Brad: I have a slightly different tack for tonight - let me know what you think.
Rob: Go on.
Brad: We take the box art of a video game. We assume that this artwork is what is used for the hypothetical "film based on the game"...then we review the hypothetical film!
Rob: I'm intrigued. Let's give it a shot.
Brad: Okay, then this is E14's guide to Straight-to-DVD bullshit of the future!
Resistance 3
Brad: I see this as a District 9 mockbuster.
Rob: Okay, picture this...The Chimera have made themselves known, and humanity is in ruins.
Brad: Chimera?
Rob: Fuuuu....the enemy in the game.
Brad: Okay. I was calling them "Covenant".
Rob: A small pocket of human resistance is looking to turn the tide of a desperate war. How do they do that? I think it's obvious. Jumble sales.
Brad: J...Jumble sales.
Rob: Jumble sales. They start off slow. Selling old bits and bobs destroyed in the invasion.
Brad: I've just realised the teeth are also the New York skyline. That's surprisingly good for a video game box. The eyesockets might also be a bus, I'm thinking.
Rob: Maybe, I've not played enough Resistance to know if that's just how their eyes are normally. You know, maybe the Americans nickname them "Bus-Eyes".
Brad: I'm thinking that this stars Donnie Wahlberg as the gun-toting vicar who comes up with the idea of the jumble sale, and Angela Lansbury as the church organist/comedy relief.
Rob: I like it. Not enough Angela Lansbury in these game adaptations. So, they start off small, selling off bits of wreckage and clothes that people died in. Soon enough, word gets out. There is a group of humanity determined to do what they can. What they can do is offer bric-a-brac items at bargain prices.
Brad: I'd rent that.
Rob: I'd end up reviewing it. And that'd be fine. Because I'd then be inspired to go off and sell things I'd accumulated over the years.
Brad: Which needs doing.
Rob: Exactly, so the film would have served a purpose. Not enough videogame adaptations do that.
Brad: They keep a roof over Paul W.S. Anderson's head, but that's about it.
Rob: I feel like he deserves a roof. Maybe not a nice one.
Brad: He's boffing Milla Jovovich every night. Man's got that, he can live without a roof.
Rob: Quite.
Brad: 8/10
Rob: 7/10
Singstar: Back to the 80s
Rob: All righty, so how do you see this one playing out?
Brad: A washed up pop singer from the eighties is feeling rather disenfranchised with her lot.
Rob: I'm intrigued, if nothing else, as to where it's going.
Brad: She gets together with Professor Von Erich who sends her back to relive her glory days.
Rob: Right...
Brad: Unfortunately, through a hilarious mishap, she ends up injuring her past self, and so has to stand in for herself on tour. And, if previous time-travel comedies are anything to go on, she ends up having to fend off the advances of her dad.
Rob: Yeah, time travel movie dads always do come off a bit rapey.
Brad: Starring Cyndi Lauper. Or Toyah Wilcox. Claire Grogan, Kate Bush, Kym Wilde...I'm easy.
Rob: It seems a little too direct a cast to hire a washed up 80s pop star as a washed up 80s pop star.
Brad: Well, that's the selling point, isn't it?
Rob: I was thinking of going a different direction with the casting.
Brad: Or I guess we could cast an actress as a fictional singer, and have cameos from the others. Or an eighties singer who is still successful, to some extent. Debbie Harry, for instance.
Rob: That works, she's got form.
Brad: Score?
Rob: Oh, Easily. She's gotta be gagging fo.....Oh, 6/10.
Brad: 10/10
Dead Island
Rob: Ah, this one I've had the benefit of playing. And this is the only way I see it working: It's the 24th Century.
Brad: Right...so...Vampirates?
Rob: Nah, no pirates in this one.
Brad: Dang.
Rob: So it's the 24th Century, and the world is overrun by Corsairs.
Brad: Corsairs.
Rob: Yeah. Sorry, I got mixed up with something else. Corsages.
