Tomb Raider Reboot

appreciate that they let her look dirty and banged up here. And the cut on her face is a nice touch. On the other hand, do we have to do yet another "behind butt shot" of a female protagonist? I mean come on Hollywood, get more creative.

The game art had her facing forward with either the bow or a flare. I can't be the only one who likes them.

I would have genuinely liked her pose with the toruniquate in her mouth as she wraps it around her arm. Its a good pose that highlights the survival aspect of the adventure and how... fragile she is compared to the events she's surviving.

In general, I really want to see the grittiness of the second reboot depicted on the big screen. One of my favorite things about the game is the way it depicts real harm coming to its protagonist as a course of her journey. Things like Lara gritting her teeth and removing a chunk of metal lodged in her abdomen or cauterizing her own wound while screaming from the very agonizing pain are some of the most badass things I've ever seen a protagonist do.

She comes across as a lot stronger and tougher than a thousand James Bonds because of the way she's clearly shown to not be an invulnerable violence-god wading effortlessly through death-defying stunts, but still has to do the violence and stunts nonetheless.

edited 19th Sep '17 7:17:39 AM by TobiasDrake

As I recall the one criticism that some people had with her there was that the game was sending mixed messages. Like it wanted to be gritty and realistic, but it brushed over Lara brutally killing a lot of people in a way that some people found, awkward tonally.

They did show her reacting to the first kill, but glossed over it after that. Apparently it was mostly a matter of practicality: One of the developers even said "Every kill cannot be the first."

I would have liked to have her friends react to her killing, though. Like at one point in the first game you have to kill two or three guards who are keeping her friends in a cage. In the cut scene after they're dead, her friends are all whooping and cheering. And, I mean, I understand that she just saved them and everything, but you'd think they'd be at least a little weirded out to see one of their friends brutally kill three people without breaking a sweat.

That's one of the things I liked about Far Cry 3 (even though I hated almost everything else about that game). When you rescue the guy's girlfriend, there's a big chase scene where she's driving the car and you're manning the turret. In the cut scene after, he's like "Holy crap, did you see that? That was awesome!" and she's like "You just KILLED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE." She settles down after a minute, but she's still freaked out about how blase he is.

Yeah they don't have to dwell on it long, and the friends can accept it afterwards. But just a few moments of at least one of them going "Lara, you just brutally killed people and it doesn't seem to be affecting you at all. WTH happened to you out there?" or something along those lines. Give us something in that regard.

edited 19th Sep '17 10:19:56 AM by Punisher286

This is one area the first Tomb Raider actually had an advantage over the reboot. It also shows Lara reacting over her first kill, but the difference is that there's only, like, three or four human enemies in the entire game. This allowed the game to avoid the dissonance brought on by her being emotionally devastated by taking a life and then immediately turning around and killing 567 more dudes.

That would have been cool, actually. Just because Lara's become emotionally numb to inflicting death on people doesn't mean her friends wouldn't be weirded out by it, and even more freaked out by how not weirded out she is by it.

Reactions like that seem way easier in a film than a video game by virtue of the mechanism pushing the plot forward.

Yeah I get why they couldn't show her reaction to every kill (especially given how high her body count is there). But there are several ways around that:

1. Don't give her such a high body count to begin with, and the controversy doesn't happen at all.

2. Have her take a few moments later on, or perhaps at the end, and have her reflect on all of the ruthless/brutal things that she had to do in order to survive. And how that's affected her.

3. Like stated above, have her friends react to seeing her brutally killing people and seemingly not feeling anything about it.

4. Etc.

At the very least, if it couldn't be commented on in the original, they should have used the sequel to do so. You could easily pass off 'No one really reacted' as the characters not really thinking about things or even forcing themselves not to realize the implications of so much death until they were finally safe.

The sequel had a lot of missed opportunities.

The film at least looks to be somewhat diverse. We've got an Indian actor, a Norwegian/Nigerian actor (playing Lara's best friend so presumably a take on the Sam part), and a Chinese actor playing the captain (the Roth part).

plus its written by the same woman who will/is writing Captain marvel so that'll be neat. The director's never done an English film before but his work seems to be well received. Plus his name is Roar, so that's pretty awesome.

Also, for someone who asked earlier, bike couriers are totally a thing in London, a pretty big thing. Not sure why anyone would think they weren't.

It's weird, because if the sequel had been the first game in the series, it would have been great. It did almost everything the first game did better. But since it was the sequel, it was an obvious retread of the same plot points.

Have they confirmed Sam is in it? She (and her relationship with Lara) was one of the most well-received parts of the first game, and then she got sidelined so much for the second that they may as well have just killed her off. I mean, I can understand her not coming along on Lara's newest expedition, but the fact that she went violently insane offscreen just seems kinda mean. Did a new writer take over?

Based on the trailer, it seems to be taking parts of BOTH games in the series.

Sam isn't in the movie. Not worth watching. :(

Just for posterity:

Is that Kristin Scott Thomas at 0:20? She's completely uncredited, if s- ....PC Danny Butterman?

I think that Hannah John-Kamen's (aka Dutch from Syfy's Killjoys) character is meant to be the Sam-like character in this film.

As for the trailer, it looks alright. It does seem like Alicia has put quite a bit of effort into the role at least, so that's good.

i like how a lot of it looks right out of the game, especially with the climbing axe. a lot of those moments were very impressive visually.

Something about Lara's dad calling her 'sprout' was very cute to me.

Also, as for Sam, she did go a little crazy, but she ended up getting better.

Hope they don't ditch the supernatural twist in this movie.

It's weird how much this looks like it wants to remind everyone of the game and yet also wants to be utterly divorced from the game. The superficial elements are there; the grittiness, the storm, the island bandits, etc.

But things like Sam, the mystery of Yamatai, literally the entire supporting cast, etc. are gone, replaced by an original story about a mysterious tomb and the fate of Lara's father. This is clearly not an adaptation of the reboot game. It just kinda wants to look like it, to grab the game's fans.

It seems to be trying to please two crowds - fans of the original movies by emphasising Lara's relationship with her dad (wonder when Hollywood will get sick of that trope) and fans of the new games using elements like a ship wreck on a mysterious island.

Laura's relationship with her dad is a big part of the reboot games too so I wouldn't say its mutually exclusive to appealing to older fans.

A much better trailer than the last one.

I don’t blame them for not just copying the game. Writing an entirely new “inspired by” story is probably the best approach, if only to avoid the problem of cramming the story into two hours or so. Honestly, the main reason the previous Tomb Raider movies worked at all was because of the inspired by approach.