Topic: The Movie Thread

@graymamba I guess I should have tagged more people for a chance of joke recognition 😅 I was very much into the player-written notes, and the Dog variation was one of the big ones in Elden Ring. It was often left by the Dogs.

I'd expect a bunch of weird hidden easter eggs in an Elden Ring movie, if it ever gets made.

@Ravix 🤣 I must’ve missed that during my playthrough… or it happened in that weird @greymamba-dimension 😉. Strange as I was quite into all the Dark Souls player message-lore… but I did come to those games later, when it had already evolved and taken on a life of its own. I played through Elden Ring pretty much at release and had it all wrapped up within the month. So I guess a lot of this Dog stuff really took off after that maybe. Shame, as it would’ve probably been something that I would’ve appreciated.

@graymamba yeah, I don't know how these things start, probably forums and reddit help, but from it you get these running jokes that spread through the world and pop up again and again. So even though it is a pretty serious game most of the time, it is full of genuinely humorous nonsense.

Speaking of casting, I hope Brian Blessed can do some VA work for this. Trying to think if he'd be the perfect Alexander, Warrior Jar. And what his reaction would be to being offered the role of warrior jar 😭

@Ravix They could make an Elden Ring Trilogy, it's possible. Dark Souls didn't have that much of a story and the books and comics really fleshed it all out. I could easily see three movies come from Elden Ring. That's only six hours of screen time, think of how many hours one Elden Ring playthrough goes for, all of the characters, locations. It could work like 28 Years Later too, that same two hour cut-off point followed by 'now you wave to wait for more'. There's the Manga too, which I haven't seen many people mention.

@MightyDemon82 Did you know about these?

@Ravix that would be bloody perfect fair play!

@GirlVersusGame I kind of imagine they will want to make a movie focused on the politics or more the great battle/power struggle between the very gods!

It is kind of a weird property to imagine how it could translate to film, but I imagine that would kind of work, as it is easy for people to understand and digest gods/demi-gods fighting for power and influence as it is a tale as old as time.

And yes, I definitely heard part of my sentence turning into Rykard as I was typing it. That game burrowed so deep into my head 😭

Are there any rumours yet on a general approach or story? What are your thoughts in what would work best to kind of fit Elden Ring into 2/3 hours without it being completely obscure to the casual viewer.

@Ravix Are there any rumours yet on a general approach or story? What are your thoughts in what would work best to kind of fit Elden Ring into 2/3 hours without it being completely obscure to the casual viewer.

• There's not even been a glimmer of a leak on that original script and I check every now and then because I'm curious what direction they'll take. For a pitch like that, including storyboards it would never go over digital media. The studios use a kind of custom Teams App to move certain documents around (it's been cracked before) he must have handed his pitch over face to face or through one of their in-house courier systems. They could follow the lore and do a quick rundown of how the character gets banished from the Lands Between, show how it all fell into ruin when the Elden Ring was broken, run it from there to 'you need to return to be the new Elden Lord', perform the resurrection, then monsters lots of monsters.

The thing I'm wondering about is if the protagonist will be alone on that journey, that fits the lore but studio Execs work hard to push the buddy system. They don't understand that one protagonist can carry a picture and they aren't always willing to take the gamble. Nor do they understand video-game franchises, Elden Ring would be green-lit on 'here's how much money the game made'. look at Badlands. I think it worked for Badlands but for Elden Ring? Maybe not.

One protagonist always works better on a novel because an author can go inward and describe, feelings, thoughts and emotions. That doesn't work with a screenplay, it has to be fully re-presentable on screen. That's why I struggled with script writing classes, I kept implementing inward thinking and was marked down for it every time. It's a very mechanical process meaning every page of that pitch he wrote is dialogue, cues and action. Could one protagonist carry two hundred pages of dialogue? I think it's more likely that they'll find a way to incorporate the Roundtable Hold, possibly make it a group effort. I'd hope they add some spirit ashes, I can already visualize how a scene like that might look. There's a wealth of visuals, gags and gimmicks from the game that could translate so well. If it were a group effort they could split the characters off like The Running Man then have each face a different boss, but that's if they go with the runes. Another reason for a group would be down to the different in-game classes. I'd like to see the one protagonist set out on raw, rough, and ready adventure, but that was the game. I think they'll follow the Mortal Kombat formula, one combined effort. They'll want to represent different people etc, and the perfect way to do that would be through the games class system.

How would you do it?

