It’ll be fine for whoever hasn’t played through the games but kinda seems like they hacked up the source material and shat into its dying carcass.

Kevin Hart is playing Roland who’s 5’11". Lilith is 22 being played by Cate Blanchette who’s in her 50’s. I guess Jamie Lee Curtis fits the aesthetic of Tannis but in the trailer doesn’t exhibit the same mannerisms. And then claptrap is voiced by Jack Black but has a filter on to sound more like the goober anyways. Maybe it’s the gamer-gulag in me but I’m really thinking this is gonna suck. Like they could’ve gotten Terry Crews for Roland, Brandon Rogers for claptrap(just someone a little unhinged and funny as hell) , some youngish, mildly attractive white chick for Lilith, I guess krieg is fine just needs to be slightly slimmer, I guess the tiny tina is ok too but there’s not enough energy imo. And the rest of the cast might work but there’s nothing about them in the trailer. And it feels like they just used the characters like dolls for a script they came up with set in that universe. Like why not expand upon the lore either before we meet them on the bus, or in between 1 and 2 similar to the presequel, or between 2 and 3 (I never played the tell tale games… side-eye-1 side-eye-2 ) or just really anything else. They could’ve followed other wacky vault hunters on other planets and could’ve had them interact with the main cast of 1 2 and 3, depending on when they wanted to set the story. Idk it just seems like a lack of creativity in all departments involved in the making of the movie. I might pirate it tho just to see how bad it really is.

It’s just slop but it always happens to the Vidya Game movies. whywhywhywhywhy what’re y’all’s take on it? Am I just yells-at-cloud

    • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      5 months ago

      I lol’d. Uhhh. They have a throwaway gag of testing a battalions worth of guns and only finding four worth keeping? And like keeping like one or two that are under leveled but still unique enough to keep around and starred so you don’t accidentally throw them away? I feel like BL would work waaay better as an anime though especially given that its cell shaded and already has a cartoony feel to it.

      • SpiderFarmer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        5 months ago

        It’s a genuine shock that Mortal Kombat movies don’t do better. You literally just need to rip off a Kung Fu flick and change some names.

        • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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          5 months ago

          Yep. Yeeeep. Like the inspo for cage is van damme and he was in Bloodsport. It’s sooo close. I guess directors see it’s a video game adaptation and just half ass it.

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          The issue is directors that feel the need to “fix” the source material. It’s a tale as old as time, the superhero movies used to do it as well. Just movies made by people with no love for the source material, who felt embarrassed about working with it. An example is the X-Men movies had them wear tacticool black leather and mock the yellow jumpsuits or Batman’s obsession with “realism” from the 00’s onwards

  • driving_crooner
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    Lilith is 22 being played by Cate Blanchette who’s in her 50’s.

    How much of this character being 22 is because gamers riot if they cannot masturbate to the women on the games, instead of being young being part of the narrative of the character?

    Never played the game btw.

    • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      5 months ago

      She’s quippy but still professional I guess? Like it’s not my coomer brain talking (haven’t had that happen at all yet here, or as far as I’m aware). You just have a stiff older lady trying to play a young badass with magic powers and she’s not giving that same chill and relaxed but could fuck you up energy.

    • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      5 months ago

      Lilith is a cliched sort of grindhouse/action movie heroine: a sarcastic, sadistic badass who’s believably athletic. There are probably some 50-something actresses who can pull that off, but Cate Blanchette bringing “someone’s mom, going through a mid-life crisis” energy is just such a bad choice.

      Grabbing big name actors that they could get and who weren’t busy, regardless of what the role needed was such a bad, quintessentially Hollywood choice. They should have gotten literal nobodies and made a schlocky grindhouse b-movie out of it, not good but like fun bad spectacle slop instead of a baffling “how did this even get made?” make-work project for some random big name actors.

    • Bay_of_Piggies [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      5 months ago

      The casting choices being way out of line with the source material is a giant red flag. It’s not a meaningless nitpick like when a characters race is changed (and their race never informed the character). It’s that the vibes of the characters do not fit the actors and the trailer doesn’t show them modifying themselves to fit their roles. Roland especially, he is a straightman, the opposite of Kevin Hart.

        • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          5 months ago

          That’s worse news for Amazon than for me, I can just not watch it. Costs them billions per show cause they seem to feel the need to spend that much. So, to all actors, writers, directors, directors of photography, gaffer, grips, best boys, extras, supporting actors, featured supporting actors, caterers, teamsters, truck drivers, cgi slaves, prop guys, property masters (title sounds weird but they just keep the warehouse where they store all the stuff for a movie organized), art directors, art consultants, key frame animators, janitors, special guest star Wayne Knight as well as the camera operators should thank me for Jeff Bezos pissing away a lot of money on their solid, usually union labor simply to spite my personal tastes. Hell of a briar patch.

          • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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            5 months ago

            Unfortunately Jeffrey Bozos has access to the infinite money glitch so this is just one of his hobbies. But you do help with stimulating the economy though so keep letting them data mine you for more terrible IP abuses.

  • Deadend [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    5 months ago

    The physical characteristics of the actors hired isn’t why it’s going to be dogshit.

    The fact they couldn’t even scrape together a mediocre trailer (which there are huge organizations DEDICATED to the art of pumping out trailers) is a sign it’s going to suck. They also completely fucked up by not getting this crapshow out before Furiosa even though it was filmed 3 years ago is a sign it’s going to suck. The writer (Craig Mazin who got awards for The Last of Us the TV show) HAD HIS NAME REMOVED FROM THIS MOVIE is a sign it’s going to suck.

    The fact they are trying to “adapt” the games at all, instead of just do what Tales from the Borderlands did… and just do their own wacky adventure on a wasteland planet that is said to hold ancient alien treasures along with more recent human treasures from all the failed attempts to get the alien treasures, combined with the magical resurrection technology that eventually brings everyone back to life (maybe minus a few brain cells or a few dollars or maybe too late) can BE a fun premise for a movie.

    • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      A little tho. Like are we gonna have Kevin Hart play Micheal Jordan or Wilt Chamberlain? Like have the funny man do funny movies instead of making him try playing the tall straight man. It’s just a whole mess that yes him being short, cate being old, yada yada, isn’t the sole reason it’s going to suck, but someone remotely familiar with the source material will be able to see at a glance that it’s going to be a steaming mound of horseshit and not have to do any further sleuthing. And yeah that’s kinda what I wished they did instead just go the tell tale route (I’ve seen snippets of it while binging bl slop). Maybe cover the corporate wars? The immediate aftermath? The crackening(idk what it was called, basically when Pandora had it’s vault opened and eridium spilled everywhere). The sealing of the destroyer. There are so many story beats they could’ve focused on that weren’t explored in the games at all to avoid any comparison to the games.

      • Deadend [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        5 months ago

        https://youtu.be/WDlBirYlyAg?si=38bMGBqNpnhEgiZ3 tales from the borderlands works better, and the needledrops in the games were more interesting than the Movie trailer… which also weirdly has a LOT of overlap with the 1 minute clip from IGN.

        The thing is, always expect franchises and adaptations to be shit. The only reason to ever be interested is if they accidentally give control to people with interesting ideas like Bakemonatagi anime series being given to a director who hates conventional angles or doing anything straightforward, or Greta Gerwig doing Barbie (but also it’s still inside of a system that doesn’t want interesting things)

        this movie was cooked from the start, the director Eli Roth was Work for Hire and managed to shoot and release another movie in between the filming and release of this. The whole movie exists because of Sunk Costs, Borderlands 3 wasn’t really a big hit but things had been bouncing around… and likely that Embracer group money was what was needed to push the movie from maybe to Sure. but then you know… Embracer group went poof

        • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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          Yeah, it seems like it tried to be too safe and is going to suffer because of that. Wasn’t the live action One piece pretty good though? So it’s not a hard and fast rule that adaptations will be shit but definitely a good litmus test I suppose. NGL the opening credits for tales of the borderlands that you linked isn’t selling me on it. But those kinds of games aren’t really my thing either. Atleast they did add some story to the series overall and for that I’m thankful. I’ve been writing spiels for everyone commenting so far and going back to one or two of them, I really do feel like they could’ve done an anime movie or series even. Like haha how do you make a movie about cleaning out your inventory and comparing stats… (Which is such a funny comment to me as I’ve spent hours timing reloads, shots per min, projectiles fired, looking at damage over time, mag capacity, synergy, etc) but like I’ve already said it could be a throwaway gag that’ll tickle the gamers and amuse the general audience in its absurdity ( think spy hard where Charlie Sheen is doin a Rambo and there’s a mountain of casings[I think that’s spy hard right?]). You could have the menus pop up similar to S.O.A. or various other isekai’s and the writers could focus on dreaming up bizarre and wacky guns like The Bane (as a very annoying jokey example). Now on one hand I think following the eridians and what happened to their civilization could be neat but also keeping the details to a minimum and maintaining their mystique would also do wonders. Obviously have a Claptrap, Moxxie isn’t really necessary(but that could’ve been Cate’s role instead, and if she were to be in a theoretical anime you could have her referenced or spotted in a wide shot in one of her many many bars, otherwise while she’s got well… Moxie, she’s kinda just TnA goonbait for gamers {imo} [despite canonically being close to if not in her 50’s]) , Marcus (only really important because he’s THE arms dealer), Zed and a few other characters of note, maybe a cameo of Zero or Zane as they pass the protags on their way to complete a contract. Honestly though besides Claptrap you could have a whole new cast of plucky heroes and just use callbacks for the likes of Moxxie,Marcus, Zed, by using a vending machine or what have you. Like they have the equivalent of the Internet but for whole solar systems and maybe they got a video / holographic message from Moxxie telling them to do xyz. The main cast could be trying to unravel more eridian mysteries, maybe there’s yet another entity like the destroyer, maybe it’s just about the loot, maybe there’s a new corporation/manufacturer struggling to enter the market, or they have to fight off waves of goons from several different factions as a previously undiscovered vault or vaults become public knowledge, finding the other sirens, finding Lilith or literally all of the above. Just with the amount of money that was spent and the amount of story they have to work with it just seems like the movie is gonna be a big wet fart compared to what could’ve been.

