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Space Invaders: The Movie
rainmouse writes "Hollywood, clearly after witnessing the staggering success and endless critical acclaim of other computer game adaptations with their typically engrossing story line and deep, believable character development, have now apparently picked up the rights to make a film based upon Space Invaders. 'The classic 1980s arcade game from Taito and Midway, which is ranked as the top arcade game of all time by Guinness World Records, is heading to the big screen courtesy of producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Odd Lot Entertainment's Gigi Pritzker.'" Please help out by providing appropriate plot-lines and character sketches below.
I wasn't aware that game had one...
Drop Down, Reverse Direction, and Increase Speed!
and that Tetris film
What's next? Pong: The Movie!!
Lo and behold, for I am a sig!
A recently divorced man finds his house too large, with bedrooms and a living area now bare. A family of squatters discovers the situation, and plots to take over the free square footage.
Space Invaders.....coming, this fall!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtUkphb_Pbg
Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!
The name 'Space Invaders' rings a bell for a lot of people. It has no meaning in regard to the story apart from alien invasion, but the name 'Space Invaders' has deep ties in popular culture, meaning much more people will go see the movie because of the it, even if it has little or nothing to do with the game.
The pacing starts out a little slow, but by the ending it really flies with a back-and-forth recklessness that is thrilling.
Somebody tell me this is a joke. This is in line with the Robot Chicken sketches where Hungry Hungry Hippos and Chutes and Ladders were made into films.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
...Lrr is a main character. "Increase speed, drop down, and reverse direction!"
What's next? Pong: The Movie!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u5YaGU3ELk
....is already written.
"he's hooked, he's hooked, his brain is cooked... Spaaaaace Invaders!"
I first heard it on Dr. Demento, a long...long time ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McteLDT01Ig
Song by Uncle Vic.
I love the "fair use" and "disclaimer" and other stuff this guy has on the posting.
--
BMO
Didn't The Last Starfighter cover this plot territory?
See "Battle: Los Angeles," and "Skyline."
Is there any way we could just convince some aliens that Hollywood is our planetary capital....?
Reminds me of this one: PIXELS by Patrick Jean
At least they'll save money on the CGI graphics. Triangles shouldn't be that difficult to render.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
...for Megan Fox to exhibit her thespian excellence.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Awesome idea. Why did no one think of this before? I only hope the film is as good as the game.
...a young man whose parents-in-law move in to his home.
"Increase speed, drop down and reverse direction!"
If they somehow manage to bring the iconic "Invaders" style to the big screen in a way that leaves it recognizable but not looking completly outdated, this might result in a truly outstanding movie. Regardless of the plot. You know, some completly new visual style like what Matrix gave us.
There should be a law that forbids buying the rights to only the NAME of something.
bickerdyke
Hollywood is out of second-tier comic book superheroes and the plastic-toy genre has been well covered. As for remakes, "Police Academy 8" has been green-lighted, so the bottom of the barrel has been reached there. Some major franchises have reached end of life. The final Harry Potter movie, and what's probably the final Bond movie, are about to come out.
On the video game front, Rockstar won't let a studio make a GTA game; they think it would devalue the franchise. So Hollywood has to go through the bargain bin of video game rights.
The state of the industry is pathetic. Warner Bros. is doing so badly that only one of their movies last year made the top 100. (It was "Hot Tub Time Machine".) There's a backlash against bad 3D movies.
The desperate attempts to insure a hit on a big budget by redoing something that worked before are backfiring.
Surely it will be a big hit like Minesweeper: The Movie! Hopefully the question of "Why are the mines even here!?" is answered in Minesweeper 2: Flag Down.
This space is not for rent.
I've been yearning for a long time to hear what those staples are really after...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Bad Guys come, threaten the safety and well being of all loving earthlings - especially a Young Hero and his Unconsummated Love. Young Hero gets the shit kicked out of him. Unconsummated Love somehow placed in mortal danger. Young Hero finds a way to overcome the Bad Guys, rejoin his Unconsummated Love and save the entire world. Mix in oodles of special effects magic. $8 please, or whatever it is they charge for movie tickets nowadays.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Worst movie after a game, ever. This will make tomb raider 1 and 2 look like oscar worthy masterpieces. It will make resident evil look good! I shudder to think what will be done to this poor classic game
All right. It's Saturday night, I have no date, a two-liter bottle of Shasta and my all-Rush mix-tape... Let's rock.
