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."
I'm sold on the idea. I just wonder how he's going to get the doves to fly through space.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
John Woo is a director that realy should not be given too much money to work with. His low budget movies are great, while his cash cow flicks (MI2 etc) just hurt to watch. He needs to get back together with Chow Yun-Fat and make a good action movie again.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
If women start dressing and acting like Samus Aran, will they be called metroidsexuals?
I just hope they don't try to make Samus "sexy". The last thing this movie needs is some bubble-brained ditz bouncing around Zebes in a slinky catsuit. What's great about Samus is that she totally whoops butt. And no fricken' Liv Tyler!
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
I weep for humanity, for I remember the Super Mario Bros. movie.
No good can come from this.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
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.
Other than the fact that John Woo movies suck.
As mentioned earlier, they will try to get some sexy chick to play Samus, when the REAL reason the first metroid game for Nintendo was so BADASS was because you didn't find out she was a girl until the end. I think they should do the same thing here, but unfortunately, I expect some boring actress that has never seen a Nintendo to be yelling out stupid catch phrases during multiple explosions resulting in another bullshit Woo movie that *could* have been cool. He's like the shitty pop-star director equivalent of a Britney Spears when it comes to quality.
Jessica Alba!
Very nice! I like it!
You know, I had a fair bit of respect for Samus when I was young. She managed to be a female character without being a slut to the viewers (a la Lara Croft) or being some kind of animal/blob thingey (a la Ms. Pac Man, Dixie Kong). I mean sure, a few people played just to see the best ending at under 3 hours, but realistically she wasn't sold on her sex appeal (heck, you wouldn't *believe* how many people I've met who think Samus is male).
Sure, there's Kings Quest 4 and a few RPGs pulled off decent female characters at the time, but nothing nearly as mainstream. Am I the only one who's worried that Hollywood will ruin the feel of Samus by putting too much emphasis the "sexy" aspect?
If I fast-forward the movie, watching it in less than 2 hours, will I get to see Samus in a skimpy bikini?
This said it was about the origin of Samus. I would assume this would include her upbringing by the aliens that made the suit for her, so there will be no hiding that she is a she. I imagine the first half of the movie will be her growing up, and the second half will be her kicking butt in the suit. It will really just be your standard super hero movie, excpet set in space.
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!
You know, I had a fair bit of respect for Samus when I was young. She managed to be a female character without being a slut to the viewers (a la Lara Croft) or being some kind of animal/blob thingey (a la Ms. Pac Man, Dixie Kong). I mean sure, a few people played just to see the best ending at under 3 hours, but realistically she wasn't sold on her sex appeal (heck, you wouldn't *believe* how many people I've met who think Samus is male).
I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment (see my recent post.
I don't really have a problem with the "exploitation" or "sexual objectification" of women in the media. Hey, if it sells, go for it. Pornographic stuff, hey, even child porn or beastiality, I don't have a particular ethical problem with some publisher running out and doing what they want, because I still get to choose what I look at.
What *does* bother me is when *all* the female characters wind up as sexpots, so that I *don't* have an opportunity to watch a movie with a female character that isn't a carefully made up face on top of two giant and frequently exposed breasts. I *liked* Ripley in Aliens 1 through 3. Not a particularly sexual character, very cool, well-played. Sure enough, come Aliens: Resurrection, they've got her stripped down and squirming around in plastic wrap. I liked Metroid -- yes, there's the swimsuit shot at the end (and it *says* something that even my good examples have such major exceptions), but ultimately, there's not a lot of sexualizing Samus through the game. Sure enough, now we get "Samus the sexy bounty hunter". God *damn* it, I like my sexy characters, but there's a time and a place for it, and I'll go watch porn if I want to watch porn -- I don't like seeing all my favorite characters turned into nothing but sexpots.
And the few times there *isn't* a sexpot female lead, a good, strong character, she's frequently used as a plot device to show how sensitive the male co-lead is ("She wanted to be strong and not need help from anyone, but she learned that she needs to rely on the male lead by the end, who naturally doesn't need to rely on her to anywhere near the same degree.")
This is not for reasons of political correctness, censorship, or even "taste". I just plain find it appealing to have non-sexplot strong female characters, and I'm damned tired of the few characters that *aren't* being given over to some director/game designer who firmly sits in the traditional camp and converts them into one.
May we never see th
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
A halo game could be really cheap to make too. They would be able to just reuse all the set pieces over and over without any modification.
Let's get back to basics.
Pong: the Movie.
-kgj
-kgj
I think that a Metroid Movie should be an almost silent one. Depicting the loneliness of Samus against the mysterious space pirates and Metroids.
John Woo is specialist on complicated and espectacular stunts. Metroid shines on putting you on an alien world. You don't go with your guns blazing in Metroid, dodging bullets ala Matrix.
This has the potential to suck
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Nope... It's just spelt that way. It's the result of romanising Chinese names gone wrong. How the name is spelt doesn't actually reflect the way it's correctly pronounced, but we try for an astatically pleasing spelling that's as close to actual pronunciation as possible. Translating according to standards sometimes gives a person a funny name when read by a person not familiar with the original language - which is why it's translated in the 1st place.
The reverse is also true. Like how in Chinese coca-cola only sounds like coca-cola but doesn't actually mean the same thing, reason being that the literal translation is a PR nightmare.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-11 -13&res=l
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
No it's not. It's "Chow Yun-fat" with one "t". I may be a gweilo, but I happen to live on Lamma Island, where he was born, and you can imagine he's a real local hero. Also, that's the way it's spelled on the movie posters. And if I had to write it phonetically the way Cantonese pronounce it, it'd be something like "Chow yun fah", not that far removed.
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.
If the movie can go from start to finish in less than 3 hours, will we see Samus in a skimpy outfit at the end, after the credits?
___ In the words of Gen. Douglas McArthur: "I'll be right back."