Shadow of the Colossus: The Movie

Movies
#1

And in one of the worst ideas in game-to-movie history…

Hollywood’s new favorite fanboy writer, Justin Marks of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Voltron, and Masters of the Universe, has been hired to write the screenplay.

Even with the best screenwriter in the business (whoever that is), I don’t think there’s any way to capture what makes SotC so special and moving. Ideally it would feature almost no dialogue, in my opinion. Overall, though, I consider SotC to be “unfilmable” in the sense that there’s no way to translate it into another medium without losing something essential to the experience.

And on a purely practical level, is SotC even a recognizable enough title to bother making a movie of it?

#2

This was already made into a movie. It was called Reign Over Me and the colossi were represented metaphorically, by Adam Sander’s inability to just get over 9/11 already. Don Cheadle played the role of the horse.

-Tom
#3

Who was the sun?

#4

His ipod.

#5

I might be the only person who really liked that movie, but, yeah, what Tom said.

This adaptation will show that the game’s inarguable gaping flaws are inarguable when translated into another medium.

#6

Cheadle’s wife in the film. I think. Or it could have been Sandler’s iPod.

#7

And in case you guys haven’t seen the best in-movie use of Shadow of the Colossus, allow me to recommend El Rey de la Montana.

-Tom
#8

May I refer you to post #4?

#9

Fixed.

#10

Solution: Paul Thomas Anderson?

#11

Cheadle’s wife, then.

#12

Shadow of the Colossus is like the least cinematic game ever made. This is a bad idea.

I guess it might look pretty?

#13

t seems like a natural fit for a Russian style film, by which I mean no talking whatsoever and 5 minute shots of empty scenery for no goddamn reason.

(There’s probably a more proper movie-guy way to characterize this, but I don’t know it.)

#14

“I only came here to stab statues in the glowy bits and chew gum…and I just ran out of gum”

#15

In the Russian film version there would also be no actual Colossi, just discussions about how you would defeat one if/when you saw one.

And then one of the characters would come into a scene all covered with blood and scratches claiming they had just battled one.

#16

Mmm, that still seems like too much context.

#17

The story is pretty weak and cliched; its saving grace is that it does not rely much on the story.

Judging Marks on Street Fighter is like judging Gavin Hood on the first cut on Wolverine he turned in a year ago with the theatrical release.

#18

Yeah, I’m sick of all those games in which you battle towering behemoths to free an ancient demon to resurrect the girl you weren’t allowed to love at the cost of your own soul. I mean, what, again?

As far as I’m concerned, it relies almost entirely on the story to propel it forward and give the events in the game context, and the presentation and revelation of what’s actually happening is exceptional. Sometimes how you tell a story is more important than what the story contains, and SotC is one of those times.

#19

Watt-Evans’ Law of Literary Creation:

There is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented writer can’t get a good story out of it.

#20

Okay, you win for the latter paragraph.