@GirlVersusGame inward thinking, you say... so what you need to do is to tell them to shutthefudgeup because you want to write in a classic noir style, some grubby, grimey detective style stuff. That's why that works so well as a style because you get to understand the inner thoughts of a lone protagonist as if it were a novel. And... now I kind of want: Elden Ring Noir.

"It was bright out. Something burned in my eyes that night. Flasks half-empty. Words half-said. Once living, now dead.

But somehow... I feel... reborn. Reborn to a world I don't recognise anymore.

An urge takes over. I must try to figure it all out.

I must try...

fingers but hole"

😁

I'm unsure if what I wanted to see would even have a protagonist, as such, or even have the journey to become Elden Lord, yet. I think I would want to see the battles between the gods as the main story at first, the consequences of the ring shattering, and maybe end the movie with someone 'opening the door' onto this new world state after however much time has passed.

You could maybe have a faux protagonist, frame one of the demi-gods as having more focus for the story and switching to the Elden Lord story after they all fail, or focus on Marika perhaps? I don't know. I feel like there is so much to be gained from seeing the world get to the stage it is in at the start of the game rather than try and have movie goers work it out in such a short time.

@GirlVersusGame I didn't know about those, but now that I do I'll have to check them out. Although I still need to play Elden Ring. I own it and started playing but was side tracked.

I finally watched this gem. It's a version of Robocop from Bangladesh, it was actually pretty good. There was a lady Terminator that he had to fight at the end and they fought all night long, they even drove somewhere and fought there too. He finally won the day by throwing her into an active volcano. There was of course some dancing too. I've seen maybe ten or so Robocop knock-offs now, that's up there as one of the best.

Any other 80's kids getting nostalgic for He-man?

This could be a surprise hit of the summer.

@MightyDemon82 I want see it for other reasons, but I'm definitely excited. The old 1987 movie is one of my favorite bad movies of all time. It introduced me to the series/franchise. I was reading this lately.

It's almost seven hundred pages of lore, background etc. Dark Horse put it out. The Toys That Made Us did a feature for it too, for Netflix.

@GirlVersusGame That's looks brilliant. I have the art book.

Fingers crossed the film is great and folks go and see it. Certainly looks like it will be fun.

@MightyDemon82 Oh that's nice, I haven't seen that one before, the classic red fits it really well. I'd expect merchandising to explode with the new movie, I'd be surprised if they didn't push new toy lines too.

@GirlVersusGame Yes, Mattel will no doubt be gearing up a new toy line and collectors will lap it up I'm sure.

@MightyDemon82 I had so many "Masters of the Universe" action figures ("don't call them dolls, mom!") back then and I remember getting up early on Saturdays (or was it Sundays?) to trek to a friend's house to watch "Fun Factory" with "He-Man" and "Transformers" and "Thundercats" and some others I barely remember ("Mask", or something?). Very few people in our small town had foreign TV channels (not counting Swedish TV) and our street were among the latest to get them.
Anyway, I've been very sceptical of this movie during its production - and the casting of Leto certainly didn't help - but I am happy to say that it seems that the filmmakers properly understand how this could work: embracing the silly and not trying to approach it as anything resembling a movie for grown ups (though I expect our age group will be heavily represented in the viewership )
I actually think I may go see this one, something I didn't think I would just a couple of days ago

@FuriousMachine Those were the days. I also had many of the "Masters of the Universe" action figures. My mum's best friend, who lived across the street from us, had 2 son's that were kind of like older brothers/cousins to me. I had missed the boat on stuff like "Transformers" & "Mask" but they introduced me to those.

It were those guy's who also introduced me to gaming (my first console the Magnavox Odyssey 2, was a hand me down from them before I got my first Sega machine.) Star Wars was also introduced to me through them.

I was also skeptical about another live action adaptation of "Masters of the Universe" but my wife and I will be there day 1 for this 😀.

The year had a rough start for me, but last weekend I managed to nab some quality down time, which consisted of a very therapeutic aromatherapy massage and no less than three visits to the cinema. The massage is a soothing balm for body, mind and soul for me and it turns out that one of the movies was quite helpful to rid me of my funk as well.

Rental Family - The trailer made me think this was a dramedy, but it is more a beautiful drama about relationships and our need to connect with other people, with some light laughs lightly sprinkled in there. I absolutely loved this movie; it felt like a big hug and I teared up quite frequently. Sometimes sad, but mostly sweet, even achingly so at times.
Brendan Fraser is fantastic in the role as an American actor struggling to find gigs in Tokyo who gets hired by a firm specialising in hiring out actors as "family members" for various reasons - never had a grandmother in your life but want the experience? Need a fake groom at your own wedding to fool your parents into thinking you're straight? "Rental Family" is the company you need.
That old chestnut "the role he was born to play" certainly applies to Fraser here; casting is rarely as perfect as it is with this role. The mostly Japanese supporting cast is also brilliant, with the standout being young Shannon Mahina Gorman playing the little girl who needs a "father" in order to get into a prestigious private school.
This was the first movie I saw at the theatres this year and it will have to be quite the stellar cinema year for it to not remain at the top of my top ten list at the end of the year.