Brad: Do you mean courgettes?
Rob: Damn. No, I mean that other thing. Course Handbooks.
Brad: The world is overrun by course handbooks. Scarily, that one makes the most sense, so far.
Rob: Yep, well it gets better. Essentially, the 24th Century is awash with degrees. Everything's got one, even pets and fire hydrants.
Brad: Nice satire. I know one of my pet rats has a degree is something useless, for sure.
Rob: Cheers. Anyway, there's a small group of four people who haven't got one. And understandably, they're pissed off, because, like I said, inanimate objects have them.
Brad: That would be enough to cheese anyone off.
Rob: Trust me, it is. Anyway, these four people happen to have mastered the art of travelling anywhere at any time in the galaxy like that.
*snaps fingers*
Brad: Teleporters sans degrees? Nice.
Rob: Sorry if the next few messages are a little slow, turns out snapping my fingers could be interpreted different ways, so for continuity's sake I can't type.
Brad: Right, so...that's it?
Rob: Sorry, two seconds.
*snap*
Brad: Oh, for fuck's sake.
Rob: Right, so they travel back to the 18th Century. I don't know why it's the 18th, maybe one of the characters has a penchant for multiples of six. However, on the travel, something goes wrong.
Brad: So far, in my head, this is starring Chris O'Dowd and Sally Phillips.
Rob: Suits me, I imagine there won't be much budget. Anyway, so the premise of the film is that they arrive in 21st Century Hawaii, which is normal but at a permanent 30 degree incline.
Brad: This isn't a rip-roarer, is it?
Rob: No, I was thinking suspense thriller.
Brad: 10/10
Rob: 9/10
We Wish You A Merry Christmas
Rob: So it's the 24th Century.
Brad: Fuck...
Rob: Just kidding.
Brad: Okay...After a hilarious binge drinking adventure, when Santa crashed his sleight into the White House...
Rob: Yeah, I like it.
Brad: He's had to have a serious amount of drink problem support.
Rob: So America declares war on the North Pole.
Brad: So, he's ordered to keep totally sober, by the UN.
Rob: Ok. But then aliens invade secretly, and Santa's the only person who knows they're here.
Brad: But, the CIA have sent an undercover elf in to try and make him drink, and lose his gift-giving role, which they can outsource to the Russians.
Rob: But the UN don't believe him, because he's a notorious drunk.
Brad: I would watch this movie.
Rob: Wait. FUCK. I've just turned it into Santa Claus Forever. That's the plot of fucking Duke Nukem.
Brad: Starring Denis Leary as the best Santa ever. And Warwick Davies as the CIA elf.
Rob: Yes! Fucking Thunderliked.
Brad: You know what? I'm actually sad that movie doesn't exist.
Rob: I think we should make it. Right after we finish "AquaNun".
Brad: I'll get Leary on the blower. He can't be up to much.
Rob: 6/10, for the artwork, 11/10 for the concept.
Brad: 7/10. I'm rolling 2d6 as I can't reach my d10.
Rob: Fair....wait.
Farm Life
Brad: I love the tag line of this.
"Fine. You don't like the way I do it? Manage your own farm."
Rob: I'm glad the game isn't called "Chickenfucker Life".
Brad: I'd have to get Denis Leary for that.
Rob: "Fuck your own damn chickens."
Brad: So, little Bobby Leatherhead is in a horrendous car accident that renders him a paraplegic. Experimental sugery allows him to have his lower body grafted into a larger tractor. So, he buys a farm, learning, living and loving long the way. Well, not much loving. He's a paraplegic and half combine harvester, but the effort's there.
Rob: Right.
Brad: Hey, Rob.
Rob: Yeah?
Brad: Bobby Leatherhead?
Rob: What about him? Him/It/TractorBoy/Whatever.
Brad: Combines are a preference for the crippled voyeur of what is known as...
FARM LIFE!
Rob: ...Was this entire pitch just a way to get that gag in?
