Bright, or The Movie Sadly Not Titled "Orc Cops"

Daily Fail has posted several behind-the-scenes photos for David Ayer's made for Netflix movie, Bright - probably the winner of next year's "Most Non-Indicative Name" award, despite jocular suggestions from IO 9 writers to just shrug and call the movie "Orc Cops" instead. ComingSoon has some more photos, focused on the Cauliflower and Broccoli duo of the protagonists.

The film is described as a cross between End of Watch and Alien Nation, just with fantasy creatures instead of aliens (I Can't Believe It's Not Shadowrun!). LAPD officers, human Scott Ward (Will Smith) and orc Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton) stumble upon a powerful and illegal magic wand and its owner, a young elf named Tikka (Lucy Fry). Not much else is known, but as far as MacGuffins like this go, someone very powerful, and very evil, will want to get their hands on that wand.

I was interested when I first heard about it, but I'm not really a fan of David Ayer. Still, it sounds intriguing.

It sounds interesting I liked End of Watch.

If it is too much like End of Watch one of the main characters will not survive the movie

David Ayer is a master of the hit-and-miss. His career pretty much consists of several terrible films with the occasional brillaint one. In chronological order: U-751? Great. Training Day? Fantastic. Fast and Furious? Meh. Dark Blue? Forgettable. S.W.A.T? Bad. Harsh Times? Terrible. Street Kings? Horrible. End of Watch? Pretty damn good. Sabotage? Weak. Fury? Pretty solid. Suicide Squad? Atrocious.

Which tallies about four good movies in a 11 movie career, with this being his 12th. If the pattern he's been one since "End of Watch" keeps up (one bad and one good) this one should be pretty cool.

If it's so, it's gonna be Will Smith.

I'm thinking about something else: whether Max Landis cribbed some concepts from Andrzej Sapkowski and CDP Red's writing for The Witcher, as Sapkowski was pretty good at writing Fantastic Racism in a way that supported the view that at least some Humans Are Bastards, but rarely the other way (I seriously cannot recall any non-human character from the books that would be more evil than the human antagonists).

edited 14th Nov '16 2:10:26 PM by NotSoBadassLongcoat

This...intrigues me. I eagerly await a teaser of some kind.

I am interested in this. I've always had a thing for masquerade-less Urban Fantasy. Those elven business suits (?) look cool.

Honestly has me interested, it looks fun and Will Smith will make it enjoyable to watch if anything else

It looks good, but... are we absolutely sure this isn't just a Shadowrun movie? I would have no problem with that, but still. Maybe the full trailer will make it more unique, but right now it just looks a bit too on the nose.

Yeah, makes me wonder what's with that perfectly ordinary beater longsword that turns up in LA for some reason.

I take that Gil Hibben and Kit Rae were too busy and the art director/prop master didn't have the time to trawl sword shops and Ali Express for something fancier... :P

Will Smith with a sword.

I'm in.

Will Smith has Wesley Snipes envy.

"Yeah, makes me wonder what's with that perfectly ordinary beater longsword that turns up in LA for some reason. "

Shadowrun plot?

edited 3rd Mar '17 6:15:03 AM by AnotherGuy

I doubt that given Smith's the one attached to a superhero franchise right now, while Snipes isn't. If anything it would be the other way around.

Yes, but the sword looks kinda... mundane there. I'd expect a MacGuffin to look more like Anduril or Glamdring.

I can't wait for Not-A-Shadowrun-Movie, looks pretty cool.

I'm excited for this, Will Smith is one of the few actors out there that can make any movie into a good time, it looks fun and I've been waiting for more fantasy movies to emerge, it's been lacking in Hollywood these last couple of years

Yeah, other than the fairy this screams Shadowrun. Probably good odds that the script for this one started as a potential Shadowrun film, but getting the rights didn't happen, so here we are.

I'm gonna guess it's less 'didn't happen' and more 'let's change this enough so we don't have to pay for the rights'. Or maybe the script was already derivative, and the movie was made without most of the people involved having ever heard of Shadowrun. Hell, urban fantasy's popular enough now that this kind of stuff is just in the bloodstream now. It's possible that even the screenwriter has only read stuff that's already a few steps removed from SR.

What I wouldn't give for a proper Shadowrun adaptation, though. Even without the fantasy elements, I want to see a movie that comes closer to the vibe of Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall or Hong Kong. Proper cyberpunk, Ghost in the Shell (2017) and Bladerunner 2049 aren't cutting it.

...Ahem. But at least this is something. Looks like less of a mess than Suicide Squad. David Ayer making a movie about LA cops, Will Smith in an action movie, they're in their respective wheelhouses. Fingers crossed.

edited 21st Dec '17 11:33:43 PM by Unsung

The key would probably be comparing the world-building setup for this movie to the events described here. If they line up to a certain degree, well, then yeah, this was a Shadowrun adaptation at some point.

For those not as familiar with Shadowrun, the clincher for me was that the magic elements aesthetically line up perfectly with Shadowrun's art featuring shamanism and the like. Adaptation or not, they nailed that perfectly.

While this will cross suicide squad a little, I always though the issue was more warner wanting to change the tone and butchering the editing of the movie, so is not like it was ALL is fault.

David Ayer's made some great movies, and while I don't think Suicide Squad is good, I also didn't think it was as bad as everyone said. I wouldn't pin all the blame for how that turned out on Ayer. I think even some of the decisions he acknowledged as mistakes could've worked, with another couple of drafts.

I just discovered this movie because of this thread. This looks like it could be either profoundly disappointing or extremely incredible. But I'm happy someone's just taking the risk to make something like this. Like Zootopia for fantasy nerds, with guns.

I realize they aren't doing this, but I think it would be really cool if they did a sort of Assault On Precinct 13 thing, where they just have to protect the wand at some sort of building while they wait for transport and are surrounded by criminals.

So, it's kinda like Garrett, P.I. and/or a gritty modern reboot of Cast a Deadly Spell? I dig. In fact, I kinda feel like it'll be wasted on Netflix.

(The worst thing about Netflix exclusives is there's no Blu-ray release. This looks like something I'd love to add to my collection).

edited 25th Jul '17 9:16:24 PM by ThriceCharming