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Thank God This Is Dead

Discussion concerning the TV, film, and comic adaptations.
Thank God This Is Dead
Post by Fyrwulf   » Thu Mar 31, 2016 7:03 pm

Fyrwulf
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No insult intended towards David, but he chose the wrong company to take on this project. Any company that starts off by saying, "How it's done in the books is great, but it'll never work in visual medium" doesn't have the talent or creativity to take on such an epic story. I'm creatively retarded, but I'm a computer geek and I know Evergreen was angling for the Hollywood equivalent of a forum shitpost.


1) We know that wedges indicate direction of travel. Well, modern game engines have the ability to create visual distortions using shaders. EA implemented heat distortions in Battlefield 4 with its Frostbite engine. Why then are gravity distortions, red-shifting, and blue-shifting impossible? They're not, of course.

2) On the comic side, there's software (now available for free to everybody) that allows for animation without having to draw every frame. Or, hell, just implement separate cell-shaded skins for the models (another shader effect) to be used in the movies and use selected freeze frames from an animated sequence to fill out the comic book.

3) Rather than a movie or comic book, why not approach AMC, SyFy, or HBO to do a series? Every chapter an episode, for as long as it will draw the ratings necessary to continue production. Certainly that's better than these failures that never get off the ground.
===
Short of Evergreen explaining themselves directly to us on these boards, I no longer have any faith that they're committed to making a movie and related products that have any relevance to the Honorverse.
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Re: Thank God This Is Dead
Post by Greentea   » Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:23 am

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Well, Evergreen went out of business, so it is now moot. We shall see if someone else approaches it better.

Fyrwulf wrote:No insult intended towards David, but he chose the wrong company to take on this project. Any company that starts off by saying, "How it's done in the books is great, but it'll never work in visual medium" doesn't have the talent or creativity to take on such an epic story. I'm creatively retarded, but I'm a computer geek and I know Evergreen was angling for the Hollywood equivalent of a forum shitpost.


1) We know that wedges indicate direction of travel. Well, modern game engines have the ability to create visual distortions using shaders. EA implemented heat distortions in Battlefield 4 with its Frostbite engine. Why then are gravity distortions, red-shifting, and blue-shifting impossible? They're not, of course.

2) On the comic side, there's software (now available for free to everybody) that allows for animation without having to draw every frame. Or, hell, just implement separate cell-shaded skins for the models (another shader effect) to be used in the movies and use selected freeze frames from an animated sequence to fill out the comic book.

3) Rather than a movie or comic book, why not approach AMC, SyFy, or HBO to do a series? Every chapter an episode, for as long as it will draw the ratings necessary to continue production. Certainly that's better than these failures that never get off the ground.
Cup of tea? Yes, please.
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Re: Thank God This Is Dead
Post by Fyrwulf   » Sun Apr 10, 2016 1:31 pm

Fyrwulf
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Posts: 147
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 4:30 am

Greentea wrote:Well, Evergreen went out of business, so it is now moot. We shall see if someone else approaches it better.


I know they did, otherwise they'd still be working on this.
===
Short of Evergreen explaining themselves directly to us on these boards, I no longer have any faith that they're committed to making a movie and related products that have any relevance to the Honorverse.
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Re: Thank God This Is Dead
Post by Phalanx   » Sun Jun 19, 2016 3:49 pm

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Fyrwulf wrote:
Greentea wrote:Well, Evergreen went out of business, so it is now moot. We shall see if someone else approaches it better.


I know they did, otherwise they'd still be working on this.


First, I am going to repost something from waaay back in 2010 that still is sound advice for whoever picks up the series now:
Phalanx wrote:So I saw Hutch's thread, and I thought that comparing ANY Big Budget Hollywood Movie to the Planned Honor Film is not just comparing Apples and Oranges, its comparing an Apple to a Red Honda Civic.

Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist is a live-action web series(Set to release on DVD/Blu-Ray in the US later this month) based on the Street Fighter Video Games. In my opinion, it is BEST movie produced for the Street Fighter IP.

Lesson 1:Keep A-listers to a Minimum
We all know movies that touted the fact that they crammed A-list celebs into nearly every single role is more suited for a TV charity special than a series attempt to tell a story.

Give a audiences a chance to judge the performance of the actors as they portray the roles.

Using SF:AF as an example here, people complained about the fact that the story was going to be a prequel, focus only on Ryu and Ken, and that the Ryu actor was too short.

Very few of the cast are well-known, and NONE are A-listers. This gave the series a chance to sink or sink on its own merits.

Lesson 2:Respect the IP, but explain when,how and why certain changes must be made.
Not everyone was happy with the decision to not only have the story be a prequel, but also include flashbacks. We have ALL seen BADLY executed flashback sequences in TV and movies, and so some were concerned about the quality of the story.