Futurama S3 E18.
Who needs anything else?
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
Space Invaders was released in 1978. It was old hat by the time 1980 rolled around. There were a few squeals released in the 80s though. Space Invaders Part II and Return of the Invaders come to mind.
Though not sequels, Space Invaders was made old with the release of Galaxian (space invaders with up to a squadron of 3 dive-bombing aliens), which in turn was uprooted by Galaga (Galaxian but now the flying around was the main thing).
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Rhythmic and increasing in tempo throughout the movie. Enkt ... Enkt ... Enkt ... Enkt .. Enkt .. Enkt .. Enkt .. Enkt .. Enkt .. Enkt .. Enkt .. Enkt .. Enkt . Enkt . Enkt . Enkt . Enkt . Enkt Enkt Enkt
There actually was a short film based on space invaders. It was used as filler between movies on HBO in their very early days, and was credited as someone's student animation project. It involved a bunch of characters off of pinball games, including an Egyptian style god, coming to life and trying to fight off the waves of space invaders and defend civilians. Scenes where the defenders ducked and popped out from behind brownstones much like using the four space invaders shield walls still stick in my mind, but that's as much as I remember.
Who is John Cabal?
Once the movie is out they'll start going after the owners of the original consoles for infringement.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2IxHZ9GV5A
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
4 regular old marines that have more personality than most military types you meet - the black guy, the hispanic guy, generic WASP white guy and butch (but still cute and wears lipstick) lesbian girl - are sent new orders to show up to a secret base. In the secret base there's fancy new laser beam weapons that the marines are going to have to learn (queue montage).
But wait! Evil Liam Neeson has made a deal with the aliens and sold out our greatest secret! The fact that we start to suck at shooting things when the targets move faster.
Suddenly there's alien spaceships in the sky! Oh no, and they start moving faster and faster! So fast in fact that you can't actually see what's happening on the screen! How did they know our greatest weakness (DAMN YOU LIAM NEESON). The hispanic guy gets wounded, then the black guy dies. The white guy saves the day (by finishing the level) and the lesbian goes straight and marries the white guy. The hispanic guy is the best man at their wedding.
The end.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
I think after what they did with Doom the only thing that is certain about this movie is that it will not have space or invaders. Otherwise it is all open.
As others have said, this is probably sheer desperation in needing to use a title people know to get punters to go rather then say a trailer with all the action shots or a female star taking her top off.
Space Invaders the movie... when people mention it dear Hollywood they were making FUN of you. NOT making a suggestion.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
SPACE INVADERS HAS ABSOLUTELY ZERO PLOT AND NO CHARACTERS
So does Twilight, and there's the movies and girls screaming for the actors. Put a hot chick, a hopeless romantic guy and ships coming down the sky back and forth and there you have it! Ah, wait, that was transformers.
I'll base the plot here on what I've seen in other movies like Independence Day and War of the Worlds (the Tom Cruise version).
Aliens attack earth to steal our water on account of its amazingly high specific heat capacity which they need for cooling their interstellar space drives. Despite the ability to travel interstellar space easily, the aliens somehow failed to read Sun Tzu's "the Art of War" and, assembling in a highly primitive phalanx formation reminiscent of the techniques of Ancient Romans, they are slaughtered wholesale by Global Hawks and F-22/F-35's manned by a people's army of inspiring ethnic diversity.
So starting with nothing they came up with a witty plot and some great acting, and they had a legitimate hit. Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow is an inspired character and he and Geoffrey Rush make the movie. Keira Knightley is no slouch either. It is a classic, and will be appreciated by generations of movie goers.
This success brought the 'Dark Side' of the Hollywood machine into play. Producers realized that they could look for movie concepts where there was no plot to begin with. From their point of view all they need is a recognizable concept/title. Think Alvin and the Chipmunks, Marmaduke, etc. So we are now facing the dreadful reality of the Space Invaders move. In 3D.
Why is Snark Required?
it's gonna be all back and forth, back and forth, the ending is totally predictable, the only question: who'll play the hot chick?
You can't handle the truth.
What's next? Pong: The Movie!!
I seem to remember seeing that in theaters under the title Forrest Gump.
