I was talking to a couple of other Shadowrun players and we started kicking around the idea of a Shadowrun TV series.

I think Shadowrun is a rich base for a TV series, the world is very complex and has a lot of source material to draw inspiration from plus a lot of room for great costuming and special effects. I think it requires too much backstory and explanation for an actual movie or mini-series.

What do you think?

I think it's wishful thinking, especially given some recent economic developments. It'd be awesome, don't get me wrong, but I don't see it happening at least for several years. It's a niche of a niche, and the special effects budget required (for it to be decent) would be pretty daunting.

I disagree about SR needing a huge amount of explanation. It's 2072, magic is real, so is high tech, amoral megacorps dominate the world, and the "heroes" are criminal mercenaries. What more do you need to know? Dystopian futures are sufficiently well known that the basic concept doesn't need explaining. I think the only kind of screen adaptation (big or small) we're ever likely to see is a miniseries. If we're very, very lucky, HBO might pick it up.

If you have the money to crate a pilot then I say go for it. I would watch a Shadowrun mini-series any day.

I wonder if it would be better to see the series from a law enforcement(ala NCIS) or Shadowrunner point of view?

Both, obviously.

start with the shadowrunner team as core, but develop the "support group" of Fixer, Mr. Johnson, and Corporate string-pullers. Also develop a group of lonestars as "rivals" or "mirror image" type characters. Throw in a second group of pink-mohawk style runners in the background getting into trouble occasionally and making everyone's life more interesting.

The archetypes and stories and drama and groups and setting and such are all good. The hard part is writing a script, selling it, and funding it.

HBO's Rome is actually a good reference point. A half dozen core "groups", all of which are constantly weaving in and out of each other, each of which has their own supporting cast that also weaves in and out other groups and live their own lives. The budget problem pops up as well; Rome had big set pieces, lots and lots of props, a huge cast, and lots of extras, plus CGI used in a number of subtle ways.

Shadowrun series would need CGI use in much less subtle (read: more expensive) ways, I afraid.

Aww, dammit... I'd like to see a T-bird vs. dragon battle from "Never deal with the dragon". In 3D.

I think an approach similar to Caprica would work nicely. Heck they even have the "Matrix" as well.

Animated "tv" series perhaps? Producing a rough pilot episode could potentially be easier, I am thinking slide show a penciled story board or whatever.

Or you could always just do whatever these guys did for a relatively shoe string budget?

Escape From City 17

Just tell the TV execs it's a Twilight spinoff.

You'll be swimming in development money.




-karma

Ahem.

The episodic nature of SR would make it perfect for a TV series (or mini-series, or movie), but as pointed out, the massive amounts of CGI make it unlikely. Look how long it's taking for Sci-Fi (or SyFy now) to adapt Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age; at 3 years and counting for a 6 hour miniseries.

Besides, what RPGs have had a decent adaptation to mainstream media?

Kindred: The Embraced, the Dungeons and Dragons live action movies, the Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight animated movie....

Maybe it's best we spare Shadowrun the indignity.

Hey, I really enjoyed Kindred: The Embraced tv series! And Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight wasn't totally bad at all. D&D, well... what can I say?

About Shadowrun tv series... Maybe some kind of plot connecting the episodes would be a good idea? I mean something like The Pretender or Largo tv series - each episode was another story, but always there was some kind of conspiracy in the background. Runners can do they work, but also dig a bit in something (like Winternight or AIs) regularly.

Now, I never actually watched K:tE, only heard about its badness from our V:tM Storyteller, so perhaps unfair to lump it in with the D&D movie. And, yeah, you can't complain about the writing in the Dragonlance movie (since it was fairly well adapted from the text); the juxtaposition of traditional animation and bad CGI dragons & draconians is what ruined it for me.



...or Harlequin? Perfect for a season-long arc.

I wouldn't think that should be a problem. Farscape came out in 1999 and didn't use a lot of CGI (comparatively) and relied mostly on puppets and clever costuming. The sets were usually real as opposed to green screen and often looked dystopian in nature, kind of like you'd imagine the Shadowrun universe to look.

And you might be thinking "what about the magic? That would need CGI"
But then remember that the magic in SR doesn't have to be visible unless the caster wants it to (because of his tradition, or whatever) so something like a fireball spell could be done by simply having the caster point at something and having it burst into flames rather than some CGI flames sprouting from his/her fingers towards the target.

Man, now I wanna watch some Farscape.

That's a good instinct. Trust that instinct.

Never seen Farscape.

*ducks*

But I see what you mean. Decking would require some CGI, but you wouldn't necessarily have to have a lot of it in every episode.

