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Matrix Monkey
I was thinking about this earlier today...
It would be cool to see a major hollywood production or somesuch built around new or existing SR fiction IMO, so long as it doesn't turn out to be another Johnny Mnemonic or D&D.
Bearclaw
I'd love to see 2XS done as a movie.

Screenplay by Tarantino
Directed by Ridley Scott
Harrison Ford as Dirk or course.
Fortune
I want more than one choice!
Frag-o Delux
I think an anime series would be best because I think they could do it justice better as a cartoon. With a cartoon people wouldn't have all the misconceptions of the premiss behind the show.

A tv show (mainly a network show in america) would be to mellow for my style of play and it would be hampered to much by budgets, or look really corny. Not to mention I don't thing main stream populace would get it, it would be totally changed to fix the taste of the populace.

Movies butcher things to much though it would be cool to see it as a movie like x-files did with the tv show, you know set the tone with the show and then make a movie so the director doesn't take the show off on his "vision" of how the movie should be. If it was done like a greatly ran game it would be cool but I see to many people thinking it is another Oceans 11 or Johnny mnemonic.

Books can always be written and I have a lot of other things to do other then read fiction that is why I haven't read any of the existing books. Quality writters is in the eye of the beholder. Sure some are a lot more talented then others but if it is a bad movie I will only waste 2 hours of my life and probably be entertained anyway either yelling at the screen or joking with friends about the bad acting. If I read a book I will have wasted considerably more time, constently thnking maybe it will get better next chapter, to be sorly dissapointed.
Matrix Monkey
@Fortune : What exactly do you mean? There ARE six options to the poll, you know nyahnyah.gif
6thDragon
I think shadowrun could make a great anime series. Maybe a cartoon like they did with X-men years back. It would make a good movie, if done right would be the perfect caper movie. Then again there's always the risk of it not turning out well. At least with a cartoon there will be more then one episode. That way if one sucks, not a big deal...the rest will make up for it.
D.Generate
its can't be a hollywood movie... Hollywood inevitably shoves the shit stick up the ass of everything that they try to do. To truly have a good SR movie it would have to be an independant film unspoiled by the touch of Hollywood. Heres how i see it.

Director: John Woo

Starring:

Ron Pearlman as: The orc Merc... No make up he already looks like an orc

Kate Beckinsale: Female Gun fighter ... hotter than hell (see Underwolrd)

Orlando Bloom: Ass kickin elf decker... Take Legolas Give him a gun, a deck, and a trenchcoat

Nick Cage: Rigger... he is the wheelman

Eliza Dushku: Female combat Mage... 'Nuff said

johnny Depp: Fast talking face-man... See once upon a time in mexico or Pirate of the caribbean

Michael Clark Duncan: Troll Heavy weapons/Brawler

OK so theres the "good" guys. Now we just need a run and a main "bad" guy
Matrix Monkey
OK, so we've got John Woo, Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp... "unspoiled by the touch of Hollywood", I think not wink.gif
I agree with you on Kate Beckinsale though. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr biggrin.gif
Ancient History
Hugo Weaving or Samuel L. Jackson as Mr. Johnson

Johnathan Frakes or Max Von Sydow as Damien Knight

Malcolm McDowell as Ehran the Scribe

Kiefer Sutherland as a Twisted Physical Adept

Danny Devito or Joe Pesci as a Ronin Dwarf Samurai

Omar Epps as a Ganster

Bob Hoskins as an Ogre Detective

Morgan Freeman as the Evil Mage

Matthew Lillard as the Psychotic Decker
D.Generate
Sorry Ancient apparently you misunderstood. The actors are fine its not their fault that studio heads come up with steaming pile of shit scripts. The script and on set consultation should be by fans of SR. Thats what i meant by untouched by hollywood. Cause come on who's gonna go see a movie with no one in it?
People that know exactlly what is happening what things should look like and some one who has played the game. Thats who should has the say so on everything in the film not some hollywood desk money.
Thats the something that the D&D movie lacked...poor Jeremy irons wonder how they suckered him i not doing that horrible work. At the end when he's going crazy and rambling incoherently, that wasn't acting the shit factor of the movie finally broke him down mentally causing irrevocable damage to his cerebral cortex. Just take the feeling of how that movie kicked your brain in the hour and some change that you had to watch it, Multiply that by about 15 million times and thats exactlly what happened to Mr. Irons.
D.Generate
I'm sorry ancient but i'm gonna have to disaggree on the mathew Lillard thing. He's not an actor he don't belong in a good moive, he should stick to crap like Scooby Doo.

