History Newsletter / News2010-06-10

The latter complaint in particular is why film producers in general aim to adapt video games in BroadStrokes, as is the case with the Prince of Persia film: It takes the basic starting point of Sands of Time (Prince finds a dagger that turns [[TimeTravel back time]] while invading a city, [[ItGotWorse shit goes down in a bad way]] and he and a [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses princess]] set out to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong set right what once went wrong]]), and in fact has almost the exact same ending too, so you can't exactly fault it for accuracy. Just about everything in the middle, though, is a whole new ballgame, where the movie turns into a standard sword-and-sandals sandventure story. And you know what? It actually works surprisingly well.

Some of the new ideas introduced work quite nicely for the Prince of Persia aesthetic, such as the introduction of the [[SnakesAreEvil assassins with killer snakes]], while others seem like tacked-on comic relief, like the secret underground ostrich racing league. It expands a basic premise into a full feature-length film quite nicely though, much better than if you just took two hours of gameplay footage and sandwitched it between the intro and ending cinematics. There's also plenty of [[SwordFight swordfighting]] and [[LeParkour parkour acrobatics]] to be found, so fans of the series will still be happy with it (although, at times, some of the action may be more likely to remind you of AssassinsCreed instead).

And Cut! That’s a wrap folks. Lets take a break and be back here next Thursday and somewhere in the afternoon, sharp! We here at TropeReport hope you enjoyed this weeks newsletter, and we hope you think our latest writer, @/{{goodtimesfreegrog}} did a good job on his first article. If you want to help or have a suggestion please feel free to leave your words here or PM [[{{Parable}} Scholastica Parable]] See you next week then!

In the end, Prince of Persia will not be doing much to reinvent the way people will look at video game movies (like what the DarkKnight series did to comic book films), but it's a step in the right direction - fans of the game won't hate it, and everyone else will at least get a decent adventure story to watch - even though it's a story that has so much to squeeze in, it feels like it's skipping from one scene to the next so fast it's as if the film has ADD. In the end, just go into the theatre expecting cool stunts, some interesting twists, and an enjoyable story, and you'll be entertained.

The latter complaint in particular is why film producers in general aim to adapt video games in BroadStrokes, as is the case with the Prince of Persia film: It takes the basic starting point of Sands of Time (Prince finds a dagger that turns [[TimeTravel back time]] while invading a city, [[ItGotWorse shit goes down in a bad way]] and he and a [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses princess]] set out to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong set right what once went wrong]]), and in fact has almost the exact same ending too, so you can't exactly fault it for accuracy. Just about everything in the middle, though, is a whole new ballgame, where the movie turns into a standard sword-and-sandals sandventure story. And you know what? [[BetterThanItSounds It actually works surprisingly well]].

On '''Film/PrinceOfPersia.''' We all know that video game movies have had a rocky history... by which I mean that they generally [[[VideoGameMoviesSuck haven't been very good, at all]]. Ranging from the ludicrous [[Film/SuperMarioBros Mario Bros. movie]], to the [[Film/StreetFighter Street Fighter movies]] (one of which will be remembered for Raul Julia's fantastic performance, while the other will be remembered for pretty much nothing at all) to a host of other lackluster entries like Doom and Max Payne from recent years; With the sort of reputation that video game movies have had in general, just the fact that an upcoming movie happens to be based on a video game is already guaranteed to load audiences with expectations: casual moviegoers won't expect it to be that entertaining, and fans of the game will generally wind up hating the film for not getting [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks every teensy, tiny aspect of the game right.]]

*[=~-4STR~=], an admittedly bad title supposed to indicate one gender being statistically stronger than the other has been renamed to GameFavouredGender.