The problem AFAIK, is the large backstory. You could fit A History Lesson For The Reality Impaired into three movies, just to acquaint the audience with the setting. If there was ever anything official and professional done for SR, it would unfortunately have to be a reboot. Also:

The rest is details. Does the new viewer need to know, up front, every last little detail about how we came to the current circumstances? I don't think he does. You can drop the viewers into the world and build up the background a little at a time. "Hey, remember the court case that established corporate extraterritoriality?" "Hey, remember the Great Ghost Dance?" At worst, you pick a character to be Mister (or Miss) Exposition. This is a well-established technique, used by virtually every show with a substantial mythology. Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn't load you up with a massive infodump, and Shadowrun doesn't need to, either.

I remember an interview of a producer from the Gaumont Studios (the studios that produced the Highlander TV show) clearly stated that they where working on a new project called "Runners 2050" based on a Cyberpunk setting.
That was 10 years ago or so.
Cant find any reference, and i suppose the project was cancelled :-/
Am i the only one having heard of such a project ?
The Dark Angel series was quite close to an SR world ... a pitty it was cancelled :'(

How many times do I have to bump this?

Had I any applicable skills, I would be ALL OVER this project

If you ditch the Metahuman aspect, it becomes much easier. And probably more marketable to a mainstream audience. Keep the magic and the tech and the stylized future, and abandon the Trolls and Elves.

While some of the farther out there metatypes (even Trolls, for instance) and crazier SURGElings would be tricky to pull off, in the post-LoTR movie world we live in, I don't think Elves and Orcs would be beyond the pale. Given that tv special effects budgets have been dealing with pointy ears since at least the original Star Trek series, I don't think it would break the bank or anything.

there is always the german fan movie...

You mean this one? It's French, actually.

french canadian actually, but no. There is a german one also that is all "in-game".

ah, found the link: http://www.filmliga-franken.de/tor3film.html

There's also another German one, Last Team Standing. Don't have the link at the moment.

Hey, here's a link to a Polish (?I think?) site that has links to a whole bunch of Shadowrun videos:

LINK

As an aside, are there any other word pairs like Polish/polish that change meaning and pronunciation just from the capitalization?

Yes, it's polish (no pronunciation for an adjective, I believe) site - more correctly, a polish SR Wikia.

Thanks. In English, the word "Polish" uses the long 'o' and refers to things from Poland. The word "polish" uses the short 'o' and refers to making something clean and shiny. The only time I can think of when there might be confusion is when "polish" is at the start of a sentence, and the context can be read both ways. For example "Polish shoes." This could be a command to clean some footwear or a recognition that the footwear comes from Poland.

Yeah... this has lots to do with Shadowrun.

Poles polish Polish poles.

Halo has a fan film project. SR is probably easier - take a video camera to Shanghai during the wet season and your half done, a bit like the movie "Push".

As was said, Shadowrun doesn't need a lot of CGI in any shape. Trolls, orks and elves can be done with standard prostethics and makeup, while the magic can easily be done with standard special effects. Fire, wind, water, earth shaking, even levitation can be done with properly arranged camera tricks and no CGI. Break a wall, easy enough. Even things like spirits and astral vision can be done with film tricks like ghosting or fish eye lenses to give it a different feel.

Decking, there are three ways I can see to do it that will not require any CGI.

First, there was a show 'Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad', which was basically Power Rangers inside Computers. What they did was had a set that looked like a circuit board and had a guy in a superhero outfit and a guy in a monster outfit battle it out. Another example of this is Tron. Just get a room, or a couple rooms, dress them up for the look you want, and you're good to go. Andromeda did a similar example of this, though it did use some flashy CGI special effects, but you could do the same with filming work.

Second, make it like the Metaverse from Snow Crash. You need to go somewhere, you're physically going there. It could be passed off as a 'reality filter', just add some extra special effects like changed costumes for example, but otherwise, the real world and the matrix world look alike, just slightly different.

Granted, these are more of an SR3 style of Matrix to an SR4 style. I don't know much of SR4 to really say a lot about it, but I don't see why we couldn't do the SR3 stuff.

Third, use some of the technology we have today, and adapt it. A couple iphones, perhaps, or a tablet to be used as a cyberdeck/commlink, and have some software running on it like the Hacking simulator games they've already got for iphone. Click this then that and then boom, you're in.

SR4 AR could be done via picture in picture, by basically putting the output of a computer onto the video in some semi-transparent way.

About CGI... I know nothing about it, but these films were made by non-professionals with use of normal PC's (and it was a few years ago - 2000 and 2002). So maybe it's not so difficult and expensive?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV-CVETnnu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT_4jd2tv3Y

Shadowrun in the style of an 80's cartoon, like Bionic Six, or the Batman Animated Series. Or Batman of the Future.
MAYBE Anime-Style, but i'd prefer Western Animation to be honest . . Maybe like the new Iron Man Anime?

It will never, ever happen but while we're fantasizing GOD that would be awesome and man I REALLY hope it's on HBO.