If you have Ehran then you also need:

Jack Nicholson as Halequin... course we'd have to go back in time when he was a bit younger looking. He was an awesome Joker in the first Batman I think he could pull of a pretty ass kickin Harely.

Robert Duvall would be another good canidate for a johnson/fixer

And we'd have to come up with a ggod part for the man Chris Walken he'd be a way better evil mage, everyone knows Freeman is only good as a cop/detective

And Sam Jackson would have to be a Physical Adept

John frakes would be an Awesome Damien Knight in fact thats how I always pictured him looking.
Diesel
I think a bunch of completely unrelated animes. All Shadowrun, totally different characters in each. Or a series, whatever, this is why I'm not going to Hollywood.

I think a TV show, even if it did maintain the premise, would look horribly corny unless it was a huge budget...and well...I don't know, I don't like teevee.

Movie woud be cool, but I want more!
Fortune
QUOTE (Matrix Monkey)
@Fortune : What exactly do you mean? There ARE six options to the poll, you know nyahnyah.gif

Yes there are, but how exactly would one go about choosing two (or more) of them? I want a movie...and novels...and cartoons...and a t.v. show...and... smile.gif
Squire
In reality, I'd probably prefer they left it alone. Anything done mainstream would most likely do a really terrible job and ruin the shadowrun concept for the general public (remember the "Dungeons and Dragons" movie debacle?).

However, I voted TV series. If you got the right producers, writers, production crew and staff it could be done really, really well. Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy, Angel and Firefly) comes immediately to mind, he's probably the only person I'd trust with the project (incidently I wouldn't trust FanPro or WizKids with it).

There's too much background to cover for a movie, you don't have enough time to explain the world the movie takes place in and then still have a reasonable plot and scrip, so a movie wouldn't work well.

Shadowrun being within the fantasy genre already struggles with the concept of suspention of disbelief. Being a cartoon or anime moves it more firmly into fantasy in the minds of the viewers, it also limits viewership to fans of cartoons or anime. I wouldn't suggest anime for that reason. Aside from that anime tends to be over-the-top action, and shadowrun should be gritty. I don't think anime could capture the feel of the shadowrun universe.

I'm pretty well done with Shadowrun novels. The problem is that they keep getting bigger and bigger. You can't really write about shadowruns anymore, it's all Earth-shattering events. Aside from that, a novel (no matter who wrote it) about shadowrun wouldn't draw much in the way of mainstream fans.

A television series would be difficult, you'd need the right network, the right production team. But you could slowely develope the world over the course of the first season. Realistically, the show probably wouldn't make it, but if done properly, it could capture the feel of the game world, explain the history, and build and keep a fan base over a period of time. It's a long shot, but the best chance to get anything done.
Fix-it
Basically, when things go mainstream. they start sucking. Bad.
toturi
QUOTE (Fix-it)
Basically, when things go mainstream. they start sucking. Bad.

Not so. LOTR wasn't mainstream until now. And look how good it is.

What you need is the right director who is himself an SR fan and knows the feel of the SR universe, otherwise forget it.

Batman went to crap, so did D & D but surprisingly I felt that the X-men movies were well done.
Fresno Bob
What about....twinkies? They're mainstream, and tasty as sin!
Matrix Monkey
QUOTE (toturi)
Not so. LOTR wasn't mainstream until now. And look how good it is.

What you need is the right director who is himself an SR fan and knows the feel of the SR universe, otherwise forget it.

Batman went to crap, so did D & D but surprisingly I felt that the X-men movies were well done.

Echo that.

With the combination of good script writing AND good directing/acting and the right amount of hype, SR could easily become a blockbuster movie. The problem is (as stated earlier) that there's just too much material to cram into say, 2 hours of play.

In the case of LOTR they got around this by splitting it up into a trilogy as is increasingly more common these days (LOTR, Matrix, Kill Bill...) BUT... everybody (well not everybody, but lots of people know *of* LOTR without having read the books) knows that the movies are based on a series of books - too much material to film in one go - and so the cutting up of the story as a whole is accepted.
This probably won't be the case for Shadowrun, where far less people know of the original material (whether sourcebooks or novels).
The people producing a SR feature, like the Wachowski brothers when they did the first Matrix, would depend on the success of the first episode to finish the story in later releases.

