a Star League cache on a Steiner world, agents from Steiner and Kurita are trying to find it - Kurita decides to launch a surprise attack the planet in a hope that this can negate Steiner's headstart.
Our hero is in the middle of it, as his father is a key agent working for Steiner.

• Escpape from Training Grounds (unlike in Inception, I'd probably have someone be with the hero at this point, the mechanic for example)
  
• Reaching the Starport and meeting a friend of his father - meeting violently disrupted.
  
• They save a group of Steiner agents under attack by Kurita mechs. The agents worked on forming a resistance against the Kurita, while still hoping to find traces of the cache. Female leader of these agents immediately catches the interest of our hero.
  
• They attack a Kurita outpust that has captured a few agents, in a hope of using their com system to set off a message to Steiner. They free a few agents and find the location of the final puzzle piece to the cache, but the comm system is sabotaged by one of them - he is caught in the act and killed.
  
• As they reach the scientist, the romantic interest reveals her true nature - as the are ambushed by Kurita agents and Mechs, she reveals she was a double agent and flees with the information (unwilling or unable to kill the hero)
  
• The hero - with some losses - manages to escape and follow her to the cache - a fight ensues, and she is forced to flee as further Steiner troops arrive - what they didn't know was that the sabotage attempt of the com system failed - the hero's friend, the mechanic, has managed to repair it, but the hero told him not to share, not convinced that there was really only one traitor.

So we have:

• - Heroic Journey - from Cadet to a true Mechwarrior with strategic grandmaster ambition
  
• - Mech Combats: Training Grounds, Kurita Outpost, Ambush at the Scientist
  
• - Physical Combat: Starport Meeting, Kurita Outpost (enemy agent), Star League Cache
  
• - Love Interest: The female Double Agent - being a double agent should hopefully make it not too Holywood cliché
  
• - Intrigue - Double Agents, plan within a plan

So, what would your movie idea look like?

A heroic journey like you dicribed works for me. Something like Avatar (exotic planets, flora and fona, people) meets 007/Mission Immposible (espionage, secrets, the usual actoin/danger) meets BIG STOMPY ROBOT COMBAT. Yah, sounds good as long as the writing, directing (Cameron/Spielberg) and acting (a few A list actors with good support) are good and the budget is big(100+ mil.?), the movie would likely do well. I don't want a Battletech movie for the sake of finaly seeing my favorite mech or faction on the big screen, it has to be good if not epic.

Edited by Man T Core, 15 September 2012 - 11:23 AM.

[PirateLincoln]

I say set it in the Civil War era. Lots of fun tech, lots of intrigue, all kinds action sequence possibilities from massive combined arms battles and black ops raids to spy movie style chases and whatnot. It's a setting that would feel more familiar to audiences that AREN'T BattleTech/MechWarrior fans, and as such would be fantastic for brand exposure.

[Elyam]

Stackpole's Warrior trilogy. The Gray Death Legion trilogy is good for a closer look at a single unit developing over time and Grayson's journey and growth, nothing captured the entire expanse of the Inner Sphere and really gave BT it's complete flavor like the Warrior trilogy. It links together all other tales, anchors them, defines the 4th Succession War, and provides the primary line running into the the Clan invasion. And the climax where Justin's true role is revealed is so awfully well done.

[RotS Targe]

OK, I think we've all fantasized about a MW/BT movie.
I also think most of us feel some trepidation, look how Transformers turned out.
I feel that the only way to do it properly is to have in be an established story, creating new characters and new stories is fairly risky. The Warrior Trilogy would be perfect for this, but, since most familiar with the universe only play the games (it seems like, at least), having the movie set in an era that the games deal with would, in that regard, be preferable. Maybe the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, though it might get confusing to people not familiar with the universe at all, since this was such a turning point.
I wouldn't mind having a relatively new cast, not just looking at A-List actors, this was one thing I think Star Wars did correctly.

Also, when MechWarrior Dark Age still had a site, I remember going into the archives of posts, and that they had planned on writing a script, based in the Star League, describing Aleksandr Kerensky. I looked into this, and it turns out the guy they pegged to write the script wrote "Flyboys" instead.

[MustrumRidcully]

Again, I am not familar with the books, so I cannot unfortunately comment on the book-related ideas.

