Universal Lands Rights To Asteroids Movie

It seems Universal Studios has won the highly sought-after movie rights to the 1979 Atari game Asteroids. Disney's Matthew Lopez will be writing the adaptation, having previously worked on the scripts for Bedtime Stories, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Race to Witch Mountain. The NY Times is skeptical about Hollywood's ability to do right by the 30-year-old game, already imagining what a director like Michael Bay would do with it: "In this $300 million, three-and-a-half hour spectacle, loud and expensive computer simulations of large boulders crashing into one another are briefly interrupted by the hilarious antics of Chip and Gravel, two living rocks with gold teeth who speak in hip-hop slang, and the nonstop shouting of John Turturro."

Comments

How can this be anything but lame?

[netruner]

I mean, really, really lame? Even an action scene where they're having to blast oncoming rocks for any time longer than 10 seconds will be overkill. It's not that I have no appreciation for the game, I played it in the 80's (the home version I rolled over the score twice in the same game while I had chicken pox).

There are many better games to make movies from. (Deus Ex, Thief, Zelda, Golden Axe, heck - even Pitfall or Pac Man would be better).

Re:How can this be anything but lame?

[Domint]

I would die a happy man if I got to see a good rendition of Deus Ex on the silver screen before I went.

Wait, astroids?

[grasshoppa]

Are we talking about the game where you had a little ship and you blew up computerized rocks? This would be the game with absolutely no back story, no plot, no "end game"....

On second thought, this sounds exactly like a Hollywood classic.

Coming soon: Tetris, the movie!

[Alzheimers]

Hey, if it's half as good as Tetris: The Movie I'll probably go see it.

creativity?

[mevets]

When was the last time a creative movie came from Hollywood? A regurgitation of a tired cliches with spectacular effects and spin-off trinkits is more likely. The hero, a (wo)?man who overcame unjust adversity, saves the day by combining natural talent with dogged individuality while wearing ray-bans and drinking red bull.

sigh.

2D

[Chysn]

The story is told from the point-of-view of the spacecraft's pilot. But it's a two-dimensional universe, so the pilot sees nothing, because the lines he's looking at have no depth.

Let's grant some creative license and assume that the lines can be seen by the pilot. His field of view is just a line, with line segments on it. He needs to rotate around, looking at line segments. If a line segment appears to be getting longer over time, it could mean that an asteroid is approaching, or it could be that the larger part of an asteroid is just rotating into view. He fires at it, and the line segment breaks into two line segments, one of which is getting bigger, but drifting to the right, while the other gets smaller and smaller, apparently receding. Or, maybe they're entirely different objects, it's hard to tell.

The pilot pushes the thrust button. Some of the line segments shift their positions, some get longer, some get shorter. He realizes that moving around just makes things more difficult to keep track of, and that it's better to stay in one place and rotate quickly. But it's a lesson that's come too late; he's moving, and it's hard to stop. He could spin around 180 degrees and try to slowly thrust to a stop, but that means losing vision in the direction he's moving for too long. So he lays into the rotation control and starts firing blindly. That, too, is a bad move; soon the line segments are everywhere. And now, because there is so much variety in their absolute sizes, it's impossible to tell how close each one actually is. It might be a small one about to smash into him, or it might be a big one far away.

Suddenly, two line segments of about equal size converge. But they don't appear to be a threat because the converged segment is moving harmlessly to the right. Suddenly, the segment becomes two, and the truth becomes sickeningly clear: an asteroid moving laterally past his field of vision was concealing another asteroid coming right at him. He tries to rotate into firing position, but it's too late. He's only been on the board for ten excruciating seconds, but at last his mission is over.

Pretty good game based on being the Asteroid

[Anonymous Coward]

Awhile back a guy did a game from the perspective of the Asteroid, it was pretty funny, and actually pretty fun:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/AdamSchroeder/asteroids-revenge-iii-crash-to-survive