Borderlands is failing already.
Borderlands is failing already.
Eli Roth's Borderlands movie is nearly here, and early impressions are starting to trickle in - and, well, they're not …
Good. I hope that sleaze Pitchford loses a mountainload of money on this. I absolutely hate the guy, he's a liar and a thief. And arguably, depending how you look at it, a pedophile.
As a short reminder: Borderlands was originally meant to look like this. Then, at the MTV Asia Awards 2006, an artist by the name of Ben Hibon premiered a neat-looking animated short by the name of Codehunters. You can see it here. Witchford saw this and wanted to use the artstlye for his new game. He and Ben had a back-and-forth for a while and then, radio silence.
2009 comes around and Pitchfork's new game Borderlands is released. And to say that it looked familiar to Codehunters would be an understatement. Kitschford, being an upstanding and virtuous citizen that he is, straight-up aped Codehunter's style. No discussions or agreements were made with Ben and as such, despite Borderlands becoming hugely profitable, Ben didn't see a cent. And that is why I will always hope for the Borderlands IP to crash and burn. Or, at the very least, for someone to actually pay Ben Hibon for (unknowingly) creating the game's artstyle. Anyway, rant over, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I agree that Pitchford is a dick, but I sincerely disagree about the art style comments: I don't think it's morally correct to "copyright" (or, reworded: claim exclusivity of) art styles, especially in this context.
I think the two works are completely independent, and Gearbox being inspired by the short film is completely appropriate.
Anything else would be no different (in my opinion) than cases like Roger Dean (the cover artist for Yes' early albums) suing James Cameron for the floating islands in Avatar.
It's not stealing to be inspired by someone else.
I remember just a couple months ago before that game Mouse (the one that's all black and white, rubberhose animation style, where you play as a detective mouse) was supposed to come out, and everyone and their mother was freaking out over the use of the rubberhose style, as if Disney had a copyright on the entire art style itself.
I just thought people were fucking stupid for voicing those thoughts in the first place.
You forgot that he also assaulted Claptrap's original VA because he asked for past royalties to come back after the team begged him to.
Nah, I didn't forget. It's just that Pitchford's list of screw-ups is so extensive that if I wanted to list of each and every one, we'd be here all day.
The casting alone is all you need to know to expect an unmitigated disaster.
Kevin Hart as Roland is genuinely one of the worst castings I've ever seen.
Well, there is the rock for any roll that isn't a literal rock.
The trailer looked like a wannabe Guardians of the Galaxy clone.
Well that tracks as Eli Roth has never made a good film.
I bet isn't worse than Uwe Boll.
I love the borderlands franchise but there is no chance ill watch the movie. As soon as it said some of the writers from marvel was involved i was out.
As if borderlands is some peak fiction.
It might become a cult terrible movie. I think thats its only hope.
Ill watch it at some point, but I wont be paying.
Just saw this a few hours ago. If it wasn’t for this post I think I’d have forgotten about it already.
I guess it’s fine, just entirely unremarkable.
Eli Roth
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. Has Roth made a good movie?
I thought the Green Inferno was perfectly cromulent. I can't remember much of it, but I didn't despise it.
I kind of like Hostel.
Nah, I saw that piece of shit in theaters and still wish I would have walked out. I know what he was going for, but like every other roth movie I've seen (doubly for anything he's written), it's just not well done outside of the cinematography. And frankly, well shot porno and gore scenes don't make for a compelling movie on their own.
Should I play the game though?
BL2 is one of my fav games ever.
They are... Okay.
Big random factor in the loot so you can go long stretches without any interesting upgrades if you're unlucky.
There's a lot of time wasting - go here, now go back there, now go to this place
Leveling is weird and is a big factor in damage. If you're too low level you can't do anything except die. If you're too high level you can't lose. Sometimes you do too many side quests or not enough
The games typically start slow. You go a long while before you unlock your cool powers, or even the ability to equip four guns.
The writing is meh except for Handsome Jack. He's a great villain.
There was a mega bundle of all the games before 3 for like $5. Look for that kind of sale.