The Housemaid - Having had my "feels" stimulated with the previous movie, the day continued with some pure "trashy" fun. Sydney Sweeney plays a young woman with a dark past getting a job as a live-in housemaid for a rich couple, played by Amanda Seyfried and Brendan Sklenar, a job that very quickly turns into a nightmare as the lady of the house seems quite unstable.
Based on the novel by Frieda McFadden - which I recently read - this is one of those rare adaptations that doesn't lose much when trimming the story down to movie length and it remains faithful in all the ways that count. As I read the novel, I suspected that Seyfried might chew this role up with relish and she did not disappoint. I was constantly chuckling darkly to myself at her portrayal of the unhinged housewife, especially as I knew what was coming.
Sweeney does a good job as well, but she won't sway your opinion of her - should you have one - one way or the other here. The movie does lean into her penchant for, ahem, showing off her assets, which, to be perfectly honest, isn't entirely unwelcome.
I hadn't seen Sklenar in anything before, at least not to my recollection, but he was quite convincing in a role that has a couple of more layers than one would initially think.
This movie will not set your world on fire, but I thought it was quite a fun ride, primarily thanks to Miss Seyfried.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - Before seeing "28 Years Later" last year, I revisited "28 Days Later" and "28 Weeks Later" and, much to my surprise, found I didn't enjoy them half as much as I thought I would, going off my memory of when I last saw them. It was yet another surprise, then, that I loved last year's entry as much as I did - it was one of my favourites of 2025. The Bone Temple had a lot to live up to then.
And I would say it absolutely delivered. I will not go into any plot details so as to not spoil anything, but I will say that Nia DaCosta has crafted an absolutely brutal movie whose horrific and bloody imagery serves to contrast and accentuate some surprisingly tender moments. Ralph Fiennes delivers another superior performance here; that man is simply a joy to watch sometimes and this is definitely one of those times.
It is almost impossible to judge where you will land on this based on how you feel about the previous entries, but I would not be surprised if it turns out to be divisive. For me, when exiting the theatre, I was thinking it was almost as good as the previous one, but after having sat with it for a while, I am now of the opinion that this is the superior movie, not only of the two, but of the entire franchise. Your mileage may very well vary, though.

@MightyDemon82 Yeah, the live-action adaptations of 80s cartoons has had a rough go of it. Of the multitude of "Transformers" movies, only two are actually good (the first one and "Bumblebee"), in my opinion. I hardly remember the Lundgren/Langella "Masters of the Universe" movie, but I remember I didn't like it - though I may have taken it too seriously, which would be detrimental to a movie like that.

The G.I. Joe movies weren't very good either, I thought. I remember not hating the first one when it came out, but I couldn't tell you a single thing about it now, even with a gun to my head, so particularly memorable it was not. I'm not even sure if I saw any of the sequels or spin-offs. There are maybe other adaptations that I forget, but if there are they certainly didn't make an impression

My first home computer was the Commodore 64, which I got when I was 9 or 10 (or thereabouts). I have never even heard of the Magnavox Odyssey, but what a fantastic name for a console!! It even beats "The Okama Gamesphere" in the cool console name contest There's no way the actual console could live up to that name, is there? Or did it?

@FuriousMachine "The year had a rough start for me, but last weekend I managed to nab some quality down time, which consisted of a very therapeutic aromatherapy massage and no less than three visits to the cinema. The massage is a soothing balm for body, mind and soul for me and it turns out that one of the movies was quite helpful to rid me of my funk as well."

Glad to hear your feeling better, I'm not a fan of massages myself but jealous of your 3 cinema trips.

"Rental Family" sounds great, I look forward to checking that out.

I will borrow "The Housemaid" novel from my co-worker going on your review in the "Books you are currently reading?" thread.

I must watch all the previous films in the 28 series. Are they all required viewing? Bear in mind I haven't seen the most recent ones, only 28 Days later & 28 Months later and that was a long time ago.

The name certainly is cool. The games however were a mix of great to meh, but nevertheless still impressive to a 6 year old discovering the hobby for the first time.