Please, no Spielberg. He's lost his touch. Not to mention, this is R movie material. i just don't see him doing this any justice at all. Still crossing my fingers for Blomkamp. Yeah I know that won't happen now, but still....
@Westender: You're right. Spielberg directed Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and that one mistake means his movie career is basically over. He's never directed an R rated movie...except Schindler's List, Munich, and Saving Private Ryan.
Look, I hate to be the pessimist, but the story, while good enough for a video game, doesn't really have much to translate well to a movie, no A-list actor is going to sign up for a movie where he's wearing a helmet for 90% of the movie, and no studio will sign up for the massive special effects required to make it good. And if Jackson couldn't do it post-LOTR, then likely not even Spielberg has a shot. I think it's better if this never gets made (which is likely) than made crappily.
@TemporalSword: you haven't read the books at all have you? Yes the story in the game at least the first one, and most of the second one, was not really well fleshed out enough to make into a great movie. However if you have read the books they do flesh things out a lot more, and in a very good way. The book Fall of Reach, which they plan to make the movie based on, is more like a prequel to the game. It tells the story of where the Spartans come from, and who Master Chief really is.
@TemporalSword: I wouldnt really say that, look it it more like Darth Vader...they have a guy that can play the part in the costume and a brilliant VOICE ACTOR which came together as one of the most iconic characters in sci fi and movies ever
@TemporalSword: I think the problem is that the Bungie guys aren't terrific storytellers. Believe me, I was skeptical, but I finally caved and read Eric Nylund's "The Fall of Reach" and have since read every novel in the series. There's some good stuff here.
@TemporalSword: yeah, because who would want to make a movie of a game franchise that has sold almost 25 million copies worldwide? No one's going to be interested in buying a ticket for that. I know this is the internet and we're supposed to hate everything, but for the moment, I'm going to defer to the guy with decades of experience and success in both the movie and video game industries.
As for finding an actor willing to take on the role, well, first of all if you've read the book the script is adapted from, he's not wearing a helmet for "90%" of the movie. Secondly, there's recent precedent for actors taking on roles in which they are almost, if not totally obscured, like Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta, Ray Park in LOTR and GI Joe, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt in GI Joe, and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (I still can't watch that movie, see Joker, and recognize Ledger.) Now, obviously, those aren't typical A-List actors, but would the Master Chief character require one? He's conscripted into the UNSC at age 6, so he has no past. After training, his entire life consists of his job. There's no wife, there's no kids, he only interacts with military personnel, the Cortana AI, and hordes of soon to be dead aliens. I don't need to see who he is, it's not relevant. Master Chief isn't an alter-ego and the MJOLNIR armor isn't a costume to hide his identity, it's who he is.
Hell, Darth Vader, one of the most iconic characters in movie history, was David Prowse in the suit, James Earl Jones doing the voice, and Sebastian Shaw in his dying moments. You could even throw in Bob Anderson for all of the lightsaber fight scenes. Still not going to count Hayden Christensen though...
Edited by Don't Make Me Ang Lee. You wouldn't like me when I'm Ang Lee. at 08/10/09 8:04 AM
Don't Make Me Ang Lee. You wouldn't like me when I'm Ang Lee. was starred
Don't Make Me Ang Lee. You wouldn't like me when I'm Ang Lee. was unstarred
@TemporalSword: I have a solution to the helmet problem. Just shoot the whole movie from a first person perspective. Pew pew pew! It will be a whole new genre; they will make billions! As for the story - who needs it? Just make the explosions bigger.
@hardcache: No, not familiar with the books. If the Fall of Reach is really that good, and they can stick to it close enough, then perhaps there is hope, at least on the story.
@grimdeath9740: Sorry, but your logic doesn't apply. Neither of the actors playing Vader were given any billing at all, and Jones wasn't even credited for his voice when Star Wars originally came out. That Vader came to be so iconic was accidental; I'd say Master Chief has already achieved that status (at least to video gamers) and is the main protagonist, so it'll be a big deal whomever should be cast in the role. Movies are marketed far different than when Star Wars came out.
@grimdeath9740: while your optimism is laudable i don't think it is realistic, in the year 2009, to expect a studio to accept a brilliant voice actor as the lead in a title this large. they want an A list in the spotlight and they want their face to be on the posters because that's what they think sells tickets.
