Borderlands: The Movie

Lionsgate just announced that they're working on a movie adaptation of Borderlands. Nothing concrete yet, but using the word "tentpole" apparently means we're in for a big summer popcorn movie.

Lionsgate's weird infatuation with crappy YA novels can be worrying, but hey, if they make the result at least watchable...

Heh, I was just coming here to post this.

I wonder if it will be an original story or the first game retold. One of the problems with video game movies is that games have what any movie would consider a horrific amount of filler, but the story still doesn't make sense without it. So I think I'm hoping for an original story. Maybe a prequel, showing how the original four Vault Hunters met or something.

I think a prequel think is being done with comics.

So.

What are the odds that, when this gets on theatre, people will call it Mad Max: Fury Road ripoff?

Lower than you'd think. It's a few years out. I mean, Borderlands in general is heavily influenced by Mad Max, but it's distinct enough that once Fury Road has faded from the collective consciousness, people will be able to appreciate it on its own merits instead of just crying copycat.

I certainly wouldn't call it a copycat anyway, but I have a feeling that it would have some indirect inspiration/influences from Fury Road. Probably won't be noticeable, I think.

It seems logical to me that we just might be getting a Borderlands film in the first place because of Fury Road's success.

Well, there are also a number of other video game movies moving into development—off the top of my head, Warcraft and Assassin's Creed. So that probably has something to do with it too. People are thinking "If Blizzard can do it, so can we. All we have to do is keep Uwe Boll as far away as possible."

edited 31st Aug '15 5:47:23 PM by Discar

True, but I mean that, because Borderlands and Mad Max are so similar in setting, action, and other details, Fury Road's success is most likely what pushed Borderlands forward over, say, a Bioshock or Portal adaptation. It established that there is still a market for Post-Apocalyptic Punk kind of movies.

It's funny, because while Borderlands feels post-apoc, it's really not. Pandora is just the ass-end of the galaxy. I'm not disagreeing that Fury Road pushed this forward, I just thought it was something to note.

I'm curious how they'd adapt Bioshock or Portal, though. Bioshock is very meta, and wouldn't really work outside a game environment, while Portal is a few hours of puzzles while a crazy machine rants at you. Ooh, maybe they could do Ratman's story.

I'm not sure how Portal would work. Its main draw is its gameplay so its inherently a Video Game work. But, I think, if they ramp up the comedic elements while still "Thinking With Portals" to solve problems, it could work. It'd take much more effort than more film adaptations, but its do-able.

Bioshock would be significantly harder. Where Bioshock 1 is a full deconstruction of many Video Game Tropes, those tropes would be less appreciated in a movie medium. They'd probably have to build it from the ground up with a film medium and film tropes in mind but I can't imagine what it would end up deconstructing.

The rise and fall of Rapture (covered in the novel) could make for an interesting film though without compromising too much. We could still see Rapture as the breathing Metropolis that the game puts so much effort into characterizing. And that's, arguably, the most important element of any Bioshock adaptation.

Yes, Borderlands ISN'T Post-Apocalyptic, but the series borrows so many elements from such settings that it can read as such in many regards. Similar to how many might regard Firefly as an outright Western even though it takes place in the future and has all sorts of si-fi set pieces; Firefly still acts and reads like a Western.

edited 1st Sep '15 1:11:25 AM by InkDagger

All worlds have a man, a lighthouse, and a city. Use that as a basis, and you could make something really interesting. Maybe using a Jules Verne style space cannon and a golden age sci-fi inspired city in orbit. Or a mechanical city wandering around the Sahara Desert. Okay, I wouldn't be the best Bioshock series scenario designer, so sue me.

Granted, you'd have a ton of people screaming about how it's not actually an adaptation of any of the games, but I think Assassin's Creed movie approach of taking the game's setting and telling a completely new story in it is the best one.

edited 1st Sep '15 2:11:32 PM by Zendervai

Presumably. You'll most likely run into far less issues if you create your own script and ideas from the ground up rather than translating a script that was built from the ground up as a Video Game, meaning it was written with gameplay, longer run times, and audience participation (to some extent) in mind.

Let's look a Portal. Portal is all about solving physical environment puzzles using a Portal Gun. That's its core identity and nothing will change that. So, translating that into a film would be significantly harder because its core identity is inherently interactive and relies on audience participation. Its one thing to show a character solving a room by "Thinking With Portals" (Or, worse, show a character struggling with a room when the answer is obvious to anyone who's played the game), but its another to force the Audience to solve it on their own which conveys ideas a lot more completely and, arguably, faster.

If there were to be a Portal film, it would either have to significantly ramp up its writing to cover the fact that its core identity doesn't entirely translate to a film, or it would have to get creative in how everything is presented.