Brad: If it was, don't you think I'd have done a better job of it?
Rob: I'd like to be able to say yes. Anyway. The film's missing a few action beats. I'm putting myself in the producer's shoes.
Brad: Starring Kenneth Branagh as Bobby Leatherhead. So...terrorists?
Rob: I was thinking overzealous council member. Maybe someone who's a bit bureaucratic. Maybe they start petitioning for Bobby to have to be liable for vehicle tax for his lower half.
Brad: That's such a twee screenplay I think you just made Victoria Wood orgasm.
Rob: I've been trying for years, so that's refreshing.
Brad: Score?
Rob: 9/10. Only because I've just had a flash of a group of councillors chasing a half-tractor boy around a field with flaming torches.
Brad: 9/10. David Bowie as irate councillor. This is another one that I'm sad isn't real.
Anno: 1404
Brad: Does the year 1404 mean anything to you?
Rob: Should it?
Brad: No. I've just checked Wikipedia: The Bastion of All Reliable Knowledge, and even they're kind-of shrugging.
Rob: It's the first leap year marking the Julian Calendar. Or something.
Brad: Not a great concept for a movie.
Rob: Unless you're...A fully-grown gorilla with a penchant for human blood!
Brad: This is going somewhere, right?
Rob: Uh....
*snaps*
OF COURSE IT'S FUCKING GOING SOMEWHERE! Sorry. Right. So this gorilla wakes up one day in 1404. The last thing it remembers was accepting a drink from a stranger in a bar in Marrakech in 1399.
Brad: Right.
Rob: So understandably it's annoyed.
Brad: Roofied apes usually are.
Rob: However, it befriends a local boy in a marketplace after saving him from bullies.
Brad: I misread that as "bullets".
Rob: That also works. Bullies with guns. In 1404...In this as-yet unnamed time period.
Brad: Medieval. 475 - 1500 AD is Medieval.
Rob: So...no guns?
Brad: Early part of that is technically the Dark Ages, I guess.
Rob: So...no guns?
Brad: Not really...
Rob: Okay. So, he saves the boy from bullies.
Brad: This enraged gorilla.
Rob: Yeah.
Brad: Okay.
Rob: Though he's angry, he realises that the boy is not at fault.
Brad: Again, I have to ask...is this going somewhere?
Rob: Yes. So he befriends the boy, and eventually, the friendship evolves to the point where the gorilla is brought home for dinner.
Brad: If there's not a half-human half-tractoer, I'm going to be disappointed.
Rob: So they go to dinner, and who's the boy's dad? Only the guy who slipped him the Roofies!
Brad: So going on this moody painting of a galleon sailing towards a golden, vaguely Arabic looking city, you're going with "The Date Raped Ape Who Came to Tea". I think you've forgotten how this game is played...
Rob: So the gorilla is, understandably, pissed off. Not only because he's been brought to dinner with the guy who drugged him and cost him 5 years of his life, but also because he realises that his initial trust in the boy was misplaced, if only indirectly.
Brad: This is harrowing stuff, dude. I've got no choice but to cast Lee Evans as the Gorilla.
Rob: ...Yes, because who does tragedy like Lee Evans?
Brad: That's the part you're taking umbrage with? There's no gorilla in the artwork dude.
Rob: Yeah, I figured he was off-camera, probably in a crate on the ship, asleep. Anyway, you've not heard the ending yet.
Brad: You're basically coming up with whatever bat shit you want. All mine have been based on the artwork - as we agreed. This is just monkey based meandering.
Rob: Forgive me for not taking the half-tractor boy as a serious piece of theatrical heartstring-tugging!
Brad: There was at least a tractor in the artwork! You haven't even featured a boat!
Rob: Did I not mention that the monkey was transported to Venice?
Brad: Fine. You know what? Next time you can come up with the topic. You don't like this? Manage your own farm.