Unless you really want some epic saga out of it, I would probably start kinda "small". Just give the highlights of the settings as introduction - succession wars, battlemechs, that's it. ANd then focus on a "small" story - like a single hero or a mech unit working its way to the top, or even just going through one mission that has importance to them. Don't try to cover the entire epos of the sucession wars and clan wars and what-you-have.

I think the audience is capable of just accepting a sci-fi setting - just the story you wish to tell must stand on its own. I would not work too many heavy combat scenes in. I think the story should have some kind of ambition in regards to complexity, but the complexity doesn't have to encompass the setting - it can be about individuals that matter to the protagonists that have a certain complexity in motivation and relationships.

[Sander the Shark]

DarkMinstrel, on 15 September 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

Won't happen. The mythos of BTech is too rich to lay out in a comprehensible fashion so that the general populace would make it worth producing in an un-tampered with form.

I think general sci-fi audiences are well-used to be dropped into an unfamiliar universe without much background or context.

[Stormwolf]

Dymitry, on 15 September 2012 - 10:04 AM, said:

Decision at Thunder Rift.

Yeah, it gradually explains how the BT universe works and would give the people a feel for the factions.

[Herrick]

I personally would love to see blooc of kerensky, mainly because if there was one conciese group of books that could be considered the "core" story of BT, those are it.

You absolutely could get the average populace interested in this, but you cant just rush into the story. Just like how LotR started with a bit of backstory to give context to the story at hand. I envision a 1.5-2 minute timlapse of a changing map of the inner sphere, narrated as time goes on.

It starts with an amorphus circle spreading out from Terra (narrated as man reaching out to the stars, etc) transitions into the star league (map shows a unified blob with the Star League written in it) shows the Star league shatter into the houses (narration describes how the great nation was shattered by greed, etc. also mentions the SLDF fleeing to deep space) then goes on to mention "4 great wars of succession were fought, but no side was ever able to gain a decisive victory" and THEN launches into the story, 1 movie per book

I honestly think that BT lends itself better to a miniseries format though, more like Game of Thrones. That way you can have 16 hours over the course of a year rather that 2 hours once a year.

[RainbowToh]

Scifi Channel TV series would work better. And I think it is better to avoid the big names, Kerensky, Allard Liaos and so on. Having the movie/tv series follow a Merc unit would be more flexible. I can imagine Expendables - Mechwarrior Style.

[Beren Valari]

Herrick, on 16 September 2012 - 10:41 AM, said:

I personally would love to see blooc of kerensky, mainly because if there was one conciese group of books that could be considered the "core" story of BT, those are it.

You absolutely could get the average populace interested in this, but you cant just rush into the story. Just like how LotR started with a bit of backstory to give context to the story at hand. I envision a 1.5-2 minute timlapse of a changing map of the inner sphere, narrated as time goes on.

It starts with an amorphus circle spreading out from Terra (narrated as man reaching out to the stars, etc) transitions into the star league (map shows a unified blob with the Star League written in it) shows the Star league shatter into the houses (narration describes how the great nation was shattered by greed, etc. also mentions the SLDF fleeing to deep space) then goes on to mention "4 great wars of succession were fought, but no side was ever able to gain a decisive victory" and THEN launches into the story, 1 movie per book

I honestly think that BT lends itself better to a miniseries format though, more like Game of Thrones. That way you can have 16 hours over the course of a year rather that 2 hours once a year.

This is good but I would have the main character be a teenager. The opening ending with him or her daydreaming in history class. I think the most interesting and easy to develop characters are those not directly linked to the canon as they can be independently developed while still witnessing the events of the timeline as they happen.

One thing is for sure a good film is character driven and if you have believable characters acting in believable ways and making believable choices the audience will buy any number of ludicrous ideas about magic or technology.

[Steve Varayis]

Why not do a trilogy about the FedCom Civil War? Covers a small, unknown Merc unit working for various factions, rising up to the top.

You could have action (Solaris VII matches, important battles, etc)
Excitement (giant ******* mechs shooting the everliving gell out of each other)
Strong character development (if it's just the 4-6 guys, then each has plenty of development)

OR, one that is far more ambitious, epic, far reaching, massive...

...You cover the ENTIRE Star League, 4 Succession Wars, Clan Invasions, (Tukayyid would get it's own 3 part special) Great Refusal, FedCom War, and the Jihad. Ends with the Republic of the sphere being formed.

It would be through the viewpoint of several characters, probably several canon-leaders, plus a merc.