Compare to the Professor Layton Animated Movie from a few years ago. Professor Layton is a series that relies heavily on the audience solving puzzles to continue the story. And the film runs with that core identity of gameplay and made it work in the film rather well; using the classic Puzzle Solving Music, having other characters throw out solutions that are equally plausible similar to how a Layton Player might try to solve it, and all the solutions are foreshadowed and its possible to solve them on your own. It worked and that movie is one of the best video game movies on my list just simply because it translated its core workings very well to a different medium.

And Assassin's Creed could arguably work just as well as a film. We've seen it work as comics and books before and we've seen plenty of cinematic elements and scenes through all the games. There aren't any particular elements to the games that would be difficult to translate into a film either; Leaps of Faith are iconic but I see no reason why they wouldn't work in film, and it would be logical to write in scenes where the protagonist plans out how they're going to kill a room of guards to get to their target. There technically isn't anything that wouldn't work in a film except the 20+ storylines. So making a completely new story works perfectly fine and it'll probably look like our typical Action Movie, in a sense.

Borderlands... I'm not sure how to translate it. I would say do an original story (a la Tales from the Borderlands). I mostly say that because Borderlands is non-stop action comedy action comedy one after the other and the more dramatic elements are significantly fewer. Also, for the most part, protagonists have nothing to say either so I'm not sure how they'd translate either. I'm curious what they'd do.

That actually sounds awesome.

Prince of Persia basically already had a Leap of Faith. It worked perfectly fine, not quite as awesome as that first time you jump off a building yourself, but still definitely awesome enough. The only real problem with Assassin's Creed (in addition to the glut of storylines, as noted), is that it's based around a character basically playing a video game. I think they'd just have to ignore all the meta stuff outright, though they might be able to toss in a few glitches and "the world builds in front of you" moments. Assuming they're going with the dual-storyline Animus thing.

You know, now that I think about it, maybe they're following Guardians of the Galaxy more than Fury Road. That proved that you can do a goofball action comedy in a sci-fi setting.

Eh, the original Vault Hunters didn't say a word in the first game, but they were perfectly chatty in the second. I'm sure it will be fine.

They kind of talked in 1. Mostly just voice things for stuff like when they're down or getting in a vehicle.

Well, the Animus is basically a framing device. I don't see how it'd be much different than The Princess Bride's Frame of a boy being told a story by his grand pa.

Naturally, AC would probably need a BIT more scenes for its B-Plot Framing Device than Princess Bride did, but I think it could work. As long as said Modern!Protagonist has his own personality and agency. Arguably, they could go into depth on exactly how the Animus functions.

I've always wondered if it plays LITERALLY exactly how the video game does, or if its a 'Virtual Reality' Sim. Is Desmond having the same general conversations with George Washington or is Desmond experiencing those as a cutscene? They could play with Sync and getting used to the Animus far more in a film than they can in a video game.

If they were to straight adapt a game, I would imagine it would be BL 2 since Borderlands 1 doesn't have much of a plot to it... I hate to say it that way, but BL 2 has a significantly stronger plot structure and you really don't need too many details from the first game to understand the second one.

Though, if its Live Action, I'd prefer it be its own story as to preserve the art style of the original. I've seen cosplays that pull off the art style PERFECTLY, but I'm not sure if I trust Hollywood to do nearly as well considering... well, Cosplayers did Avatar better than the movie ever did.

edited 1st Sep '15 10:34:52 PM by InkDagger

It most likely would end up being called a Guardians of the Galaxy knock off with the similar Ragtag Bunch of Misfits IN SPACE! motiff. Hopefully they get the writers of Zombieland to do this, especially how awesome the Deadpool script turn out and how awesome the film is going to be!

Hope its an expansion on the original game's story since a lot of the background material seen in the sequel on the original vault hunters was never explored in the first for obvious reasons.

Well, time to revive this thread. People magazine has a first look at the cast.

https://people.com/borderlands-photos-cate-blanchett-jamie-lee-curtis-kevin-hart-exclusive-8584919?utm_campaign=peoplemagazine&utm_content=new&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=65d4b245e58ebf0001bc9e62

Also, apparently there are two separate threads for this movie. How do we handle this? Which one closes?

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on Feb 20th 2024 at 9:52:19 AM

Cate Blanchett as Lilith is casting I don't object to but certainly exists as Crack Casting.

The trailer will drop tomorrow, according to IGN:

Poster:

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on Feb 20th 2024 at 1:12:47 PM

Not sure how I feel about the casting (outside of Jack Black as Claptrap), but they completely nailed the aesthetic of the games. Even saw a Vladof pistol in the teaser.

Edited by Karxrida on Feb 20th 2024 at 11:16:03 AM

Greenblatt has been killing it lately.

And being Australian, Cate Blanchett probably understood the assignment, as they say, better than most.

I am very confused at why Handsome Jack isn't in the film and Tiny Tim is.

She's from Elpis?

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 20th 2024 at 2:19:13 AM

Hart as Roland is strange. Casting the comedic actor in a straight man role.....

Right? Roland is the most serious character in Borderlands.