Words: Brad Harmer & Robert Wade
Brad Harmer - Facebook - Twitter
Rob Wade - Twitter
Rob: Go on.
Brad: We take the box art of a video game. We assume that this artwork is what is used for the hypothetical "film based on the game"...then we review the hypothetical film!
Rob: I'm intrigued. Let's give it a shot.
Brad: Okay, then this is E14's guide to Straight-to-DVD bullshit of the future!
Resistance 3
Brad: I see this as a District 9 mockbuster.
Rob: Okay, picture this...The Chimera have made themselves known, and humanity is in ruins.
Brad: Chimera?
Rob: Fuuuu....the enemy in the game.
Brad: Okay. I was calling them "Covenant".
Rob: A small pocket of human resistance is looking to turn the tide of a desperate war. How do they do that? I think it's obvious. Jumble sales.
Brad: J...Jumble sales.
Rob: Jumble sales. They start off slow. Selling old bits and bobs destroyed in the invasion.
Brad: I've just realised the teeth are also the New York skyline. That's surprisingly good for a video game box. The eyesockets might also be a bus, I'm thinking.
Rob: Maybe, I've not played enough Resistance to know if that's just how their eyes are normally. You know, maybe the Americans nickname them "Bus-Eyes".
Brad: I'm thinking that this stars Donnie Wahlberg as the gun-toting vicar who comes up with the idea of the jumble sale, and Angela Lansbury as the church organist/comedy relief.
Rob: I like it. Not enough Angela Lansbury in these game adaptations. So, they start off small, selling off bits of wreckage and clothes that people died in. Soon enough, word gets out. There is a group of humanity determined to do what they can. What they can do is offer bric-a-brac items at bargain prices.
Brad: I'd rent that.
Rob: I'd end up reviewing it. And that'd be fine. Because I'd then be inspired to go off and sell things I'd accumulated over the years.
Brad: Which needs doing.
Rob: Exactly, so the film would have served a purpose. Not enough videogame adaptations do that.
Brad: They keep a roof over Paul W.S. Anderson's head, but that's about it.
Rob: I feel like he deserves a roof. Maybe not a nice one.
Brad: He's boffing Milla Jovovich every night. Man's got that, he can live without a roof.
Rob: Quite.
Brad: 8/10
Rob: 7/10
Singstar: Back to the 80s
Rob: All righty, so how do you see this one playing out?
Brad: A washed up pop singer from the eighties is feeling rather disenfranchised with her lot.
Rob: I'm intrigued, if nothing else, as to where it's going.
Brad: She gets together with Professor Von Erich who sends her back to relive her glory days.
Rob: Right...
Brad: Unfortunately, through a hilarious mishap, she ends up injuring her past self, and so has to stand in for herself on tour. And, if previous time-travel comedies are anything to go on, she ends up having to fend off the advances of her dad.
Rob: Yeah, time travel movie dads always do come off a bit rapey.
Brad: Starring Cyndi Lauper. Or Toyah Wilcox. Claire Grogan, Kate Bush, Kym Wilde...I'm easy.
Rob: It seems a little too direct a cast to hire a washed up 80s pop star as a washed up 80s pop star.
Brad: Well, that's the selling point, isn't it?
Rob: I was thinking of going a different direction with the casting.
Brad: Or I guess we could cast an actress as a fictional singer, and have cameos from the others. Or an eighties singer who is still successful, to some extent. Debbie Harry, for instance.
Rob: That works, she's got form.
Brad: Score?
Rob: Oh, Easily. She's gotta be gagging fo.....Oh, 6/10.
Brad: 10/10
Dead Island
Rob: Ah, this one I've had the benefit of playing. And this is the only way I see it working: It's the 24th Century.
Brad: Right...so...Vampirates?
Rob: Nah, no pirates in this one.
Brad: Dang.
Rob: So it's the 24th Century, and the world is overrun by Corsairs.
Brad: Corsairs.
Rob: Yeah. Sorry, I got mixed up with something else. Corsages.