The explanation offered is that the SF:AF staff wanted to write an acceptable backstory for the core characters Street Fighter before moving on to the more fantastic elements and expanded roster of characters.

No Bison? No Guile?No Chun-li?

Could this thing be good?

Lesson 3:Offer something to those who know little or nothing about the IP without alienating those who do
Herein lies the rub, because most people to whom Assassin's Fist was marketed knew something about Street Fighter(even as little as "Ken is the guy who wears red and Ryu is the guy who wears white").

This is the same as "making them care" that hutch points out on his thread about Guardians of the Galaxy. Although, I would point out that Assassin's Fist does this MUCH better than Guardians. Even in the trailer for GotG, I was left with questions like "If is from Earth, how did he get into space? Is it the future?". I understand the whole point of those trailers was to get you to ask those questions and then go see the movie.

This strategy WILL NOT work for Honor(and SHOULD NOT in my opinion), and should focus on the characters AND the setting. SF:AF does a better job of explaining who these people are, and why you should care about them.

Evergreen, unless I am mistaken, won't have a Marvel Studios level of money to promote this movie, so every ad and trailer will have to count. This will be more than "differentiation", but creating interest in the setting and characters.

This also goes for continued sales of the books. Those of us who bought SITS(Saganami Island Tactical Simulator) remember that it included a disk with most of the Honorverse books that had been written up to that point(and then putting it aside because you said "I already have all of these books" :lol: ). What if a Disk conmtaining Basilisk Station and Honor of the Queen were added to every DVD/BluRay copy of the movie?

I know that is waaay down the road, but please spare us from the "Movie Poster" syndrome of other Books-into-Movies("I,Robot 'now a major motion picture' :roll: ")

Assassin's Fist focused on the fact that it was presenting the backstory of the most popular characters of the IP, Ryu and Ken.

Answer the question:Why should someone who know nothing about the Honorverse watch the movie? What sets your movie apart? The answer both the Honor fanbase and the Moviegoing public will BOTh accept MAY be different than the answer you give(or gave) at the pitch meeting.Average people don't speak Hollywood.

Another caveat is DO NOT remove elements SIMPLY because they are "too complex". This is a WEAK excuse and only angers established fans of the IP, because you get accused of "dumbing it down". IF an element needs to be removed or diminished, it should because the story can be told without it.Weber, for example, mentioned that characters may need to combined so the cast is not so huge. In this case, the fans would accept a combination that does not have us asking "Did Rafe Cardones and Harkness do the Fusion Dance from Dragonball GT?".


Lesson 4:Avoid Suggestions from those who want to change it into something else
Assassin's Fist started out as crowdfounded, and stayed that way until they found a backer who would let them tell the story they way they saw fit without "Hollowoodizing" the IP(Poor Street Fight has had this done to it not once, but twice).

What does listening to Social Justice Warriors, Media Consultants, and Market Strategists while ignoring those who understand the mythos of the IP get you?

It gets you Street Fighter:Legend of Chun-li :cry:.

Lesson 5:Honor should be played by an Unknown.
I know this seems like point 1, but it really isn't.

If I said, "Do you know Mike Moh?". Unless you have seen Assassin's Fist, you are likely not know him right off the bat. This gives you a chance to judge him on the way he portrays Ryu and whether he is faithful to the character as created. This too will be a metric by which the success of the Honor movie is judged.

The first question people should ask when the Honor actress is announced is "WHO", not "Wasn't she in Walking Dead last season?".

This is the launch of Film IP, and should sink or swim not on how much people love an actor or actress overall, but the movie itself. It should make people willing and ready for a Sequel.

For this to work, Honor needs to be portrayed by someone who is unknown.Furthermore, Honor needs to be the LAST main cast member to be announced before the first teaser trailer is released.

Because of public response, Street Fighter:Assassin's Fist has gotten a second season, World Warrior.

Lesson 6:An Orginal Soundtrack(or at least a score)
This is where GotG fails for me. It was fun and entertaining, but the fact the music was basically songs I can hear on iheartradio whenever I wish did nothing for me.

The song "Hooked on a Feeling" and the other music from the Soundtrack did more than the original soundtrack, not just because of its use as a plot device, but because it did a better job of creating the ambiance and was more memorable.

The GotG original soundtrack(NOT the "Awesome Mix") is the usual boring, and uninspired mood music that plays at crucial scenes, but is in no way memorable(Go ahead. Try humming it in your head right now.). Marvel has been capable of producing better soundtracks. The Avengers theme was good, for example.

Assassin's Fist did sort of the same strategy of music as plot device as Guardians, but the execution was better. Ken's theme and Ryu's theme are both well-known among street fighter fans and have received MANY treatments over the years. What set Assassin's Fist apart was that the most memorable song was the original theme(the one that is likely to be playing on the DVD menu). The song captures the nature of the story in a way that is more "ear food"(a John Williams or Jeffrey Goldsmith Score) than "eye candy"(score for a Michael Bay movie).

