They're Making a Movie Based On the 1978 Game 'Space Invaders' (deadline.com) 132
The 1978 arcade game Space Invader will become a major motion picture, reports Engadget. "The writer behind the 'Mortal Kombat' reboot is involved."
Deadline reports: It will take work fleshing this into a full-fledged alien-invasion movie, but the title is certainly a brand. In the game, a series of blocky aliens descended from the top of the screen to the bottom, and players basically blasted them until their thumbs cramped, or the invaders succeeded in overwhelming the slow-triggered defender of earth.
"Nothing surprises me any more," adds the headline at Io9. Once, I would be surprised and bemused by the things Hollywood tries to turn into major franchises in 2019. I might observe how the truth now matches what we used to make up as parody. But, look, Battleship is a real movie and Rihanna was in it and that was seven years ago... Since the arcade game is entirely devoid of plot, except for the riveting narrative of shooting up until your thumbs cramp, it'll probably be some entirely original plot about alien invaders, maybe something Independence Day-esque, with some inevitable cute nods to the original thrown in... [W]e'll keep you posted as long as you keep putting quarters into the machine.
Yahoo Movies UK calls the news "apparent proof that Hollywood will literally make a movie out of anything... Also in the pipeline is a live-action outing for Sonic the Hedgehog, which was delayed earlier this year so that Paramount could redesign the character following a fan backlash."
I'm still waiting for a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster based on Pong.
Deadline reports: It will take work fleshing this into a full-fledged alien-invasion movie, but the title is certainly a brand. In the game, a series of blocky aliens descended from the top of the screen to the bottom, and players basically blasted them until their thumbs cramped, or the invaders succeeded in overwhelming the slow-triggered defender of earth.
"Nothing surprises me any more," adds the headline at Io9. Once, I would be surprised and bemused by the things Hollywood tries to turn into major franchises in 2019. I might observe how the truth now matches what we used to make up as parody. But, look, Battleship is a real movie and Rihanna was in it and that was seven years ago... Since the arcade game is entirely devoid of plot, except for the riveting narrative of shooting up until your thumbs cramp, it'll probably be some entirely original plot about alien invaders, maybe something Independence Day-esque, with some inevitable cute nods to the original thrown in... [W]e'll keep you posted as long as you keep putting quarters into the machine.
Yahoo Movies UK calls the news "apparent proof that Hollywood will literally make a movie out of anything... Also in the pipeline is a live-action outing for Sonic the Hedgehog, which was delayed earlier this year so that Paramount could redesign the character following a fan backlash."
I'm still waiting for a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster based on Pong.
History (Score:5, Funny)
It's about time we had a documentary about the Invaders. Kids these days have no clue how bad the danger was.
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Even as late as the mid 1980s there was considerable risk of finger damage from the Invaders.
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Make it stop.
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A game you could not defeat just prolong the moment you were destroyed.
...thus preparing our youth for real world employment.
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IotBS was based on Defender, not Space Invaders.
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People will watch anything (Score:4, Insightful)
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Perhaps somewhat ironically, there is in fact a very good book about space invaders: Terry Pratchett's 'Only You Can Save Mankind'. I hope they won't, though - seeing how Pratchett's Discworld stories have been made into movies, it is clear that his stories are beyond the average filmmaker.
Except that was less about Space Invaders and more about the 1990 Gulf War (and you'd probably have to explain that, with diagrams, to modern audiences).
The actual game-in-the-book was a sort of cross between WIng Commander and Elite (...although, in reality, Elite was pretty much the antitheses of the tropes the book was lampooning).
Now, Elite would make a good film or TV show... Oh, Wait... [imdb.com] and wait some more [imdb.com]...
I think the problem with Pratchett books is that if you're read the book you've already see
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Idiocracy was a documentary.
Keep in mind that Mike Judge also made Beavis and Butthead, a perfect representation of society and MTV at the time, and Office Space (I had to wear a suit to work when that came out).
If the movie is over 30 minutes it will be boring as hell.
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> Idiocracy was a documentary
Indeed. I thought Idiocracy (2006) was supposed to be a political and social satire -- not a documentary!
Pong Movie... (Score:4, Informative)
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still waiting. :|
When the "paddles" are on the same side, that is Jai alai. You need .|. to more closely represent Pong. ;)
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Indeed. Pixels
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Pixels
Which itself seemed like a (rip|spin)off of a Futurama episode [wikipedia.org].
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Yeah, I half expect the script to involve the words "Drop down, increase speed, and reverse direction!"
Don't post dumb movie ideas in the comments (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't post dumb movie ideas in the comments (Score:4, Insightful)
Next you will be claiming that The Emoji Movie was a cynical cash grab.
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You keep getting dumb movies because millions of people paid to see the last dumb movie. It doesn't matter what's in the comments. If the studios keep making money on the dumb movies then they'll keep making them.
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Arkanoid III: The Revenge of D'oh!
Featuring Homer Simpson.
Don't see the problem? (Score:2)
"Spaced Invaders" (Score:2)
Yeah, I forgot about it as well...
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
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You can make a URL but you can't even copy/paste the title properly:
The Last Starfighter (1984)
When it flops (Score:2)
Warner Bros. bought the movie rights to Space Invaders years ago, and now it looks ready to do something with the classic alien-blasting franchise. Deadline reports that Warner's New Line Cinema is advancing production on the film, with Mortal Kombat reboot writer Greg Russo handling the script. There's no release window yet, although the lack of detail suggests you'll be waiting a while.
