Shadowrun Movie Options

[eralston]

I've posted this specific topic before many places, but never here:

I was wondering what everyone would think of a Shadowrun movie. Is it one of those things that no matter how good it was every fan would be disappointed and everyone else would be confused? Or could we hope that they pull off a well done adaptation of a movie (a Spiderman or Lord of the Rings) instead of a poor one (such as D&D the movie).

I've developed a screen treatment as part of a project that explored the viability of a Shadowrun movie. It can be dowloaded at

http://www.eralston.com/downloads/Shadowru...n_treatment.pdf

A trailer for the movie can be downloaded at:

http://maxpayne2.levels4you.com/downloads.....l4y?file=12945

What do you think of this idea? What do you think of my idea? What do we think of shadowrun as a movie?

[Shemhazai]

I think it would make a sweet television show, as well as a movie.

People will get it. They got Minority Report and I, Robot.

I fear they will be too tempted to dumb everything down. Kind of like when they made Highlander: The Raven.

A worst-case scenario would be Cinderella 2525.

I thought a TV show would be good because it would give the developers plenty of time to explain the world to a new audience. One would hope they would not resort to contrived plot devices in the pilot to try to tell people too much too soon. It would not be important for people to understand something like rigging in the first episode.

The Buzzkill fiction in the beginning of the SR4 Core Rules is a good introduction to what running is. Something like that with a nice flashback to the early days of the awakening would be nice.

Imagine a character that was unfrozen after many years of cryogenic storage. People could explain things to him/her (the audience). Then flashback to the airliner being attacked by a dragon and defended by a magician.

[Oracle]

I like the idea of a Shadowrun tv show very much. But I doubt that it is very possible to happen. Even less possible as a shadowrun based movie. They didn't even get the pc game together! The main problem is the audience. Producing a sr movie just for the people knowing the SR background would be an economical desaster. So it would be necessary to catch a greater audience. With the sheer complexity of the SR story and the unusual combination of science fiction an fantasy elements this would be too much of a risk.

[2bit]

someone get joss whedon on it :)

[craigpierce]

[Shadow]

If someone was willing to put in the time and be dedicataed, webisodes with the MaxPayne 2 software could be filmed. Perhaps 10 or 15 minute shows.

[setankhtep]

I thought Johnny pneumonic Was the Shadowrun Movie

[Wonazer]

Get the Sci-Fi channel and the people behind Battlestar Galactica on it. It would be excellent then.

[nick012000]

[Kleaner]

Best way to do it would be animated. There's a ton of talent out there that could do it justice.

As for live action, it's going to be hard to add magic and dragons without it looking cheesy.

Peter Jackson might be able to pull it off, but that's about it.

[SL James]

[eralston]

I don't want to get down on anyone, but something that really irks me is "Yeah, it would suck unless _________ directed/wrote/was involved with/produced".

While a shadowrun movie would have to be a notable entry into its genre to be a good movie, part of the core concept would have to be it being a good Shadowrun movie instead of a good peter jackson movie or good Ang Lee.

Furthermore, on the specific note of Peter Jackson, go watch the movie The Frighteners (which he directed).

What would you want to see in a Shadowrun movie (specific scenes/concepts/people/things such as "Dunkelzahn" or "a street samurai". Which concepts would you HAVE to include in a shadowrun movie for it to be one the mark. (One example of what made me think the first D&D movie was off-the-mark was the wizard in the party was terrible and there was no cleric [they made a clerical error, badoom, chack!])

[Solstice]

I think the best feeling you can engender with a SR movie is much like the atmosphere and ambience from these two superb movies:

Bladerunner

Equilibrium

If you somehow fuse the feelings those two movies give to the fans you will have the next LOTR.

[Eyeless Blond]

On the flip side of that, you really want to avoid their mistakes. Nearly all futuristic scifi movies make the same mistakes of being overwrought and pretentious. Most of the bad movies in the genre--and many of the good ones as well--love to rub your face in the technobabble and overstate their ideas of what the future should be like. The worst part is that noone cracks any jokes; especially in a dystopian, depressing future humor should be a part of everyday life or else everyone would be dying of depression. :)


Firefly is a great example of a movie that bucks these huge mistakes. By making the characters the focus rather than the technology, Joss Shedon really made that movie something that people can connect with, turning the setting into the backdrop that it's supposed to be rather than the main focus.

Another thing I really liked about that movie was the emphasis on how history--not just the angsty pasts of the characters--is constantly being carried forward into the future. The scenes at the temple and the old yet still thriving mining town were absolutely beautiful and helped anchor all the futuristic stuff into the past.

Finally the characters didn't always take themselves seriously. The storyline was a serious one, and so were the characters, when the chips were down and the bullets were flying. But when they had the time, they had fun; they teased each other; they made jokes; they made snarky little comments that never broke character, but made their characters human in a way that all the serious posturing in the world never could. All good scifi movies have a few elements of this; even the first Matrix had the "digital pimp," which mystified me all the more when the second and third movies mostly did not.