There are a lot of unwritten and written stories that are worth translating to movies. The frame of invaders is not.
I hope Hollywood achieve some economical bankrupt to acompany the creativity bankrupt and the paralizing fear to tell new stories. I know is because money is coward, but I feel I am allowed to hate this cowardize.
-Woof woof woof!
As per subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VczbbiRmDik
From the description:
SPACE INVADERS is the 2nd video performance of the GAME OVER Project, directed by the Swiss artist Guillaume REYMOND (NOTsoNOISY creative agency). This stop-motion video was shot and played during and for the "Belluard Bollwerk International" festival (Fribourg, Switzerland | www.belluard.ch) on June 24th 2006.
Can someone argue about some copyright issues? TFA states the option to acquire the rights, not that they've been granted.
Mastering the English language is fucking easy: all you have to do is to put an f* word in every fucking sentence.
I think MS Office saga would be more interesting. Part I -- "Word", Part II -- "Excel" and so on.
Than sequels "Son of Excel" or "Word 2.0".
The name 'Space Invaders' rings a bell for a lot of people...
Some people will make a little mistake and accidentally rent "Spaced Invaders", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100666/, and they will probably be far better off. :-)
As long as it is in 3D it will be a smash!
coming up with a captivating universe, especially for video game adaptations, is no easy task.
I think the screenwriting experience is vastly underappreciated. While it's rough, perhaps, to think about what an alien world would be like, and then try to imagine some fictional situation, a much easier route is to just write about what you know, and then, embellish! Every day you go through events that you later tell others about, because they're inherently interesting stories... they're real world situations that people can relate to. These are perfect as inspiration for a movie plot.
For instance, perhaps I would talk about my first botany experiment. I grew a few plants in my apartment, and while I'm at first entranced at how things spring to life.. how my sunflowers, for instance, reach for the ceiling in weeks, I soon learned that if you overwater them, you fall prey to fruit flies that plant their eggs in your watery soil and soon multiply and become a problem.
So, let's embellish! Replace fruit flies with aliens. Archaeologists have been researching the reproduction of extinct animals using ancient DNA a la Jurassic Park, right? Don't worry about repeating prior art.. it's impossible to avoid, and if you tell your own story, it'll have a fresh perspective that will be appreciated on its own. But we want this to be an invasion with spaceships, right? So let's have them make this discovery in a Martian colony, and they decide to interbreed them with llamas. Surprise, this DNA was from an egg sent off by evil aliens from Alpha Centauri, that happen to reproduce fast like fruit flies, or maybe Zerglings. The Earth loses touch with its remote sister world, and soon send out a rescue spaceship to investigate. You see flashing across the 200 inch wide screen display on the bridge or whatever a face of a creature that looks like a cross between an insect and a llama. It hisses a warning to the ship's captain, along with the rest of the human race, that the human colony has been eradicated, they have regained contact with their mother race at Alpha Centauri, and soon, the entire race will be either enslaved, or destroyed. Their choice.
I'd watch that! The real challenge with filmmaking is NOT coming up with a good story. The challenge is coming up with reliable, knowledgeable people and locations, and the funds for the equipment/props you need. Money solves all of that. Making a well-funded movie is a complex task, but it sure as hell is a lot easier than if you have a low budget and volunteer/low-paid crewmen/actors. For the many well-funded movies that turn out to be crap, in my opinion, they have no excuse.
Dark Kidney Films
Will it be shot in 4 bit colour and in a none wide screen format?
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Hoping it'll be something like This
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100666/ - Spaced Invaders
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
SPACE INVADERS HAS ABSOLUTELY ZERO PLOT AND NO CHARACTERS
So does Twilight, and there's the movies and girls screaming for the actors. Put a hot chick, a hopeless romantic guy and ships coming down the sky back and forth and there you have it! Ah, wait, that was transformers.
Someone call Michael Bay.
Can't wait till they make a movie about differently shaped blocks falling from the sky.
Apple has "Mac vs PC", Microsoft has "Laptop Hunters", Linux has recession
That with the Atari 2600 console version they can make 112 Movies out of it
http://chimpbox.us
Dear Hollywood: Fuck you.
