Angry Birds: the movie

[cbronson]

Well apparently there's a new blockbuster on the way:
http://www.movies.com/movie-news/angry-birds-movie/3513

The results of making movies out of games is ALWAYS AWESOME, so I'm curious to how this will turn out to be.


Heh on a side note, it reminded me of this:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/2200127/elephant-larry-minesweeper---the-movie

[elic]

Not that crazy compared to the Rock'em Sock'em Robots movie.

[PRIMEVAL]

Heard of a Guitar Hero movie that was supposed to be made.

[bgraybr]

Processingcontrol said:

Not that crazy compared to the Rock'em Sock'em Robots movie.

I actually thought that it looked interesting when I saw the trailer, but soon after my brother called it the "Rock'em Sock'em Robots movie" and now the movie is ruined for me. D:

Angry Birds sounds like it could have potential as a children's movie, but I agree that it will most likely be as terrible as every other video game movie ever made. The Doom movie was awesome wasn't it guiz?

[Aliotroph?]

Already made. Mom says it's creepy.

[TheDarkArchon]

bgraybr said:

I actually thought that it looked interesting when I saw the trailer, but soon after my brother called it the "Rock'em Sock'em Robots movie" and now the movie is ruined for me. D:

Eh, just call it the "One Must Fall movie" in that case.

[Maes]

None can beat "Postal: the Movie" as far as faithfulness to the original game's theme and tone goes.

[dew]

Aliotroph? said:

Already made. Mom says it's creepy.

[Maes]

TBQH, there's a TV commercial here in Greece that features a real-life recreation of Angry Birds. Aka they shoot Angry Bird dolls at polystyrene scenery or somesuch :-p

Cue a Kusturitsa-like Kocek rendition of the theme music, and off we go :-p

[fraggle]

Hitchcock already did it.

[Sharessa]

What the fuck is the obsession with this game? It's just a copy of an old flash game (which I can never remember the name of).

[geo]

Seeing Real Steel just reinforces my idea that movie studios can't draw with one movie theme per movie. They need to get 2 themes to spend the $200 million they're given.

- Awkward teen comedy romp movie & robots = transformers
- War (soldier) movie & aliens = battle for los angeles
- Western movie & aliens = Cowboys & Aliens
- Fight movie & robots = Real Steel
- Nogstalgia movie & disaster movie = Super 8
- Awkward teen HS movie, road trip movie & mythology = Percy Jackson

The list goes on and on. Maybe its always been that way, but now its more blatant.

[geo]

As for you Danarchy and your comment a lot of Flash developers had similar games as far back as 1997. But they just never had catchy cartoons. Cartoons sell.

[Maes]

We had a heated debate with Jodwin about this matter. If you really strip it to the bare bones, Angry Birds is nothing more but an artillery game, just like GORILLAS.BAS and Worms (and countless others before them).

The flash game everyone is referring to is, I believe, Crush the castle. Now, some people say that AB ripped off this one particular game more than others, but in reality you could argue that it ripped off more Worms or Gorillas or Artillery on the Apple II just as well.

Worms itself, a huge mid-90s hit and subsequent franchise, was vitriolically attacked by some Amiga Power reviewer at the time as being just "A ripoff of the old tired concept of two cannons shooting at each other" and that there were "countless shareware of freeware games" offering that kind of gameplay. While factually correct, he was clearly missing the point: yeah, Worms had this core mechanism.... plus a fuckton of other cool features that made it a tad, I say A TAD more interesting than playing GORILLAS.BAS, amirite?

In the same way, I could argue that Doom was but a ripoff of Castle Master or Dungeon Master, or that it's just a poor copy of Ultima Underworld (like that EDGE magazine reviewer did, in that 1994 article recently passed through newstuff), and conveniently slip over the facts that those games felt like pieces of dried cod in comparison with Doom's ass-blasting action.

Now, to the facts: I've played Crush the Castle and it's not particularly appealing. Dull graphics, troublesome aiming scheme (somehow they managed to make the controls bad on an artillery game) and generally feels stiff as a cod. Even if that was available in the app market near to AB, I wouldn't download it (or wouldn't keep it).

AB OTOH is more "flashy", fast paced, and even has some strategy/post-shooting controls thrown in (bombers/splitters/special birds), along with an original theme. In other words, it's more playable, and adds just the right amount of original elements to an existing concept, to make it fresh and playable again. Otherwise we could just as well go back to GORILLAS.BAS.

Again, someone said that AB ripped off both Crush The Castle's "artillery" element, AND the physics based one. Riiight....after a whole batch of "physics-based" games like World of Goo came out, AB ripped off right off and solely from a dull flash game... OK, whatever. I could argue that World of Goo ripped off the physics elements from Crush the Castle too, right?

That is also part of what makes a game "sell", that's why e.g. Doom overtook Blake Stone soon after its release, and mainstream gaming even forgot Ultima's Underworld engine (which was arguably more advanced than Doom's).

Quoting the Doom readme, this is clearly a case of "Others have attempted this...." And unlike e.g.the VHS vs Betamax debate, this was not a case of a lesser technology cheating its way upwards.