When it flops, are they going to bury Greg Russo along with his script in some landfill in New Mexico?
A Broke-Ass Picture (Score:3)
I spent so many quarters on that fucking game I feel like I deserve at least an executive producer credit.
Wait (Score:2)
You're telling me they ran out of comic book movies? Wait until these new young studio execs hear about public domain works. Their heads will explode when they realize the stories are free.
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Isn't that Disney's gig?
not surprising (Score:2)
If it happens, it is late. there should have been one years ago. and for those who is laughing at the thought of a video game turning into a movie, you must not watch anime. there are a lot of good stories there that were originally video games too, some are also live action.
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You're probably thinking of the visual novel adaptations... which are essentially novels with voice acting and some amount of graphics. There are adaptations of games (e.g. Granblue Fantasy and other mobile games I don't recall at the moment) that are terribly generic and usually exist to drive sales for the (microtransaction-laden) game. The Gods Eater anime seemed pretty generic too.
There are tie-ins like FF15 Brotherhood. Final Fantasy Unlimited doesn't really count IMO.
The Castlevania anime counts, I su
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you must not watch anime. there are a lot of good stories there that were originally video games too, some are also live action.
That really doesn't matter at all these days, it rather what agenda someone with influence or important people around them back push as a pet project. Look at how fast the media and critics have fallen all over Battle Angel: Alita, and just how much they're screeching that the fan base is full of alt-right women hating misogynists. Figure that one out.
Of course that's what it's gonna be (Score:2)
"some entirely original plot about alien invaders, maybe something Independence Day-esque, with some inevitable cute nods to the original thrown in."
Of course, what else could it be? Of the spectrum of possibilities, I'm guessing closer to the "Independence Day with the serial numbers filed off" end.
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It's scary how close your comment is to the actual movie.
Sent from my iPhone X3s Pro.
difficult (Score:5, Funny)
This is really tricky. Given that Space Invaders is a 2 dimensional game. I'm not sure Hollywood can handle an additional dimension in their plots.
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LOL
> I hear Brie Larson is going to have a big role as a projectile, ...
Maybe she'll play a role as a DUD missile? :-)
Theme music from 40 years ago (Score:2)
I can only hope the movie uses the music from the 1979 pop song of the same name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
That's Nothing (Score:2)
A Tetris movie is already in the works. And a Polybius movie (presumably it will be something like Ring or Jumanji.)
Personally I'm more hyped about the full-length Kung-Fury movie in the works.
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https://www.penny-arcade.com/c... [penny-arcade.com]
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Frank Zappa summarized that the same thing happened in the music industry. [youtube.com]
As long as it releases on Saturday (Score:1)
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Score: +1, Futurama reference.
I bet that Futurama episode is better than whatever shit Hollywood will crap out.
Great, another thing to crap on copyright (Score:2)
We've already seen Pixels the movie get the original Pixels animation (that the movie was based on, thus it preceded the movie) taken down due to copyright infringement. So now can we expect everything and anything to do with Space Invaders to also be hit by copyright claims?
"Hey, you need to pay our movie studio if you want to play a game based on our movie. I don't care if you've owned it for 40 years...!"
What? they made this movie already (Score:2)
Here is the trailer [youtube.com]
It's already been done (Score:1)
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/... [cc.com]
Just A Name! (Score:2)
It's not dumb because the association with the game puts no real constraints on the movie. There are already plenty of movies about fighting off invading aliens. Hell, you could have called Independence Day "Space Invaders: The Movie."
So really the content here is just: Hollywood is going to make a movie about alien invaders. That's not particularly interesting or surprising. Nor is the fact that they will try and tie in that movie to an existing brand to increase headlines.
Tic Tac Toe (Score:2)
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Already done : WarGames
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames
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Hollywood making movies about videogames is a strange strategy.
The only winning move is not to play.
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http://www.quickmeme.com/img/f... [quickmeme.com]
Futurama did this better (Score:1)
What a blatant rip-off of Futurama [youtube.com].
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No kidding. It is short too. :D
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If you watch Starship Troopers with the same mindset as the director (i.e. the over-the-top militarized society is just stupid), it's actually a pretty good, although predictable action movie.
usually they don't make a movie out of anything (Score:2)
instead, Hollywood keeps remaking old stories since ingenuity is largely dead, and they are usually done more poorly.
I'd rather have a Galaga movie (Score:2)
I can respect Space Invaders, but I preferred Galaxian and later Galaga.
And then they could make a Galaxian prequel which should be shorter because at least for me my Galaxian games are much shorter than my Galaga games.
And then they could fill out the trilogy with Galaga 3: Gaplus [wikipedia.org], but I don't think I ever saw a Gaplus machine. I saw very few Galaga 3 machines and maybe it was because I had invested so many quarters into becoming proficient at Galaga but I didn't really care for Galaga 3. I had to watch a
tetris movie (Score:2)
well, they are also making a tetris movie, so why not one about space invaders?
https://www.empireonline.com/m... [empireonline.com]
How about a nice game of chess? (Score:2)
That made it an effective metaphor for nuclear war, which was recognized when Microsoft published its annotated arcade classics series for Windows in the nineties.
HAHAHAAA... (Score:1)
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