"Clippy Returns" would be an excellent title for a horror film.
on the dark side of this planet. this ugly, misbegotten planet. another hole in space to make, another sphere full of screaming, dying blobs of flesh.
i try not to think about it, but it gets to you after a while. last week lenni went crazy. he started writing on the wall with his blood and his shit mixed together... sort of like an 'outline font'. he wrote something about the 'last coming of the jesus lizard'. i couldnt read the rest of it. they closed off his bunker and hosed it down so nobody was really sure what happened to him, exactly. someone said they heard a shot, a loud shot in the night. but i dont think that was like lenni. lenni was more into knots and ropes. although i guess a plasma burst would be a hell of a lot faster and more painless.
i wonder what he was thinking, those last seconds before he pulled the trigger. probably nothing. thats what this job does to you. a hundred years of extermination. a hundred years of terror. a hundred years of making way for civilization - a civilization that you will never get to take part in. sure, maybe if you retire, but how many make it that far? out of my first squad class, there are only 3 left. 3 out of 50. all of the rest are dead or insane.
so why do i keep doing it, you ask? and who are you, i wonder? im writing this in a secret code in an ancient form of communication, called 'paper'. i picked it up on beta star seven stroke 6, alpha quadrant. some dead rat had a whole room full of the stuff, and a long cylindrical object that you use to scratch with onto the surface. it leaves an impression and a marking. its kind of fun once you get the hang of it really.
but im just avoiding your first question. why keep doing it? this shit hole fuck up of a job? no life, no future, no responsibilities, no nothing. actually thats kind of the good part. the bad part, the nightmares, the voices, the memories. the emptiness. you fill it up. the ship has an endless supply of drugs, of joues, of fake anthropods from every species upon which you simulate procreation. they even got simulated babies and families if you want it. dont know why you would, sick fuckers who do that shit are the ones you have to watch out for. they are the ones that really got nuts - they dont just off themselves in the privacy of their own cube hole. no. they take out an entire squad with them. they rain down parts onto whatever shit hole we are invading, like some kind of kid throwing candy from a pinata. they laugh, like corricks, that guy, he just started laughing and killing everyone. friend, enemy, commander, didn't matter. base lost 4 of its top ribbons, each with 200 years planet clearing experience... wives, pensions, families.
they tell us we arent supposed to mention his name. they killed a guy last week for doing it. actually it wasnt 'they', it was this shit hard sergeant named dooley. he's about as fucked up as lenni was, but dooley would never off himself. he loves pain too much - seeing other people in pain. he keeps them like that for weeks, keeping them barely alive so he can listen to them scream. then he offs them right as he ejaculates. dont ask me how i know this.
i would like to chop his dick off, though. just to see the look on his face. and then what? id become like him i guess. whatever. thats just a way to stay alive - either go crazy and off yourself, or go crazy and off everyone else. where is the middle ground here? go crazy and write into a little secret book, that nobody can find. hide it under your sleeper, train yourself to pass the mind-scanning test they do every week. become expert at logic twists and bending diagrams, to explain that 'no, you have no contraband information on your person or in your thoughts' because, well, technically, they dont even know that 'paper' exists... and so how can it be contraband?
anyways. another mission up. some shit fuck ass planet called 'earth'. it looks blue with smears of brown all over it, some green. and white all over the place. the inhabitants are like little blood pustules, stubby
I think I will wait for Asteroids.
The original score implies something dramatic with plot twists.
Personally, I think as far as classic video games go, Joust has much more story and plot potential than Space Invaders.
Though John Newcomer and Williams didn't give any deep details about the world the game takes place in, it at least has the makings of just a good sword and sorcery fantasy flick, featuring bird mounted knights fighting other mounted knights throughout the course of whatever quest and adventure they are on in thrilling bird on bird action.
Sadly though, it appears that Joust is already on the road to being fucked as far as movie possibilities go:
This space unintentionally left blank.
"Drop down, reverse direction, prepare for landing. You are defeated. Instead of shooting where I was, you should have shot where I was going to be. Muahahahaha!"
sigfault (core dumped)
An all-Limbaugh mixtape? That's pretty scary, I never heard him sing.
