Slashdot Mirror
John Woo & Metroid the Movie?
An anonymous reader writes "John Woo has optioned Nintendo's best-selling video game franchise Metroid for the big screen, says The Hollywood Reporter. Woo will produce the sci-fi movie and has the option to direct. The plan is to release the first film before 2006. The movie will center on the origins of the game's female protagonist, sexy bounty hunter Samus Aran, and relate her adventures battling the insidious life-sucking Metroids and their controlling force, Mother Brain."
and hide the main character in a suit so people who never played the game don't realize she's a she until the very end when she takes off her helmet. They should not, however, emulate the game's graphics or endlessly confusing mazes. However, the turning into a ball and other stuff of that nature would be cool.
Jessica Alba!
Very nice! I like it!
It would be even better if they kept her gender a secret until later in the movie. Hardcore video game enthusists would know the secret, but it would be a surprise for everyone else. Even better would be to throw out some indirection to make the gamers thing that they changed her to a he for the movie. :-D
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
You're right. He does better with less. I really liked his early movies, but all his recent ones reek of Hollywood money-magic. Every shot, every plot, every thought has to rock or forget it, IMHO. Instead of "The Natives take the fort", try actually going into detail about it, and examine the usefullness of shots in their reflection of plots. Metroid movie? Sounds like an easy out, because Woo will only have to film it from the side!
Wouldn't it be cool if we get to watch flashbacks to training? In these flashbacks, you see several men and women and have no idea which one is going to *be* the metroid warrior. They could make it look like it's going to be some guy, then at the end of the movie they reveal that it's the chick you least expected it to be!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This movie will suffer the same thing the recent Metroids have suffered, with the possible exception of Prime because of the way it was done--obsessing over Samus the character and her origins.
It's a bit like the difference between GTA3 and Vice City. One was an originless, storyless everyman people could live vicariously through, the second game was good but included a character hard for me to relate with.
The same with the Metroids. They keep trying to introduce plot and storylines now, cut-scenes and so forth, when the first game and Super Metroid were about being sent to some far-flung planet and travelling deeper and deeper underground into claustrophic caverns and tunnels, battling bizarre creatures. The fact that you were in a cool-looking suit was great, but even better was that it was just taken for granted that you were Samus Aran, a woman. It was never really a big deal. Even in Super Metroid, in which you already knew it was a woman. She just happened to be one.
This movie's going to play off the whole woman thing and make it extremely cheesy. I liked Samus when she was just some mysterious, silent bounty hunter you knew little about. Now they're trying to fill in her origins, storyline, motivations, and so on, and it doesn't feel like it belongs. Somehow, Prime pulled it off because they never really revealed too much and kept things myserious and ambient. Most of the plot was revealed through Chozo lore on the walls.
I guess it's one of those situations where you know you and your game-playing buddies who love Metroid could sit around one night and come up with a better story and movie tone than the one that's going to come out from John Woo...and it's going to be extremely frustrating when you see the resulting movie. Then again, this doesn't necessarily mean a movie will get made...just that he's signed on if one happens.