Ratchet and Clank

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Ratchet and Clank

Post by Dacey » May 1st, 2016, 2:20 pm

We didn't seem to have a topic for this. Guess that shows how highly anticipated it was.

And, even though Zootopia has been in theaters for almost two months now, it still beat it at the box office this weekend...

http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/6 ... a#/slide/1
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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by EricJ » May 1st, 2016, 2:51 pm

Unless they get as overconfident as a Lionsgate title ;) any low-rent indie third-party CGI is MADE to be put into April Cannon-Fodder weekend for swift execution...We Who Are About to Be Crushed By Marvel, and Free Up Needed Cineplex Space, Salute You.
The makers just wanted the movie to tie in with the PS4 game release, so they were happy it got out at all.

That said, I remember playing the first PS3 games and thinking the cutscenes were pretty much like every low-rent indie CGI movie (complete with a Patrick Warburton-clone voice for Quark), except it was....funnier. We LIKED these characters, unlike certain squirrels, space chimps or polar bears.
Last edited by EricJ on May 2nd, 2016, 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by James » May 1st, 2016, 3:31 pm

I'll have a review up soon. My wife is a huge R&C fan so I've been watching her play these games for years. She's actually holding off on seeing the movie until she finishes the new game. She'd rather have the movie spoiled than know how the game is going to end!

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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by James » May 16th, 2016, 12:58 pm

Review up! I can tell by the activity on this thread you've all been clamoring for it! ;)

http://animatedviews.com/2016/ratchet-and-clank-film/

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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by EricJ » May 16th, 2016, 4:05 pm

But with video game movies the question is what successful idea is kickstarting this trend?
Well, have to take it on a case-by-case basis:
- Some, like this one, were produced by the game company and wanted to tie in with a physical-game release.
- Sony's Angry Birds, like their upcoming Emoji movie, wanted to tie into what "the young kids with their cellphones are watching" (and we finally got the final TABM trailer that actually shows a movie about launching birds at pigs...Whew, was starting to get worried there for a while, with the marketing showing us every corny CGI-critter-comedy gag except that.)
- The Warcraft movie seems to have been in limbo for a very, very LONG time, at least longer than the Assassin's Creed and Uncharted movies,
- Paramount wants to do-over Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movies, in the hopes they can "link-universe" it with all those Transformer-clone Hasbro movies they want to make.
- Oh, and then some Nintendo and Atari movies, because Sony got a little too pleased with themselves with the pre-tracking for Pixels, and knew that it wasn't Adam Sandler the audience was coming to see.

No, really: Are you one of those people who think that 10's studios make movies because the audience wants them??

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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by Ben » May 17th, 2016, 8:54 am

Three words (almost): Wreck-It Ralph.

Released in 2012 to 87% RT and nearly $500m worldwide, it takes six months or so for other producers to catch up on a "thing" and for it to register. With the videogame cameos in the film, it soon had those character owners, and others, working out how they could monetise them further, just as the DTV Barbie titles came after Toy Story 2 showed how she could look in CG.

Flash-forward the three-to-four years these things take to develop, write, finance and go into production and here we the exact amount of time later with a bunch of these films on the way. There's no case by case about it: one big success always has followers and with all the videogame films that never made it to screen, something like Ralph opens just enough doors to make some of them viable.

So, ironically while we wait for a real Ralph follow-up, we're about to be inundated with a heap of knock-ofs, wannabes and inspired-bys, as well as anyone else with a videogame property that they think turning into a CG feature will make it the next Ralph. But as so many found when they tried to make toy-led movies after Toy Story, those films only worked because they were original ideas built on existing ideas and nostalgia. Some of these films will be hits, some will be misses, but Ralph was the big one that got the movies interested in videogame characters again.

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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by EricJ » May 17th, 2016, 1:02 pm

Ben wrote:There's no case by case about it: one big success always has followers and with all the videogame films that never made it to screen, something like Ralph opens just enough doors to make some of them viable.
Okay, did we get a second Hitman movie because of Ralph? :roll: Or because of the rampaging box-office success of the first one?

No. It's the software companies. "The studios" aren't the ones who pitch the license/projects in the first place, it's only the studios that ruin them later. Somebody else has to be greedy first.

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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by Ben » May 17th, 2016, 3:41 pm

You post makes little sense and displays no knowledge of how the studio system works.

We got a second Hitman because the first one was enough of a success to make the studio think a second, made for cheaper, could bring in the same numbers, hence another profit.

My use of the words "character owners" and "producers" in my earlier post described the software companies and people who are responsible for pushing their properties towards becoming movie titles.

Software companies have always tried to get movies made from their properties. It's the studios that have to make the movies (and, yes, ruin them to make the films appeal to a wider demographic). Every now and then videogame property owners find a producing studio and attempt a new big title and we get a small run of such films that crash and burn, turning the studios off trying for any more.

When a studio itself has a hit - as with Ralph - then everyone wants to try again, and it's easier to draw on existing properties (titles the studio doesn't have to develop, characters the software companies want to monetise further) than create new ones. Which is why they largely fail.

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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by James » May 17th, 2016, 7:29 pm

Tetris movie in the works? First of a trilogy?
http://www.polygon.com/2016/5/17/116911 ... production

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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by James » May 19th, 2016, 9:00 am

Right on time for our discussion, Honest Trailers just released their Wreck-it Ralph video this week: "revisit this adorable animated adventure that finally cracked how to make a good video game movie".


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Re: Ratchet and Clank

Post by EricJ » May 19th, 2016, 1:40 pm

I thought the Van Damme "Street Fighter" cracked How to Make a Good Videogame Movie, by having a director/screenwriter who actually played the game in his life, but that's....pretty much just me. :(

And another Honest Trailer for a good Disney movie, and they still haven't touched Tomorrowland yet. I thirst for justice.

(And...yeah: Ralph inspired the Warcraft movie. Anyone want to work on that theory?)

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