the master chief masterpiece
Via Justin, I see that Microsoft has handed Peter Jackson a sack of cash to lend his name to the upcoming Halo movie. Isn't that adorable?
I can't tell you what a kick I get out of videogame creators' complete inability to differentiate between financial and creative success. Bungie is easily one of the worst offenders — just look here. A whole jokey cult, invented and nurtured by Bungie, has sprung up around cheesy cartoon depictions of the Halo series' protagonist, the Master Chief. Who is — guess what — a clear ripoff of the unnamed marine from Doom. The reason for this persistent aesthetic? A) because you don't have to animate faces that go inside helmets and B) keeping the uniform consistently colored has technical and gameplay payoffs.
But what about the game's actual plot? Well, it's about a personality-free cyborg with a sassy computer sidekick, a gruff sargeant, a setting ripped off from Larry Niven, and marauding aliens. It's all highly original.
Some people just can't understand that they were in the right place at the right time. The truth is that nobody gives a shit about Halo's story; or at least, nobody ought to. People like the game because it did a decent job of being a console-based multiplayer FPS after Goldeneye primed the mainstream pump. Some of them play enough and are dumb enough to start thinking that the game's aesthetic is more than a placeholder. A number of those people seem to work at Bungie.
I don't blame anybody for cashing out when Hollywood executives ask to buy a storyline that read "PLOT GOES HERE" until 3 days before the game shipped. All I ask is that they try to be a little more quiet about it. Let the goddamn movie come out, pay for itself, then gracefully fade into the annals of cinematic embarassment. You're not going to fool anybody except the fanboys. And they were fooled by default.
Comments
Forgive me Tom, but have you read some of the detail from Bungie's other games? Notably Marathon and Myth? Bungie's really good at crafting a universe for their games, and crappy novelizations aside, they've had some really good successes, for example take a look at the I Love Bees campaign. Lots of good writing there (Sean Stewart at his finest) , and good creativity at play. Could be not-awful. Of course, then there's the effing Doom Movie....>vomit
I'm happy to admit that Halo is the only Bungie game that I'm very familiar with. I know Marathon has a reputation as a seminal game, and I'm willing to believe it deserves it. I was probably overly broad when talking about the company.
But Halo? It's a rehash of ideas that had already made their way through the movie and game industries several times over. There's more plot than in a lot of games, but it's not any better.
I'm sort of looking forward to the Doom movie, in a perverse way.
Although Niven may be the ultimate source for the ringworlds, the "Halo universe" was heavily influenced by Iain Banks, a scifi writer from Scotland, who also used rings now and then. He's not well known in the states, so he's rarely credited as often as Niven.
In particular, see Consider Phlebas for some really cool antics on a doomed ringworld, starships (with tongue-in-cheek names) that have their own sophisticated robotic intelligences at the helm, a galaxy-wide war between people (with sentients robots referred to as probes) and an imperial alien race convinced of its divine destiny, and subtle vestiges of a long gone forerunner race.
I'm not optimistic for any video game movie, but I eventually watch them, so I can only conclude that this news is a good thing.
Yeah, my impression was the Bungie was pretty detailed, at least in Marathon, in filling in backstory & whatnot.
Having read the wikipedia entry for marathon, I can see that halo is basically an abbreviated riff on a well-developed world. The marathon games told their story through text at terminals, as I understand it, rather than through voiceovers by cast members of 70s themed sitcoms. The former is doubtless an easier medium for writers to deal with effectively. I still don't think halo's story is very compelling.
Regardless of all that, I can see you guys' point: bungie puts more effort into its stories than most game companies. By industry standards, they're good game stories. But it still boggles my mind that anyone would want to turn them into movies. Because let's face it: game stories are awful. That bungie produces stories than some consider to be slightly less awful than normal doesn't really justify excitement over a movie version (except as fanservice). In my eyes, anyway.
hey Justin, I'm glad to hear that someone else has read Iain Banks. I read about 5 of his Scifi books while I was in Scotland and thought they were great. I was sad to realize when I came back to the states that he gets almost zero recognition. I haven't read any of his fiction, but I hear the wasp factory is good.
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