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Uwe Boll Smash!
Eurogamer has an interview with opportunistic license-killer Uwe Boll. In the interview, which is dominated by Boll's anger with game fans, he states that he's unlikely to see new game licenses for movies after he butchers Far Cry. From the interview: "In fact, it's not just confusing Boll - it's putting him off the whole thing all together. 'I won't say that I won't acquire another videogame licence in the future. But I'm not so eager to do it any more, to be honest. After Far Cry, maybe I'll go away from videogame-based movies. And everybody can be really happy about it.'"
We have been telling him this since he made his first movie.
Perhaps he could start making reality TV shows , The scripts would be better and the acting more convincing .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I don't know about the rest of you, but I think Uwe Boll really showed his love today.
Oh, and the whole "I'm getting out of video game movies" thing is pretty cool, too.
What a nice after-Valentine's gift.
Ten times zero is still zero...
Scene: CmdrTaco is sitting at his desk looking utterly depressed.
... ... it's too easy for them.
Enter: Zonk.
Zonk: Hey there, sport, why do you look so down?
*CmdrTaco remains silent*
Zonk: Still depressed about how your Valentine's date actually turned out to be a 38 year old Slashdot fan who still lives with his mom?
CmdrTaco: [dejectedly] Yeah
Zonk: Well, by golly, I know what'll cheer you up! Another Uwe Boll story on Slashdot!
CmdrTaco: Nah, the readers are tired of making fun of the same damned guy over and over
Zonk: Oh, come on! Then we'll put it in sectional content!
*Zonk finds an Uwe Boll interview that he hasn't posted before and runs the story*
Zonk: There! That should cheer you up! Just sit back and laugh as the replies roll in.
My work here is dung.
"Let's be realistic, what is House of the Dead? House of the Dead is a brainless shooter, where you shoot zombies into pieces. So what are you expecting from the movie, Schindler's List?"
He might be saying something insightful about disposal culture here. Maybe Uwe Boll is secretly a postmodern hero, this generation's Andy Warhol.
Of course, I never cared for Warhol much either.
He also says his movies are successful "Not because I make the best movies on earth, but I make movies for a minimal amount of budget compared to what major companies are spending.
This is pretty brilliant, and I'd hope other directors would start catching on.
Primer was made on only $6,000. If it didn't use film stock, if we encouraged digital production, it would've been less. Hopefully some directors with a little more interest in story will learn from Uwe just how easy it is to make films if you do so with a little mind for economy. If we economize film production, we'll democratize it, and in the end, get better films. Eventually. Unfortunately, along the way, we'll also get more Uwe Bolls - bad storytellers that the market can't seem to squash.
Let me get this straight.
We develop a fondness for a particular game. He gets the license then creates a movie that can only be described as a poorly-done "B" movie (yes, there are plenty of well-done "B" movies). Fans are greatly disappointed in what he did to the movie and by association the game. The fans voice their displeasure. Then he gets angry that fans are disappointed? What's wrong with this picture?!!!
What does he expect fans to do? Just say, "Oh, thank you! Thank you for converting a game to a movie that I was hoping more than anything to end right after the beginning credits started! We are so grateful!"
His views of the modern gamer and modern movie-goer is clearly so low as to be insulting. I've seen productions from amateur (read: still-in-film-school) movie makers that were wonderfully written with really impressive cinematogrphy and editing; I've also been on the crew of indepenent films that were fun to film and fun to watch because the director had a solid vision of what the scripts were trying to project. (No, not porn. Seriously!) If film students and amateur film makers can make entertaining movies on showstring budgets, there really is not much of an excuse for Boll (or any director) who has lots of funding behind him not to create a movie that's at least watchable.
Unfortunately, there seems to be this distorted view within a lot of directorial circles that (HIGH PROFILE STORY or STORY WITH STRONG FAN BASE) + ACKNOWLEDGED STARS = GUARANTEED SUCCESS. I present as proof of this misguided belief Gigli, Bloodrayne, and Battlefield: Earth to name a few.
Hey, Boll, don't let the gamepad hit you in the ass on the way out.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
"I get bashed as the worldwide enemy number one in film-making by people who are working at Starbucks and who also want to make movies. It's ridiculous - it's completely idiotic because they're hitting on a guy who actually made it happen, but I started my career in the same position as anybody else," Boll argues.