Brad: Do you mean courgettes?
Rob: Damn. No, I mean that other thing. Course Handbooks.
Brad: The world is overrun by course handbooks. Scarily, that one makes the most sense, so far.
Rob: Yep, well it gets better. Essentially, the 24th Century is awash with degrees. Everything's got one, even pets and fire hydrants.
Brad: Nice satire. I know one of my pet rats has a degree is something useless, for sure.
Rob: Cheers. Anyway, there's a small group of four people who haven't got one. And understandably, they're pissed off, because, like I said, inanimate objects have them.
Brad: That would be enough to cheese anyone off.
Rob: Trust me, it is. Anyway, these four people happen to have mastered the art of travelling anywhere at any time in the galaxy like that.
*snaps fingers*
Brad: Teleporters sans degrees? Nice.
Rob: Sorry if the next few messages are a little slow, turns out snapping my fingers could be interpreted different ways, so for continuity's sake I can't type.
Brad: Right, so...that's it?
Rob: Sorry, two seconds.
*snap*
Brad: Oh, for fuck's sake.
Rob: Right, so they travel back to the 18th Century. I don't know why it's the 18th, maybe one of the characters has a penchant for multiples of six. However, on the travel, something goes wrong.
Brad: So far, in my head, this is starring Chris O'Dowd and Sally Phillips.
Rob: Suits me, I imagine there won't be much budget. Anyway, so the premise of the film is that they arrive in 21st Century Hawaii, which is normal but at a permanent 30 degree incline.
Brad: This isn't a rip-roarer, is it?
Rob: No, I was thinking suspense thriller.
Brad: 10/10
Rob: 9/10
We Wish You A Merry Christmas
Rob: So it's the 24th Century.
Brad: Fuck...
Rob: Just kidding.
Brad: Okay...After a hilarious binge drinking adventure, when Santa crashed his sleight into the White House...
Rob: Yeah, I like it.
Brad: He's had to have a serious amount of drink problem support.
Rob: So America declares war on the North Pole.
Brad: So, he's ordered to keep totally sober, by the UN.
Rob: Ok. But then aliens invade secretly, and Santa's the only person who knows they're here.
Brad: But, the CIA have sent an undercover elf in to try and make him drink, and lose his gift-giving role, which they can outsource to the Russians.
Rob: But the UN don't believe him, because he's a notorious drunk.
Brad: I would watch this movie.
Rob: Wait. FUCK. I've just turned it into Santa Claus Forever. That's the plot of fucking Duke Nukem.
Brad: Starring Denis Leary as the best Santa ever. And Warwick Davies as the CIA elf.
Rob: Yes! Fucking Thunderliked.
Brad: You know what? I'm actually sad that movie doesn't exist.
Rob: I think we should make it. Right after we finish "AquaNun".
Brad: I'll get Leary on the blower. He can't be up to much.
Rob: 6/10, for the artwork, 11/10 for the concept.
Brad: 7/10. I'm rolling 2d6 as I can't reach my d10.
Rob: Fair....wait.
Farm Life
Brad: I love the tag line of this.
"Fine. You don't like the way I do it? Manage your own farm."
Rob: I'm glad the game isn't called "Chickenfucker Life".
Brad: I'd have to get Denis Leary for that.
Rob: "Fuck your own damn chickens."
Brad: So, little Bobby Leatherhead is in a horrendous car accident that renders him a paraplegic. Experimental sugery allows him to have his lower body grafted into a larger tractor. So, he buys a farm, learning, living and loving long the way. Well, not much loving. He's a paraplegic and half combine harvester, but the effort's there.
Rob: Right.
Brad: Hey, Rob.
Rob: Yeah?
Brad: Bobby Leatherhead?
Rob: What about him? Him/It/TractorBoy/Whatever.
Brad: Combines are a preference for the crippled voyeur of what is known as...
FARM LIFE!
Rob: ...Was this entire pitch just a way to get that gag in?
