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Apparently, Lion's Gate is working on making a film adaptation of the Borderlands video game series.

So far, all I've heard of it is that they've slated Eli Roth to direct, and Cate Blanchett to play Lilith.


- I can see a lot of reasons why this might be awesome, and other reasons why it might just not work. For some roles, I kind of hope that they just keep the actors from the video games (there's just no reason to recast Claptrap, and if they use Handsome Jack, they probably should probably just have Damian Clark play the role.


- Cate Blanchett is always good, and apparently can do practically anything.when you put her in front of a camera.

- I could see a lot of things that could go wrong. The games don't exactly have movie plots to them (much of it is a series of fetch quests about getting bigger and better guns), and I'm not sure how many of the characters will translate to live action well.

Most video game based films are very bad anyway.

And at this point in production, it very well may not happen at all.



What does everyone here think about it?

No just no, movies based on video games are without exception horrid even by the low standard of quality that is set by Hollywood and such.

 Trondheim wrote:
No just no, movies based on video games are without exception horrid even by the low standard of quality that is set by Hollywood and such.

And that would be the main reason to think it would be terrible.

I'm mostly of your thinking. I would like to hold out expectations that it would be as good as some of the better action blockbuster films, I'm not very confident in video game adaptations being anything other than "so bad they're amazing" kind of films.

I can't imagine they will get the humor right. So much of those games was the tongue-in-cheek humor and the sheer craziness of it all backed up by the hyper-violence. And also Tiny Tina.

We'll end up getting something like Doom, where it's really just boilerplate sci-fi with a brand name
.

One of the reasons why a Doom film could never work is because there's so little to work with in Doom.

You have sort of an aesthetic, and that's kind of it. There's no plot, no lore, no characters, etc.

There was never any possibility for it to be anything but a generic science fiction film because there was almost nothing else to adapt.



Borderlands has characters and lore in spades, as well as a really good balance of humor, violence and pathos.

That they will probably botch completely. But Cate Blanchett will still be great, because she's never been anything else.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

Borderlands has characters and lore in spades, as well as a really good balance of humor, violence and pathos.

Unless they get Ashley Burch and the original Claptrap VO to do their characters, it isn't worthwhile. Beyond that Borderlands is 'shooting crappy guns at endless hordes'

That they will probably botch completely. But Cate Blanchett will still be great, because she's never been anything else.

LotR ruined Cate Blanchett for me. The only thing I think of when I see her now is that terribly melodramatic cheese scene with horrible effects 'Beautiful and terrible as the dawn...' while looking as ugly as possible.
She was funny in Thor Ragnarok, because she embraced being completely ridiculous, but that isn't exactly greatness.

There have already been two different voice actors for Claptrap so not sure which one you want them to keep? There's probably enough generic lore in the Borderlands games now to create something worthwhile in that universe but they're going to need to work hard to hit the right tone and keep to a compelling plot. I'm not overly hopeful.

Not sure who's writing this but they should probably be looking to the team that did BL2's story, which I thought was very well written and had a great balance between humour and story. I'm assuming if Blanchett is playing Lilith that this is going to be set in the BL2 or BL3 time as I imagined Lilith as a fair bit younger than Blanchett in the original. That might neatly sidestep any annoying origin story crap and get right into the meat of the story.

Voss wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:

Borderlands has characters and lore in spades, as well as a really good balance of humor, violence and pathos.

Unless they get Ashley Burch and the original Claptrap VO to do their characters, it isn't worthwhile. Beyond that Borderlands is 'shooting crappy guns at endless hordes'

That they will probably botch completely. But Cate Blanchett will still be great, because she's never been anything else.

LotR ruined Cate Blanchett for me. The only thing I think of when I see her now is that terribly melodramatic cheese scene with horrible effects 'Beautiful and terrible as the dawn...' while looking as ugly as possible.
She was funny in Thor Ragnarok, because she embraced being completely ridiculous, but that isn't exactly greatness.

Go back and watch The Aviator again (where she plays Katherine Hepburn).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slipspace wrote:
There have already been two different voice actors for Claptrap so not sure which one you want them to keep? There's probably enough generic lore in the Borderlands games now to create something worthwhile in that universe but they're going to need to work hard to hit the right tone and keep to a compelling plot. I'm not overly hopeful.

Not sure who's writing this but they should probably be looking to the team that did BL2's story, which I thought was very well written and had a great balance between humour and story. I'm assuming if Blanchett is playing Lilith that this is going to be set in the BL2 or BL3 time as I imagined Lilith as a fair bit younger than Blanchett in the original. That might neatly sidestep any annoying origin story crap and get right into the meat of the story.

The problem, as I see it, is that Borderlands does this great balance where it is able to pull off some in world absurdities that are hilarious and combine them with some real emotional arcs- and sometimes at the same time (like for Tiny Tina's Assault on the Dragon's Keep).

This is something video games can pull off- maybe because of the length, or maybe because emotional arcs for video game characters started out with chibi pixle characters and you have to be a little silly in order to be serious.

I think this kind of balance can often work in anime sometimes. But I think it is a very tricky thing to pull off in a live action film- especially a high budget blockbuster that is going to have producers watching over everyone's shoulder.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
One of the reasons why a Doom film could never work is because there's so little to work with in Doom.

You have sort of an aesthetic, and that's kind of it. There's no plot, no lore, no characters, etc.

There was never any possibility for it to be anything but a generic science fiction film because there was almost nothing else to adapt.



.

I just want to address this. The Doom novelizations by Daffyd ab Hugh had a pair of marines who were interesting enough characters, as well as a plot, and even a sci fi explanation for the hell aesthetic. The novels kept a lot of the flavor of Doom while working as standard, fun action Sci Fi with enough characterization and world building to work as a story.