[Aliotroph?]

It surprises me people like Angry Birds so much. I find it a frustrating, unstable game.

[Clonehunter]

Processingcontrol said:

Not that crazy compared to the Rock'em Sock'em Robots movie.

Real Steel is actually based off of one of those 'Amazing Stories' from the old science fiction mags I believe. I think it has been adapted a number of times already actually, including one adaption in the Twiligth Zone.

[Reisal]

So what exactly would the plot of this movie be? :S

[Bucket]

Maes said:

None can beat "Postal: the Movie" as far as faithfulness to the original game's theme and tone goes.

You know, as much as I like the movie, you can see just how bad Uwe Boll really is at directing. At first I figured the guy who bad on purpose, but if you SET OUT to make a movie as horrible and offensive as possible then it's a different story. Even so, the movie had horrible pacing and inconsistent tone. A lot of scenes, even the cool action parts, dragged on way longer than they should have.

But hey, the Blu-Ray came with a free copy of Postal 2. So there's that.

[Clonehunter]

Mr. Chris said:

So what exactly would the plot of this movie be? :S

Angry Birds? Hmm, some birds with severe anger problems are happily looking at eggs in a nest when something distracts them. Happy hungry Pigs arrive and take the eggs and try to eat them. Birds go apeshit. The throw themselves through mountains of pain to destory the homes of the Pigs until the pigs give the eggs back (Like how the US dropped Nukes on Japan until they surrendered). In the end the Birds get the eggs back but die from blunt force trauma and numerous concussions and thier friends at ROxio get ca$h.

[Xeros612]

Why. Just... just why.

[Belial]

Bucket said:

You know, as much as I like the movie, you can see just how bad Uwe Boll really is at directing.

Tunnel Rats and Rampage were pretty good.

[Creaphis]

TheDarkArchon said:

Eh, just call it the "One Must Fall movie" in that case.

When I first saw the trailer this is what I was hoping it was.

Maes said:

stuff about games "ripping off" other games

Woah, I agree completely. With Maes.

The argument that we should value rather than vilify works that take existing ideas and change/improve upon them applies to all kinds of media/art, not just games. Read Something Borrowed by Malcolm Gladwell. I'm not well-read enough to post links to anything besides Gladwell articles but luckily he's written one on just about everything by now.

[elic]

Xeros612 said:

Why. Just... just why.

$$$

[Gez]

Clonehunter said:

n the end the Birds get the eggs back but die from blunt force trauma and numerous concussions and thier friends at ROxio get ca$h.

If that's how it actually ends, it might be worth the ticket.

[40oz]

A bit off-topic but speaking of movies I recently saw a trailer for what could have been one of the first original action movie plots I've seen in a long time. What appeared to be a old western ghost town similar to the time and setting of the video game Gun, only to have the saloons and burlesque's invaded by UFO's. I was actually quite surprised to see Hollywood redeeming itself with a movie plot that was finally thought "outside to box" until I saw the movie titled quite literally Cowboys and Aliens which immediately eliminated all interest I had in the plot.

[Phobus]

It's been done before, i just can't remember the title of the film I watched that was literally "cowboys vs aliens" in theme.

[Sharessa]

Maes said:

The flash game everyone is referring to is, I believe, Crush the castle. Now, some people say that AB ripped off this one particular game more than others, but in reality you could argue that it ripped off more Worms or Gorillas or Artillery on the Apple II just as well.

Oh yeah, Crush the Castle is the one. I keep wanting to call it Castle Crashers, but that's a different game entirely. Granted, Gorillas, Worms, and Scorched Earth all had a slightly similar mechanics, but Angry Birds is basically a dead ringer for Crush the Castle. Pretty much just a sprite replacement, with more refined graphics. It's got the catapult, the enemies sitting in destructible buildings, and the same damn types of ammunition (or birds). If ever there were a case of a lawsuit in the video game industry of someone ripping off someone else, this would be the game to do it with. I mean, saying Angry Birds is a similar game to Worms is like saying Half-Life is a similar game to Doom. But saying Angry Birds is a similar game to Crush the Castle is like saying Chex Quest is a similar game to Doom.

Speaking of Worms, BTW, the latest game is on sale on Steam for $5 now. Looks a lot like Armageddon, which I loved, but better graphics, so I think I'm going to pick up a copy.

[Jonny Powers]

PRIMEVAL said:

Heard of a Guitar Hero movie that was supposed to be made.

I've heard of the rights of a Space Invaders movie being bought, and saw some other weird ones here:

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/25-movies-based-on-video-games-apparently-still-in-production/a-201008101584232028

[geo]

I could work with some of the shittier games like Asteroids and Space Invaders. I wouldn't even need $200 million budget... but I guess no one wants to make a movie less than $150 million :-(

Angry Birds starring Seth Greene & Brendon Frasier & Frank Welker.

[Csonicgo]

I found it to be unstable and slow on some of the first run android devices, sometimes to the point of being unplayable. The performance really blows.