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Animated Castlevania Movie Sounds Promising
Via GameSetWatch, a link to the official blog for the animated film Castlevania: Dracula's Curse. The story for the film is being written by the iconic Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Planetary), and the blog has tidbits of information from the writer about what we can expect with the film. Encouragingly, the movie is very much not aimed at children, will probably be just the first of a planned trilogy, and is generally based around the story from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. From the GSW post: "He explains, grinning: 'To make it work as a film, I had to introduce new backstory, and I went through five drafts of the premise and three of the full outline to get the material where [Koji Igarashi] wanted it. He remains absolutely passionate about Castlevania. After eight rewrites of pre-production material, I remain absolutely passionate about beating the crap out of [Igarashi] in a dark alleyway one day.'"
I don't look forward to pumping rolls of quarters into my armrest's coin slot just to see how the movie ends.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Certainly sounds more promising than the live action movie in the works, which should promise to be as true to the source material as...well...it won't be. Ugh...too bad Warren Ellis isn't writing the live action movie script...
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Has any movie based off a video game not been basically a big F.U. to the original material?
Super Mario Bros., Doom, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil... it goes on and on.
Next thing you'll know Keanu Reeves will be cast as a Belmont, and Christopher Walken will be Dracula. *shudder*
More Twoson than Cupertino
It sounds like making shows for TV is a hell unto itself. Is there some strange doublestandard for cartoons that assumes they're for children which isn't applied to regular programming?
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Be disappointed now, it'll make it easier later. Console yourselves with the original Castlevainia which I hear can now be downloaded on the Wii.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
But please don't make it all CGI. Castlevania is a classic series and it needs a classic hand drawn look, like the original Vampire Hunter D had.
This sounds promising. I also have reliable insider information that Uwe Boll is to direct the movie.
I refuse to watch any videogame movie that isn't directed by Uwe Boll.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...to be as bad as any other video game movie. Is there some international conspiracy that prevents anyone from doing this right?
At least they haven't touched Zelda... yet.
For castles made of sand must eventually return to the sea.
Put a bullet in this franchise - please.
For months we'd had a string of press releases on SlashDot about Castlevania handheld games, revivals, "as a classic game", etc. (http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=castlevania) However, a movie announcement now, 20 years after the hum-hum Castlevania franchise first limped through a couple of sequels on the earliest Nintendo systems, is about as good as the timing was on Crocodile Dundee III (15 years or so after the 80's).
I couldn't care less about Castlevania; but Warren Ellis is, hands down, required reading. No self respecting Slashdot reader should pass up reading Transmetropolitan. It is truly fantastic futurist fiction, and damn funny to boot. Spider Jerusalem is my hero.
A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk. Have at you!
...And the complete lack of a plot?
Advent Children was among the worst movies of the year, and you are spot-on in your recommendation to watch it muted. With all due respect, however, your suggestion of switching to Japanese dialogue is, in this geek's eyes, a shade misguided as watching in Japanese solves nothing--the problems run deeper than voice-overs or language itself. I saw both the English and Japanese versions, having fallen prey to fans of the film telling me "it's better in Japanese, trust me, see it that way." So I gave it a whirl, figuring at least the worst that could happen is I'd lose another 90 minutes of my life.
Fool me once (The Grudge/Ju-On), shame on you. Fool me twice, just shoot me in the head.
Now, before you revoke my geek badge, I have nothing against Japanese culture or media, my J-console-game collection is extensive, and I watch anime from time to time (albeit not as much as I used to, but still a fair amount--recently it's been Ergo Proxy, which is amazing and available in 720p as icing on the cake). However, no amount of appreciation for Japanese pop culture could salvage this frelling pile of dren.
It was nothing either way but 90 minutes of pandering pointlessness with a slick CG shine.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, for as panned and reviled as it is by the fanboys, is at least a respectable exercise in filmmaking even if it has few ties to its namesake game series. This stems from the film taking the time to properly introduce and develop characters, make the audience feel for them, make them seem human, and then string events together in a cohesive, meaningful fashion to form that elusive animal called a "plot." Poor game adaptation, but a decent film with a moderately engaging plot, some funny moments, and characters that seem far more real personality-wise than the planks of wood in AC. I know the character models bungee-jump in the Uncanny Valley, but at least they act, talk, and sound real. Far better than the overabundance of brooding stares and unconvincing overly-emotionally-charged conflict of AC.
AC, on the other hand, is a "thank-you" to FF7 fans and a "fuck you" to anyone else interested in seeing an enjoyable movie.
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Yes. In fact, if SlashDot is reliably posting something about Castlevania about once a month, that's a "well-timed and effective string of press releases". In the marketing world, you'd call it "sustaining awareness, if not interest in the 'Castlevania' brand name". (I'd ask you to look up AIDA but I doubt it would help.)
Here are the definitions of the words you had trouble understanding in my original post.
Franchise:
http://www.investorwords.com/2078/franchise.html
See how this applies to the movie?
Press Release:
http://www.1stworldlibrary.org/Glossary.html#p
See how this applies to the regular SlashDot postings?
Feel free to ask if you need more help with your cognitive processes...
Sooooo, how do you think they'll handle the collection of Dracula's "Ring"? That could seriously bump up the maturity rating alone.
I do look forward to when it comes out. When I go out in the evening for pleasure I'll get to say "What a horrible night to see a movie!".
Starkle, starkle, little twink.
A young man, armed only with a whip, travels to Dracula's castle to destroy Dracula.
(I love these games. But... they are going to have to embelish a little...)
If it is anything like my copy of the game for the original NES, the movie will freeze up just as he gets to the Grim Reaper and you will be forced to either sit through the whole movie once more hoping it won't happen again or leave in disgust.
Really if you want a Castlevania movie and like symphony of the night I would say pick up Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. D and Alucard are so ridiculously close to each other in actions and mannerisms I really felt like bloodlust was just Castlevania with a different name.
There's a reason why there's a feature on the disc that gives you a synopsis of the story from the game. There's a reason why it reference to events from the game that you never got a glimpse of in the movie. AC was an epilogue to FFVII; it's not a stand alone movie and was never meant to be one. It's no more "pointless" than you sitting in for the last 90 mins of ROTK when you haven't seen the first 2 and a half of the LOTR trilogy.
Castlevania ill needs a savior such as you!
Immediately upon reading this post, I hit Ctrl-F to search for "Uwe Boll." Why does that feel like a Freudian tell of some sort?
Sad children
Fight scene
Particle effects
Explosions
Fight scene
Big monsters
Fight scene
Lots of special moves etc
Motorcycle
Fight Scene
Seriously. I'm a big fan of the FF series (got all of them except the GB ones... but including FF2/NES), but I was extremely disappointed with FF-AC. Plot-wise, I think that even "Spirits Within" was a little better. How about a real non-mangled movie-adaptation of one of the original RPG's... without plot-mangling or fanboy-precedence to large anime boobies and fight-scenes? FFVI had a wonderful plot. I'm replaying FFX with a friend and frankly the voice-acting (for most characters) and the believability of the characters is definitely movie-worthy (the whole "who's undead" thing was a fun twist). Yes, you could definately cut out some of the extraneous crap and the extra Seymour battles, but a lot of the rest would be good cinema material.
Much better than a cellphone with final-fantasy ringtones, and a few cheap summon effects that were really no better than in the games themselves...