Actually, we are bashing you because "you make it happen". Praise the lord that you are giving up on video game franchises.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
The real problem is that he doesn't even know why people hate him - which leads me to assume that he doesn't even read the criticisms and reviews of his movies. Well, I hope Uwe Boll reads this one, and it might clear it up for him. The problem is that he's obviously not a gamer. He doesn't seem to care about the game properties that he makes movies for, and he alienates the fans of those games, and all gamers in general. Gamers despise him because he seems to be hanging on to the coat tails of game licenses to make a quick buck and run - and he keeps doing it.
House of the Dead the game was about a HOUSE infested with zombies, and some detective type people going in and shooting zombies - not a great or original premise, but that's the game. That's what he should have worked around to create a better plot. House of the Dead the movie, though, was about a bunch of college kids who go to a rave on an island with zombies. How is that anything like the slim plot that was already in the game?
Alone in the Dark the game had a similar plot to House of the Dead in that there's a HOUSE and there's zombies - except this one had more potential to make a decent horror film, as even the name implies. But, Uwe Boll again scrapped everything that made the game what it was - except for zombies and monsters, and he made it into more of an action film.
In the interview, Uwe Boll complains that games aren't known for their stories anyway. Maybe he should play them once in awhile instead of hunting for the cheapest license he could sink his fangs into. Maybe get a license for Grim Fandango, or Beyond Good and Evil, or Pandora Directive, or Gabriel Knight instead of some mindless shooter, and he'll have more material to work off of. However, as his history has shown to not follow the source material at all (however slim that material may be), I wouldn't trust him with those licenses either.
If someone took Harry Potter and turned it into a teen comedy road picture taking place in the US, people would be pissed. So Boll shouldn't be surprised that fans are pissed that he doesn't stay true to his source material.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
The source material and its "shallowness" are irrelevant. There are writers who could take a very basic story and with enough creativity to create an entire arc that is still relevant to the core story.
There is a lot that could have done with, for example, Bloodrayne. The background on her character - half-human, half-vampire - is great fodder for some interesting character development. Note that in most sci-fi shows, characters of mixed races are the ones that often get the most intersting character arcs. Look at Spock, Troi, and Seven of Nine in the "Star Trek" series and how they often ran into problems with being a mixed race, whether that's from biological issues, prejudice, or something else. (Okay, Seven wasn't quite a mixed race, but you get the idea.) Rayne could have had a very interesting character arc in the hands of a good writer, which Bloodrayne: The Movie did not have.
Her vengeance against those who murdered her mother certainly could have been expanded to involve some interesting twists and turns, particularly with the Nazi-era background of the original Bloodrayne. Exactly how did her mother die? Murder? Consequence of being raped by a vampire? How did Rayne find out who was responsible? Was her mother's murder really what triggered her rage against fellow dhampirs or is there some long-forgotten memory that is subconsciously driving her? Add a bit of "Indiana Jones"-style action and the Bloodrayne movie could have been very well done.
Instead, we get a piece of schlock that was nothing more than the Bloodrayne name and blades with some blood and guts. Oh, and a very-easy-on-the-eyes babe. Hey, is that Ben Kingsley? That Ghandi guy? Well, that certainly gives the movie credibility! (Not.) It was poorly written, poorly directed, and poorly thought out.
The fact that its source was a video game cannot be more irrelevant.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Wait, I haven't seen House of the Dead, but is he saying that it was ten times worse than Blood Rayne!? That seems pretty implausible. I mean, it seems like "I'd rather gauge my eyes out with dirty shrimp forks than see this movie again" would be fairly close to the bottom of the scale.
At least Doom made an EFFORT to replicate the game on film. Yes, they changed the thing about hell to something about zombies. Yes, they forgot to put in a Cyberdemon.
But it still took place on Phobos, still got in shots of all the required guns and enemies STRAIGHT FROM THE GAME, and even had an ENTIRE SUBPLOT revolve around Sarge's search for the BFG-9000. There were plenty of in-jokes for fans, like Karl Urban's character being named John, a dead scientist named Carmack, and Rock's utterance of the three words we were all waiting to hear once he found the BFG - the computer monitor might call it the Bio Force Gun, but we at least got to HEAR it get called the Big Fucking Gun.
On top of that, I remember reading in an interview with someone from ID that the producers actually used art design from Doom 3 as a basis for the set design. You know what? It shows. The overhead lighting above doors, the fonts, everything seems ripped out of the game and come to life on screen - which is the WAY IT SHOULD BE.
Was Doom high art? No. But it was awesome, awesome Nerd Porn, which is exactly what a good video game movie SHOULD be, and my friends and I had a great time sitting in the theater picking out all the references to the game we know and love. Boll has yet to accomplish this.