Consider how after all these years the thing most people associate with Mortal Kombat is the techno score, a score which was created for the movie only.

If Honor is going to be in theatres, then we need to have people leaving the box office not just talking about "Man that awesome, when are they making the next one?" , but humming the score.

I despise Celine Dion's "My Heart will go On"(sappy nonsense). James Cameron(the Director of Titanic), however, was smiling all the way to the bank(a friend of mine saw Titanic four times AND bought the soundtrack).

Lesson 6:Getting to know you, getting to like you.

Evergreen is to be applauded here for communication with the communication. They already have OUR money, and are still interested in hearing our opinions and responses to anything they announce.

We all know they already have our money(seriously, has anyone already decided that they WILL NOT see it?)and yet they listen.

You do care. :D

What Street Fighter:Assassin's Fist did was host multiple Q+A's leading up to the release of the trailer. I was impressed by how much they knew about the mythos of Street Fighter and the information they were giving us about the movie.

So utilize social media like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and(God help you) Reddit to engage the community and anyone interested in the movie.



Also a note for content tie ins:
1) Art Consistency across the brand
Star Wars does this. Battletech has begun to implement it.

Don't let some Marketing "guru" tell you that people are too stupid to tell the different ships apart. As long as the ships are painted different colors, people will get it.

The same goes for all artistic content. HMS Fearless should look the same on my tv screen as it does in the existing artwork. It is possible for the reasons Fyrwolf explained.

2)Narrative Consistency across all products.
Easiest to do with Comics and Games, hardest with a TV Series. Solution here is to give BuNine final approval on narrative content, rather than waiting on HIMSELF specifically.This is to not say that Weber should not be involved, but rather to have a role to resolve any questions that BuNine does not have answers to because it involves unresolved plot elements or unknown narrative elements of the Honorverse.

As I stated back in 2010, if an element must be ignored then simply have it cut. Also avoid "combining" characters. For example, if Rafe Cardones needs to be cut, then simply have an extra BE in that slot, but give them no(or fewer) lines. So lorehounds KNOW that its Rafe there, but he's just secondary to the story.

Or you could cut minor narrative threads. Let's say you turn Honor Among Enemies into an episode(s), but you cut out the Aubrey Wanderman subplot. Instead you release it as a separate comic.It actually works as a separate "lower decks" story that could be fleshed out with Wanderman's backstory without subtracting from the main narrative(A panel with the reaction of the one who said "Oh God, Harrington, we're all going to die!" would be worth the price of purchase in my opinion).

3) The Babylon 5 Model(with a twist)
Babylon 5 was a science fiction series which lasted for five seasons and had multiple movies which acted as "signposts" in the narrative beginning with the pilot The Gathering.

I think the original plan to do a movie based on Honor of the Queen makes the most sense. However, you would have to agree on getting ALOT of people to come back if it if it is a success(Not just the Honor actress, but whoever plays Benjamin, Theisman,etc.).


So still do HOTQ as a Pilot-movie, then continue into a series.

You then save money on the short run by having each episode of season 1 be an anthology of stories that do world building for the next signpost Short Victorious War. Season 2 is the First Manticoran War, with Honor's capture being a mid-season finale event, and the signpost being Ashes of Victory. Season 3 is the Second Manticoran War, with the earliest hints of the MAlginment, with the Signpost movie being AT ALL COSTS. Season 4 introduces the Talbott Cluster, Torch, Maya, and the MAlignment, with another signpost movie. Season 5 is the Manticoran-Solarian War with the final signpost movie being <TBA HONOR FINALE BOOK>.



4)Keep the [b]Tales of Honor brandname for Tie-In Products.[/b]

The Tales of Honor brand name should be kept going forward as it works to build the product.

Most importantly:
MERCHANDISING! :lol:
Image
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____________________________________________________
There are no Mesan Agents under your bed
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Re: Thank God This Is Dead
Post by Dauntless   » Thu Jun 30, 2016 9:16 am

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interesting and what seem to be very workable ideas
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Re: Thank God This Is Dead
Post by Erls   » Mon Aug 01, 2016 10:18 pm

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The Babylon 5 model (or Marvel model if you wish), is exactly what this universe is built for - imo. I, personally, would just change up the sequencing a little bit..

First - you have to sign the core cast to looong term deals. Now, those could be spread out over a long period of time e.g. - 5 movies, 8 seasons of TV, 13 years. To sweeten the pot, of course, you'd need to offer steadily escalating salaries (and perhaps profit sharing) based upon the success of the franchise. If it turns into an Avernger's type blockbuster run the actors are going to be deserving a ton of money for helping create it.