I smashed together a soundtrack based on an old Commodore-Format Sid tune from somewhere!
http://taophoenixmonitoring.dontgetcaughtwithoutone.com/sid2mp3_idler_fi_1310268370.mp3
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Sorry to hijack the topic like this, but availability of an audience of evident fans of the genre is too good an opportunity to miss, so .... does anyone here know of a good implementation of Space Invaders for the PC (Linux or Windows would do) ? .... one with reasonably faithful reproduction of the original action, graphics and sounds (it doesn't actually have to say "Taito" at the top tho'). I'd even pay :)
Cheers
If you don't pray in my school, I won't think in your church.
Already been done, or as near as makes no difference.
Flight of the Navigator
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
The epic video game movie to end all video game movies: Pong.
Just imagine what plot lines they could dream up for that one!
...put it's money into a sci-fi movie that's original (unlike all the movies that share the same story that the other posts are making fun of) while not trying to be weird (such as the "unspeakable fear in space/ocean/arctic" type) and actually making a proper effort with it.
Every now and then they put a huge effort into a movie and they seem to make lots of money (esp. with merchandise). And that's despite regurgitating the same basic stories and premises. I don't believe that sci-fi is not profitable, even with high production costs. But I do believe that it's a waste of money and effort reproducing the same ideas over and over, and that is not profitable. :)
Also, everyone sees through the veneer of "famous name" (in this case Space Invaders) but some of us cling to hope enough that we might see a movie anyway, just in case we get lucky. We got lucky with Transformers. Sure, many of you don't like those movies, but many of us do find them very entertaining.
But what if a movie was both entertaining and... thought provoking, or even informative, or even tickling our imaginations? When last did we see something like that? Examples are the excitement between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and the Matrix movies. (Yes, yes, they only made one according to some, but the other two as least tried, too hard by being cryptic, to be thought provoking as well, though they required too much mental effort for some.)
Surely there's enough written material out there to make use of? Perhaps producers need to start reading books from different authors, instead of using the same script writer every time.
Though not sequels, Space Invaders was made old with the release of Galaxian (space invaders with up to a squadron of 3 dive-bombing aliens), which in turn was uprooted by Galaga (Galaxian but now the flying around was the main thing).
Then Gorf gave you a mish-mash of all of the above.
Breakfast served all day!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE_1KlWFJyA is closer to the video-game-based-movie-plot theme.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
As long as we are remaking Atari games as movies, let's do Pitfall.
Plot: Man runs left on screen, falls into pit of alligators and is eaten. Man comes back to life, tries to swing over pit of alligators, falls into pit of alligators and is eaten. Man comes back to life, tries to jump on heads of alligators like stepping stones, falls into pit of alligators and is eaten. Man comes back to life, runs right on screen, successfully swings over pit of alligators only to fall into a pit of scorpions, in which he has to run back to the beginning using the mysterious jungle sewers and climb a ladder to get back where he started, only to realize dying would have been more efficient than running from the scorpion.
Add various symbols and allusions to sub-prime lending, and you've got a deep film about the modern world economy.
Coming soon: Pong, the Musical!
Space Invaders: The Pinball Machine! -- Which, they really made. http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2252
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Here's Cliipyyyyy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CMmwVRAtaI
Michael Bay: "Challenge accepted!"
Make it an audience participation movie. A few members of the audience, random chosen and willing or even an auction, will be issued an arcade light gun (ala Duck Hunt) and at certain points in the movie will need to shoot the aliens on the screen. Simple infrared light sensors behind the screen will trigger the different projectors upstairs to show either a successful or a failure scene ending. Gimmicky? Yes. Worse than the current 3D craze? Eh, make the movie a decent parody on it's own source material, and I'd go see it at least twice to see how it was different based on successful shooting(s) or not. That's twice more than I'm seeing 3D stuff these days.
> in thrilling bird on bird action. That's sold it for me!
The plot is obvious. Appropriate "Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. With lyrics like:
----
All:
Let's do the time-warp again.
Let's do the time-warp again.
Narrator:
It's just a jump to the left.
All:
And then a step to the right.
----
It's a natural fit!
- - -
"The sixth sick shiek's sixth sheep's sick."
Seriously, you are so right.
How about Tetris Meets Pacman THE MOVIE!
Ohhh, this could be good.
How about this: Command Keen? Actually that sound fine.
How about this: Monster Bash?
Snakes?
You can't handle the truth.
The opening credits for this movie are gonna be so great!
don't be a spelling loser
The Tetris Movie
The Angry Birds movie.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?