If the first Matrix sucked, nobody would have been interested in Reloaded or Revolutions. It would be sad to see this being the case with a movie series based on SR material.
Frag-o Delux
OK you talked me into ti I'll call my friend Steve at SKG and get the ball rolling. I think I can do a helluva job. Who wants to be in it? biggrin.gif
Matrix Monkey
Apply for your position as an extra now! nyahnyah.gif

[credits] Enraged Dzoo-noo-qua #3 : Matrix Monkey [/credits]
Frag-o Delux
I think I'll have to pull a Hitchcock (cameod in all his films). I'll be the non-descript Orc. I can save some money on make-up, I am already big, ugly, shaggy, and pissed looking. biggrin.gif And with my lifestyle I'll be dead by 40.
simonw2000
I've checked SR3, and I think you're right, Frag-o Delux
kenji
the D&D movie.
or more relevantly: Johnny Mnemonic.

i'd wager that LotR has a wider audience than Toturi is suggesting. remember, the Hobbit was a sleeper hit... for decades! LotR may not have been "mainstream" until the movie form, but i don't think it was too far off, at least among those who read for leisure.
nezumi
Maybe I'm just being silly here... Since when was anime main stream? I mean, at least in the U.S., it has a pretty paltry reputation among your average Joes.
Matrix Monkey
Anime is used as a term for cartoons in general here, so that includes types like the old X-men cartoons and such.
kevyn668
re: LoTR. The Lord of the Rings was the second most read book of the 20th century. To give some perspective, the most read book was the bible...I'd call that pretty damn close to mainstream.

As for actors in our SR movie: I think we have to find a rolls for Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, and Jean Reneua (y'know, the "Leone The Professional") and definitely that Chinese guy thats been in every martial arts film EVER. He's the one w/ the Fu Manchu moustache, long hair, bald on top; rarely has more than 2 lines (if that); he was the candy bar eating merc in "Die Hard" and "Eno" the torturer merc in "Lethal Weapon1"; and I'm pretty sure he makes a reappearance in the 4th film of that series. Any one know his name? And how could we forget Chow Yun Fat??
Nath
QUOTE (kevyn668)
Jean Reneua (y'know, the "Leone The Professional")

Jean Reno, in "Leon the Professional"
toturi
Wow, did someone actually go around and poll people, "Hey, what did you read?"

Yes, LOTR is mainstream... mainstream geek that is. Mainstream mainstream? Well... maybe not.
kevyn668
Thanks Nath. smile.gif

QUOTE
toturi Posted on Dec 23 2003, 02:19 PM
  Wow, did someone actually go around and poll people, "Hey, what did you read?"

Yes, LOTR is mainstream... mainstream geek that is. Mainstream mainstream? Well... maybe not.


ohplease.gif Well, I would imagine that the numbers are based on sales...kinda like now.

Re: "mainstream geek". So I guess we're all "geeks" then??
toturi
Well, I am a geek. A geek-the-mage-first geek. smile.gif
kevyn668
rotfl.gif

Fair enough. I guess that would make you a "functional geek", yes? smile.gif
JongWK
Big-budget movie(s) might be the best option, but not necessarily the most probable.

Anime would be damn cool, especially if it goes on and on for years (I want characters to suffer everything from Bug City to the Arcology and beyond). We could also have stand-alone OVAs for things like Scars, Little Treasures and Worlds Without End or Burning Bright.

A well done TV series could do justice to it (and last for a long time... how about a weekly SR show for 5 years?), but it will probably: a) be softened for prime-time, b) suffer from budget restrictions, and c) have some lame actors.

My vote goes for movies, lots of them (I'm allowed to dream, right?).

Christopher Walken would make a terrific humanoid Lofwyr.

Pink as Maria Mercurial.

Nastassja Kinski as Hart, or Jenna Ni'Fairra.

Madeleine Albright as Marilyn Schultz ork.gif
Ancient History
Problem: I think Maria Mercurial is supposed to be Latino. Otherwise, Pink or Gwen Stefani could equally play the near-psychotic/innocent.
JongWK
Fine, we could hire Shakira love.gif

Jennifer Lopez as the lesbian elven assassin (with "Gigli" as her street name, of course). rotfl.gif

Skip Sudduth as a Lone Star cop.
BIG BAD BEESTE
Yup, she's latino all right. Damn straight about Walken playing a human Lofwyr - a role he could really get his teeth into?

As for the bad guy, its got to be a Brit. No, not Hugh Grant - the only way I could cope with him in a SR movie would be to have him as the megacorp exec saying Frag Fraggity Frag and then watch as his head explodes from the sniper's bullet. Pan back to elven assassin/sniper on rooftoop raising his rifle and reporting in on his commlink to the rigger (watching event via drone relay) who connects to the team leader who then buzzes Mr J via the matrix special effects of his security-conscious decker vanishing the trace trail. All with the whoosh over to next character, turn & rotate camera angle around character then woosh of to next one (zoom out of vid-screen etc), turn and rotate abpout new character then whoosh...