I resolved to stop paying full price for anything Pitchford and his touch based on a number of factors. I did buy the latest BL game when it was on a big sale and thoroughly hated the main story and various plotholes (seemingly from cuts made by the company/directors rather than the writers). I bought Tiny Tina (again, on sale for over half off) and it was a game with all kinds of bugs that just never got fixed -- it's the first game I didn't immediately roll a new character to replay after beating it. At this point, I'm not sure I would buy anything else they put out.
I highly, highly recommend playing BL1 and BL2. They're fantastic games, and wonderfully written. Not all of the humor has aged really well (nothing offensive, just mostly very 2010's-specific humor), but the gameplay still holds up today, IMO. The DLCs for BL2 are particularly good, and among some of the best DLCs I've seen for any game.
Play BL2. I didn't really bother with 1. BL2 is such a great game, probably sunk more hours into it over the years than any other. Lots of replayability with different characters, TVHM and UVHM, DLCs etc.
They are great, but the unskipable cutscenes kill me.
They're fun especially with friends
Played the first two, cringy and tedious. And this is coming from someone who loves plenty of pulp and grindy games.
Not surprised. But with some better writing this could've been at least somewhat decent. Love the games and there are lots of stories to tell there.
It's been some time since I saw critics and fans so aligned, congrats to the Borderlands movie! lol
The movie feels like it was made after they picked the cast then curated it to the actors instead of the source material. I know everyone seems to like the cast choices but I genuinely think it's the worst line up they could have done. The closet to acceptable would be jack black. I honestly don't get why they wouldn't just do the voice actor for him or find someone who is close to a perfect match.
I've got a home copy to watch tonight for free and I only have that because a friend sent it to me. I don't even wanna pay the electricity to watch it.
I never saw a single comment, be it from friends or online, praising the casting lmao.
Who likes the casting choices? I think I've only heard criticism on the casting.
I'm sorry but the cast alone is proof they didn't give a fuck about the fans. It's also dumb as fuck how they're "telling their own story" and aren't ballsy enough to go the route fallout did (telling a good story within established canon).
I'm not going to see a movie about borderlands if the established, existing core character cast isn't literally from the game actors. Big celebs can be cool if they're their own unique characters, but core, pre-existing characters should be played from the games.
Should clarify: if you're going to use the main characters in the series, they should be using the actual actors. If you want to make some new characters, then that's fine. If these guys were brand new vault hunters, I'd be far more forgiving.
I forgot that they were making this. I just checked the trailer, and it surprisingly doesn't look terrible. As far as video game adaptations go these days, this actually seems pretty true to the source material.
I imagine it'll be one of those movies that's terrible for general audiences, but will probably be well-received among its niche. As a huge fan of the first two Borderlands games, it looks solid and I actually want to watch this.
As far as video game adaptations go these days, this actually seems pretty true to the source material.
Uh... What? Look at the casting- Roland should be a straight-man (in comedy terms) but they've cast Kevin Hart to tell his typically unfunny cracks. And while I love Kate Blanchett she is not a good fit to play Lilith
Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about some of the casting as I'm kinda tired of seeing Kevin Hart and Jack Black in everything lately (I'm surprised I didn't see The Rock in the trailer somewhere, to be honest), but the overall feel of the trailer seems to match the energy that the games had. I'm not saying it's 1:1 accurate by any means, but the trailer definitely manages to feel like Borderlands. I imagine the writers for the movie didn't want anybody from the main group to feel like a "downer" character, so Roland's probably being reworked a bit.
I'm okay with it so far, at least. It's generally pretty hard to make the "strong, quiet type" very interesting, especially for a movie format where you have limited screen time that has to be shared among a lot of characters. You can make that sort of character interesting, like in No Country For Old Men, but you have to dedicate a lot of time to it, and that's not easily done with a story that has so many characters with their own stories to tell.
I dunno, I'm just remaining optimistic. I want to like this movie.
Have to disagree. The games and the trailer are very far apart.
just downloaded it am very excited to watch it.
well its impossible that it could be worse than the games so im sure the borderland fan will like it give it some time
Joltzdude thought the movie was pretty bad, with few good moments. He's one of the most wholesome people I've ever run across, and a massive Borderlands nerd. So while I normally try to make my own decisions on these things, I am willing to bet it was pretty bad.