Now, how would I see this happening? I would envision it as every year either a 16-20 episode season (split in half over Christmas-Super Bowl) OR a movie. Years with movies do not have a TV show (except for spin-offs - if successful), while years with TV series do not have movies.

Mythical schedule
Year 1 - HOTQ Movie. Maybe you try and grab a well known, older actor to play Courvisier just to generate some marketing buzz and have 'a name', but you start fresh. Decide which characters are going to be the central ones throughout the series, both on TV and in Movies (because they can and will be different). Try to introduce as many as you can, even if you cut their roles to a large degree. Just get them on screen and introduced so audiences will recognize them in the TV show.
Year 2 - Season 1. Prelude and OBS. Maybe go back as far as King Roger's assassination (would make a really good opening scene). Show Honor meeting and bonding with Nimitz. Show the Peeps rapidly expanding and taking Basilisk, and a young Theisman getting in serious trouble as a middy until an older Yu takes him under his wing. If done like Game of Thrones, where the show jumps from character to character and tells each individual story as they build towards a bringing together it could be extremely interesting - AND reduce the time each actor needs to spend on set. This will be important in later seasons. First half ends with the Casimir raid and maybe, for example, Pritchett conducting her first real Aprilist attack. Second half is all about OBS, with the Peeps role greatly lessened except for Yu and Theisman conducting a daring raid on some pirate base or something and being rewarded with the Masada assignment.
Year 3 - Season 2. Tells Short Victorious War and Field of Dishonor, ending with Honor killing Young and flying to Grayson, while Theisman is approached by Thurston with a 'brilliant plan to knock Grayson out of the war.'
Year 4 - Movie 2. Flag of Honor. For some reason the murder of Hanks/sword duel/space battle just screams out to me as a fantastic final 30 minutes of a film. Lets the fans see other sides of Honor.
Year 5 - Seasons 3 .. Honor Among Enemies, In Enemy Hands, Echoes of Honor. I know its a lot, but all three could be fit into a 16-20 episode season (45 minute lengths, of course) with the story very well told. Heck, you could even split it into a Fall, Winter, and Spring run with 6 episodes in each arch if desired.
Year 6 - Movie 3. Ashes of Victory. I know this is less Honor in combat, but by now the fans will have had a ton of time getting to know other characters and - if done right - will really care about people like Theisman, Pritchett, and Giscard as well as White Haven and Yu. And, to be real - the movie ending with High Ridge sneering in the Queen's face would make a fantastic cut point.
Year 7 - Season 4. In inter-war years. Introduction to knew characters. Plenty of action with the Republic re-taking control, as well as Torch/Erewhon/and that one religious planet. Ends with Honor being sent to Sidemore and Benjamin sneakily sending her Yu.
Year 8 - Season 5. Start of the war. First episode can be all about the buildup, with Haven launching on their attacks at the very end of the first episode. First part of the season is all about the early parts of the war, with cutworm 1 and 2 shown. As well as seeing the Quadrant start to grow restive and violence break out. Second part starts with Honor getting her butt blown off in Solon, continues on with the Quadrant and Rat Poison, and ends with Giscard dying at Lovat.
Year 9 - Movie 4. You guessed it. The Battle of Manticore baby.
Year 10 - Season 6. Aftermath of Battle of Manticore, the emergence of the GA, and Lacoon I. This also would include White Pines and Mesa starting to become prominent, as well as Sollies. Season builds towards the 2nd battle (turkey shoot) of Manticore and the ends with the Mandarins realizing how outclassed they are.
Year 11 - Season 7. Cauldron of Ghosts, next Honorverse book, shows more Maya Sector and breakaways. *NOTE* By this time the TV serious would be less than 40% on-screen time for the 'original cast', and more time would be spent with the newer (and lower ranked) characters. Instead of long meetings discussing things it could be written in a way where a lot of what is discussed is shown in action, and then the reactions/broad outline for the next stage discussed. This keeps the - by then - prominent cast happy by lessening their TV workload (letting them do other projects) while keeping things fresh.
Year 12 - Movie 5. The culmination. Depending upon how intricate the ending is - and how many 'flash points' there are, you could see an "Infinity Wars" deal where its split into two separate blockbusters.

Well, there it is. 12-14 years of Honor between TV and Movies, with a large (unknown) cast signed on for the duration with steadily increasing salaries/profit sharing and decreasing workloads (so they are still happy to do the final stuff). 5-6 movies, and 7 or so seasons of TV. The ideal partner, to be honest, would probably be HBO just because you could toss in the odd graphic sex scene or extreme violence without running afoul of the FEC. Partner with a major studio for the movies, and you're in business!

Beau 9 (operating under David) has final say on the big-picture stuff (major characters, the look of the universe, how characters are portrayed, etc).
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