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| It has shattered, many Moviebob's' dreams/ It isn't Fable, or anything. |
But then, after a bit of a hiatus from the Internet, I hear say that they are making, not a Call of Duty movie, but a Call of Duty Cinematic Universe.(Commandment 10 violation, guys)
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| What' the anime version of "makes your hair stand on end?" |
You see that guy up there. I've never played Final Fantasy 7, but I know for a fact his name is Cloud. I've read about him, and he's got a pretty memorable design. And that's all not having played Final Fantasy 7.
But nobody, NOBODY cares about however the heck whoever it is you play as in Call of Duty. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants a Call of Duty movie and nobody wants many Call of Duty movies that are "connected".
I guess I'm wasting my time by saying it, and other people will probably HAVE said it, but here goes. What makes Call of Duty, whether it's Modern Warfare, Black Ops, or anything else, good as a story is the fact that it's a videogame. The capacity to project yourself into the virtual body of Sgt. Carloff Duty can be extremely strong in offsetting the possibility of these game's stories being just another boring war movie of the kind that are somehow not burning up theaters for years for a reason. It's like if the Sims was a movie about people just living in a house. It was the interactivity that made it endearing. Burnt kitchens aren't inherently funny. No way "videogames' idea of what war is, based on movies' idea of what war is" is gonna get anyone out there filling seats.
So I was going to make a list of games that deserve to have a movie more than CoD. But what's the point? Number 1: Most of them. But, seeing as CoD is a fairly competent game with all the movie potential of armpit hair, I'll throw an even higher gauntlet: I'm going to pick the lousiest games I can imagine as movies, and show you that even terrible games that nobody should play have stronger foundation bases for movies that Call of Duty.
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball
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| Why do you need the floaty? Aren't your breasts filled with a saline solution? |
Ok, DOA isn't a terrible game. It's sort a mix between ok Bikini Beach Volleyball, Tittillation, Dating Sim, and Barbie Dress Up games. You'd think these disparate elements would cancel each other out, but somehow, it worked.
But it's also a game about people who come from a fighting tournament that straight facedly throws rape, revenge backstories, corporate betrayal, assassination attempts, and whatever the hell is Lei Fhang's deal, and then goes: "But then they all got together to splash water on each other and have fun one summer." Say what you will about the game's representation of women's bodies, but that right there is how women actually behave. "She pretended to be my buttler to catch me offguard and kill me. Yeah, we played Volleyball as a team, though."
So, as a MOVIE, DOAX(Which technically already happened as part of the existing DOA movie, natch) could be the awesomes, most subversive piece of movie imaginable. A movie where tortured girls who are sworn enemies to each other briefly describe how someone tried to clone them once to create the ultimate soldier, before going back to frolicking n the beach sexilly.
Awessome Possum Kicks Dr Machino's Butt
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| Lamas take their geography seriously, Awey. |
Awessome Possum mostly let's the title describe it, except they forgot to add in "In a lousy Sonic Knock Off."
While I'm not advising any company to lock down the rights to this particular franchise, the advantages over Call of Duty as a story are clear. The story has a lead character and a villain. The motivation is in there and clear. In fact, Awesome Possume is already more recognizable to people than Call of Duty Guy.
Rakuga Kids
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| Nobody cares about your stupid private parts, you chicken head. |
Rakuga Kids is a Konami Fighting Game for the Nintendo 64. I can probably stop there. Konami tried and tried to get into the genre, but nothing they tried ever truly stick around for long. There where good ideas. There where good designs. There where nice graphics. But all those things for all the times they appeared wherent' every enough.
Rakuga's premise is that a bunch of elementary age kids found magic life giving crayons. Using these, they gave life to drawings of their own creation, which resulted in as many Bear Tanks, and Rapping Cats as you'd imagine fighting against each other.
So while the game play is nothing to write EVO about, and the game has a bunch of loading on the console that uses cartridges because CD's have too much loading, the premise is actually perfect for a children's movie. Children using and abusing this god-like power to give life, and the drawings going out of their control. It could make a pretty sweet movie.
Mutant League Football
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| That's...informative. |
Immediately the movie hits you in the face with High Concept. It's about monsters and ghouls and aliens playing Football, the American version where you ram into people.
While a Sports Comedy with a Supernatural angle is an easy enough sell, I think a heaping helping of satire could really make this a classic. There's plenty of screwed up things to satirize in sports in general, and American Football in particular. I think this movie would be the perfect place to start.
Put in a bunch of practical effects and people losing thier limbs all over the place, and it's an instant classic.
Columns
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| "And then I was all 'you're giving life to the Messiah, LOL, And she freaked out." "That one never gets old..." |
Columns is a puzzle game. It's got no protagonists or characters or conflict or nothing. Drop gems, try not to lose, don't think of Tetris.
So what would make this better than, Call of Duty as a movie? Well, for starters, since Columns isn't actually a story, you can make it about whatever you want. Is it about a wide eyed genious trying to master teleportation? Is it a heist movie? Is it a Roman words and sandals epic? As long as there's columns of gems in it, you aren't failing any part of it.
With Call of Duty, you can't make it about a wide eyed genious. You can't switch to a time before gunpowder or make it a heist movie. It has to be a war movie.
Now, war movies can be good. But there's a reason summer movies aren't filled with remakes of Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. There's a reason that Battleship wasn't about Battleships engaging each other in the Pacific, and it ain't because we don't even use those, anymore.
People want fanciful and sci fi and magic with their action. And the teenagers that make most of CoD's fanbase, aren't gonna be able to even get to enter CoD's movie premier without an adult.
Meanwhile, Columns, starring Jack Black and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as competing brother builders, is gonna be killing you at the box office.
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