The important thing to remember here is that their mission is successful.

Anyhow, Brad Pitt would be a better elven decker than Bloom (at least he can act, and you'd only be typecasting Bloom in that role). Also, Samuel Jackson would be better cast as a fixer than a Johnson. Eddy Izzard would make a great gang leader though - possibly of the Scatterbrains. I can just imagine the troll make up and clown outfit...
Friggas Ring
I wouldn't mind seeing Shadowrun in an Animatrix type setting. A bunch of shorts done by a few different artists because there's so many aspects to Shadowrun.
kevyn668
What about a series w/ an extremely long arc. Like Babylon 5. That had like a 5 or 7 year metaplot.

And can we get Kristin Cloak or the Sebaycian chic from Farscape? love.gif
nezumi
You know what would be really cool? If someone made a short shadowrun movie online. Something starring a sumo wrestler as the troll and some cute lady in a short skirt as the cute lady in the short skirt. And some purple funny thing as the ork bad guy. I'd love to see someone do that.
Fortune
QUOTE (toturi)
Wow, did someone actually go around and poll people, "Hey, what did you read?"

Yes, LOTR is mainstream... mainstream geek that is. Mainstream mainstream? Well... maybe not.

Other than recorded sales, LotR was voted 'Best Book of the 20th Century' in a multitude of polls, including one that polled most of the main literary figures. LotR is definitely mainstream!
Frag-o Delux
QUOTE (kevyn668)


definitely that Chinese guy thats been in every martial arts film EVER. He's the one w/ the Fu Manchu moustache, long hair, bald on top; rarely has more than 2 lines (if that); he was the candy bar eating merc in "Die Hard" and "Eno" the torturer merc in "Lethal Weapon1"; and I'm pretty sure he makes a reappearance in the 4th film of that series. Any one know his name?

I have been looking that guys name for ever, one night in a druken stupper with friends we relised this guy is in every movie ever made. I think I saw in Stee Magnolias, but that too may have been because of alcohol. biggrin.gif We just call him snicker, because we were watching Die Hard when we had that epiphany.

Matrix Monkey, not to nit pick, but my friends nor I would call old cartoons, especially old x-men Anime. I don't know what the exact meaning of Anime is, but its like obsenity to me, I can't difine it but I know when I see it. Some say it is Japanesse cartoons others say Japanesse style cartooons which may have been made in america. I preferre to think of it as Japanesse style. Old cartoons are old cartoons, anime is anime. Old cartoons are making a come back now that a certain age group is starting to make money and want things they had in their childhood back like thundercats and transformers, but anime is still a not so popular thing I think. Though it is gaining ground, that is just an observation at how much counter space it is getting at stores like best buy, which now gives it almost a whole asisle in my local best buy, when before you had to know the right comic shop to get it. The first anime I watched was given to me by a friend in a brown bag like it was hardcore porno, later found out some of it was, it just involved deamons. biggrin.gif

I still feel a cartoon/anime would d the best. Cartoon budgets can get high but nowhere near as where it would be with live action. Look at the live action shots in the old SR sourcebooks, they were to exspencive to make so they got dropped.

I could see a animatrix style by different artists and writters, depicting the different aspects of the shadows. With long running plot lines, our re-occuring characters. In a live action I think people would try to take it too seriously and not suspend their dis-belief well enough to give it a chance to work, with a cartoon it is already easier to suspend your dis-belief. I feel cartoons are starting get a foot hold in America as a serious form of enterainment for adults, I mean the Simpsons couldn't be on the air for 15 years unless adults are watching too. Most cartoon shows are failing because the people making them are tring things the studios are affraid to do. And the artist and writter I feel are trying these things because it is easier to do wierd things in cartoons then in live action. I see more attempts to draw your attention to wrong doings in cartoons then in live action. And I have noticed that cartoons like The Simpsons and The Family Guy are better written than almost all the live action TV shows ut there because Live Action is for the masses to swallow whole and distracted them for hours on end. But that is just my take on it.
Fortune
QUOTE (Frag-o Delux)
QUOTE (kevyn668 @ Dec 23 2003, 10:03 AM)
...definitely that Chinese guy thats been in every martial arts film EVER. He's the one w/ the Fu Manchu moustache, long hair, bald on top

I have been looking that guys name for ever...,

I believe the person you are refering to is Al(bert) Leong. smile.gif
Lilt
I'd preffer a cartoon series so I put anime.