          Btw everybody is griping about Eli Roth and I still haven’t looked his imdb up. Is he that bad? and for some reason I have a feeling he made barbarian.

          Anyways welcome to my Ted talk am now tired and will finish reading the rest of this thread then call it a morning and get tf to sleep.

          • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            5 months ago

            Wasn’t the live action One piece pretty good though?

            I watched it and the lack of budget really shows. Stuff like adult Luffy having a slight accent (putting the emphasis on the wrong syllables or words in a sentence) while child actor Luffy doesn’t. The hair dye looks pretty bad. Instead of fighting Buggy and his whole crew in Orange Town, the straw hats beat the crew off-screen and fight Buggy solo, with the only locations used being a small circus tent or the backroom of said small circus tent. Instead of fighting Kuro and the Black Cat Pirates on the beach to keep them from getting to Syrup Town, they fight Kuro and two other servants (who were apparently also undercover and working with him the whole time though this is never mentioned) in Kaya’s mansion. Instead of fighting Don Krieg, because that would involve a large group and Baratie being damaged, Mihawk kills them all in the Grand Line so there’s a small scuffle between Arlong’s crew and the straw hats instead. Instead of fighting Hachi or the seacow, because those would have to be full CG, they have Sanji and Zolo just fight some random fishmen mooks, one of whom knows fishman karate. In order to re-use the sets they have (which are, in fairness, mostly very nice), they have Garp follow behind Luffy and talk to people in the same places.

            Wait, what were we talking about?

            Also the Charlie Sheen bit is from Hot Shots Part Deux.

            • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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              5 months ago

              Oh I didn’t know they changed so much of it, it just looked pretty good for it being live action, haven’t had the chance to watch it. And it totally is, specifically when he’s shooting from the boat. No idea why I mixed it up with spy hard…

  • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    The casting is terrible and weird and probably the result of some other negotiations and deals, but setting that aside it also just looks bad. Like visually it looks like dogshit. Bad cinematography, bad choreography, bad effects. It looks like if Uwe Boll was given a bigger budget and modern CGI.

    It doesn’t even have like shitty B-movie charm, it looks like some kind of weird make work project for some big actors who don’t have anything else on their plates right now where they’re spending too much and playing it too straight for it to have some charming schlock to it.

    Borderlands should only be adapted as some kind of low-budget, straight-to-cable grindhouse series with nobodies, something like Blood Drive.

    • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      Yep this was kinda my thoughts on it. Should’ve been mad max esque with a bunch of talented nobodies that throw in a few quips here and there, with the most famous of them being the voice actors for echo logs, echo net w.e. and or maybe an A list for cameos, ala Deadpool style. That is borderlands though huh… Mad max, Deadpool, and a smidge of Halo, blended until smooth

    • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      For real… No one is going to touch the IP after this flops hard. They’ve been making marvel movie after marvel movie and this is exactly where they could’ve used Jon Whedonites to write a script for this movie… It didn’t need to be on Pandora either, could’ve trotted from one locale to another changing up the scenery from mostly desert planet(Pandora), to city planet (promethea), to swamp planet(Eden-6), or literally any unexplored planet that has yet to be thought up. And they didn’t need to stick with any particular character save for Claptrap since they’re a mass produced model of robot. Just have a good trailer following about 4 - 6 wacky vault hunters and tag alongs and boom every fan wants to watch it and surely non fans would get sucked into a fun quippy action movie about treasure hunters.

  • Rose Thorne(She/Her)@lemm.ee
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    It looks like someone took a rejected script, had an LLM shit a Borderlands summary off of Wikipedia across it, and then they tried to save it by throwing whatever star power they could afford at it in desperation of getting non-fans in the seats.

  • AlpineSteakHouse [any]@hexbear.net
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    The trailer is written like some off-beat PG-13 family comedy.

    They should be going to the Grand Canyon with their new stepmom not fucking treasure hunting.

    • HexBeara [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      Lmao. Roland the bitter reluctant father, krieg the overprotective uncle, Lilith the exasperated mother, and Tina the rambunctious teen, and Tannis the wine Aunt. I know it’s usually vodka Aunt but she doesn’t seem to be a mess and a bit classier.

  • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    5 months ago

    Those casting choices

    Including the named characters from the first game where the plot didn’t matter at all

    Including Tiny Tina

    bruh

    Why is this even a movie at all lmao.