Brad: If it was, don't you think I'd have done a better job of it?
Rob: I'd like to be able to say yes. Anyway. The film's missing a few action beats. I'm putting myself in the producer's shoes.
Brad: Starring Kenneth Branagh as Bobby Leatherhead. So...terrorists?
Rob: I was thinking overzealous council member. Maybe someone who's a bit bureaucratic. Maybe they start petitioning for Bobby to have to be liable for vehicle tax for his lower half.
Brad: That's such a twee screenplay I think you just made Victoria Wood orgasm.
Rob: I've been trying for years, so that's refreshing.
Brad: Score?
Rob: 9/10. Only because I've just had a flash of a group of councillors chasing a half-tractor boy around a field with flaming torches.
Brad: 9/10. David Bowie as irate councillor. This is another one that I'm sad isn't real.
Anno: 1404
Brad: Does the year 1404 mean anything to you?
Rob: Should it?
Brad: No. I've just checked Wikipedia: The Bastion of All Reliable Knowledge, and even they're kind-of shrugging.
Rob: It's the first leap year marking the Julian Calendar. Or something.
Brad: Not a great concept for a movie.
Rob: Unless you're...A fully-grown gorilla with a penchant for human blood!
Brad: This is going somewhere, right?
Rob: Uh....
*snaps*
OF COURSE IT'S FUCKING GOING SOMEWHERE! Sorry. Right. So this gorilla wakes up one day in 1404. The last thing it remembers was accepting a drink from a stranger in a bar in Marrakech in 1399.
Brad: Right.
Rob: So understandably it's annoyed.
Brad: Roofied apes usually are.
Rob: However, it befriends a local boy in a marketplace after saving him from bullies.
Brad: I misread that as "bullets".
Rob: That also works. Bullies with guns. In 1404...In this as-yet unnamed time period.
Brad: Medieval. 475 - 1500 AD is Medieval.
Rob: So...no guns?
Brad: Early part of that is technically the Dark Ages, I guess.
Rob: So...no guns?
Brad: Not really...
Rob: Okay. So, he saves the boy from bullies.
Brad: This enraged gorilla.
Rob: Yeah.
Brad: Okay.
Rob: Though he's angry, he realises that the boy is not at fault.
Brad: Again, I have to ask...is this going somewhere?
Rob: Yes. So he befriends the boy, and eventually, the friendship evolves to the point where the gorilla is brought home for dinner.
Brad: If there's not a half-human half-tractoer, I'm going to be disappointed.
Rob: So they go to dinner, and who's the boy's dad? Only the guy who slipped him the Roofies!
Brad: So going on this moody painting of a galleon sailing towards a golden, vaguely Arabic looking city, you're going with "The Date Raped Ape Who Came to Tea". I think you've forgotten how this game is played...
Rob: So the gorilla is, understandably, pissed off. Not only because he's been brought to dinner with the guy who drugged him and cost him 5 years of his life, but also because he realises that his initial trust in the boy was misplaced, if only indirectly.
Brad: This is harrowing stuff, dude. I've got no choice but to cast Lee Evans as the Gorilla.
Rob: ...Yes, because who does tragedy like Lee Evans?
Brad: That's the part you're taking umbrage with? There's no gorilla in the artwork dude.
Rob: Yeah, I figured he was off-camera, probably in a crate on the ship, asleep. Anyway, you've not heard the ending yet.
Brad: You're basically coming up with whatever bat shit you want. All mine have been based on the artwork - as we agreed. This is just monkey based meandering.
Rob: Forgive me for not taking the half-tractor boy as a serious piece of theatrical heartstring-tugging!
Brad: There was at least a tractor in the artwork! You haven't even featured a boat!
Rob: Did I not mention that the monkey was transported to Venice?
Brad: Fine. You know what? Next time you can come up with the topic. You don't like this? Manage your own farm.
Words: Brad Harmer & Robert Wade
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Rob Wade - Twitter
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