A movie or a TV series would need to do Trolls, Dragons, the Astral Plane as it is. that's not easy unless you're fine with it looking tacky (CGI, smoke machines) or have a big budget (big models like they use in LOTR).

I'd rather it didn't look tacky, and you only ever get big budgets for films (films being bad because I don't think they can cover the world in enough detail)
Fresno Bob
QUOTE
Sebaycian chic from Farscape


Claudia Black.

While we're on the subject, Gigi Edgely (Chiana...man Chiana's hot.) would be a good elf...wait, she's too short. Damn.
toturi
Zhang Ziyi or Fann Wong as Elven Assassins

Tony Leung and Chow Yun Fat as Triad Hitmen
Frag-o Delux
QUOTE (Fortune)
QUOTE (Frag-o Delux)
QUOTE (kevyn668 @ Dec 23 2003, 10:03 AM)
...definitely that Chinese guy thats been in every martial arts film EVER. He's the one w/ the Fu Manchu moustache, long hair, bald on top

I have been looking that guys name for ever...,

I believe the person you are refering to is Al(bert) Leong. smile.gif

It is, thanks I just found a picture to confirm it. biggrin.gif I think that guy is in every movie ever made, I think I saw in "The Jazz Man" and played a munchkin in "Wizard of Oz". biggrin.gif
Fortune
QUOTE (Frag-o Delux)
I think that guy is in every movie ever made, I think I saw in "The Jazz Man" and played a munchkin in "Wizard of Oz". :

Pretty damn close. Here's his filmography. smile.gif
Anymage
My preference would be for a comic book for starters, because that would give both wider appeal and potential movie options if it was well liked, but if it ended up sucking, it would mostly be bought up by SR fanboys and maybe a small handful of outsiders who couldn't do much of anything bad to the game's reputation.

I'd also do my best to keep anyone involved with SR writing or its major fanbase far, far away from the project.

Why? Because just a quick skimming of the setting and timeline gives more than enough meat to base a plot off of, without needing to expound on the culture of changeling otaku cyberzombies or anything like that. Most average people are somewhat familiar with cyberpunk, quite familiar with fantasy, and familiar with crime/heist movies, so focus on these traits, and try to save the metaplot and big-name cameos for later. Shadowrun fanboys will already eat this up, so it's best to not confuse/alienate the ignorant.

So I could see the first comic being quite easy for anyone with a decent amount of talent to do. Start with a basic character, a decker, magician, or a sam. (Riggers, physads, and wierder types being a little too esoteric for your average non-fan.) Have him do a short monologue, giving the basics of the world of SR, and then get called in on a relatively basic run. Main character meets up with the other two basic archetypes, gets the job, pulls it off *almost* perfectly until Johnson's double-cross screws them up, spend the rest of the issue with the team plotting and carrying out revenge.
Matrix Monkey
Maybe a SR movie would cause less people to go "wtf is that?" when they see the logo tattoo'd on my back grinbig.gif
kevyn668
QUOTE
Fortune Posted on Dec 23 2003, 11:28 PM
  QUOTE (Frag-o Delux)
QUOTE (kevyn668 @ Dec 23 2003, 10:03 AM)
...definitely that Chinese guy thats been in every martial arts film EVER. He's the one w/ the Fu Manchu moustache, long hair, bald on top


I have been looking that guys name for ever...,


I believe the person you are refering to is Al(bert) Leong.


YOU ROCK, FORTUNE!!
notworthy.gif notworthy.gif notworthy.gif
Crimson Jack
Well, since they're already making a movie as you can see in my other post (snicker snicker), I'd go with that option. Hee hee hoo. Okay, so I'm retarded. In all seriousness, I would love to see a SR movie. Long have I waited to see something besides that god-awful SR1 movie that came out at DragonCon so long ago. Egads, very very bad. I don't wish that experience on anyone. Got it on tape somewhere collecting much-needed dust.

So long as its not made as a HOLLYWOOD movie, it should be okay. My top director picks would be David Fincher, Alex Proyas, Len Wiseman, or the Wachowskis. They all have the necessary touch of cool that needs to be brought to the shadowrun community. It would be nice to see it made without a plethora of F/X shots too. Some would be nice for some paranormal activity and of course the magic, but focusing in on the outlook of shadowrunners would be paramount in my opinion.

I wouldn't be adverse to seeing a SR anime, so long as it didn't turn into a Street Fighter type of toon. If it was done in the style of Wicked City, I'd be on board.
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