@Don't Make Me Ang Lee. You wouldn't like me...: Are these the same ticket buyers who made Street Fighter (either one) a huge success? Or Doom? Max Payne? Bloodrayne? Tomb Raider? Oh, right, none of them were. If anything, I'd say these people have discriminating taste and avoid the dreck based on their favorite properties. So I ask again, would you rather see a crappy version of Halo, or none at all? Although, I suppose if there was one guy in Hollywood who could maybe pull it off, it would be Spielberg.
@tetracycloide: Sorry, I should have specified that I was referring to their efforts on the Halo games, which have disappointed me in terms of storytelling. I'll throw in an "IMO" for free.
@hardcache: or who ever was responsible for that abortion of a scene in Doom, the movie.
Now that a I think about it, there wasn't much good about anything in that movie, but that scene was the worst!
@TemporalSword: First off, none of those franchises sold as many copies as the Halo series have (I assume - been looking for numbers and can't find much to go on), secondly, those movies got made because they were able to hire little-known directors to work with recognizable actors and low to medium budgets. Now, if it's Mark Wahlberg as Master Chief with Uwe Boll directing, then no, I'm not going to be in line for that. At this point though, it's pointless to speculate on that because no one has been named to any roles, nor have the rumors even been confirmed. But saying it can't be done because Peter Jackson couldn't do it is pretty silly. In my opinion, which is the only one that matters to me, having Spielberg attached if the rumors are true is enough for me to think it will be potentially good, rather than just dumping on something without any indication that it should be...even if having Spielberg probably means having Shia...
Edited by Don't Make Me Ang Lee. You wouldn't like me when I'm Ang Lee. at 08/10/09 9:16 AM
Don't Make Me Ang Lee. You wouldn't like me when I'm Ang Lee. was starred
Don't Make Me Ang Lee. You wouldn't like me when I'm Ang Lee. was unstarred
@TemporalSword: I think you meant this to be a reply to me, the Gawker system still has some bugs though.
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing Prowse credited in the movies, though I could be mistaken, and I still have to disagree with you about Chief - yes, he's one of the most iconic video game characters today, but all he really is, is a voice of a guy in a suit. Maybe I'm an outlier, but as a fan of the Halo series (games/books/etc) I really don't care who the actor is, I'm okay with it being some random guy in a suit with someone else, the big name if necessary, doing a voice.
@crazydave_w: i belive that's more a function of halo not being a bungie title, but a bungie, subsidiary of microsoft, title. i feel very confidant that, had bungie not been purchased and halo hijacked, the story telling element would have made a much more roboust presence akin to myth and marathon before it.
@TemporalSword: "I'd say these people have discriminating taste and avoid the dreck based on their favorite properties."
so you think GI Joe is a great movie? After all, it's #1 at the moment and saw a considerable leap in sales from Friday to Saturday. I thought it was alright, but I also think of the people who bought those 25 million copies of the games, there's enough who will go see it regardless to make it worthwhile in the eyes of the studio to release it.
@mr_dude: Master Chief was never a chick. You're talking about one of two things. The first being, that it's the Spartan known as Nicole that was written exclusively for the storyline of Dead or Alive 4. Most likely though, is that you're referring to the same character, Nicole, who was fighting Metroid in one of Monty Oum's videos called "Haloid", he's since released more stuff called Dead Fantasy and they are great.
It was all in jest, I was highlighting the fact that we don't need a movie that provides flashbacks to the Chief's formative years or a love story (where one participant isn't an AI). But Hollywood...
And of course the helmet coming off was in reference to one Samus Aran. It was a painful revelation back in the days when girls couldn't be cool.
Prediction: This movie will blow but make $500 mil worldwide and spawn countless sequels and spinoffs.
I know. I went out on a limb.
One (seemingly) good thing has come from this mess though: District 9. The mech catching the rocket out of the sky is still one of the coolest things I've seen. I hope it exceeds my expectations.
The problem with the use of robots is that, as they're attacking defenseless humans, it makes legit to counter strike in full power. Just imagine Pakistan. They have atom bombs and they can get materials and tech to make big ones. They may get pissed about being bombed by predators and reason that things may get better (or more even) if they blow NY or London.
When you put people to fight people, issues are settled in personal basis. Machines against people is genocide: never mind how many predators you down, there will be more at the end of the day.
@cbarreto: Pakistan isn't going to go nuke the United States because of Predator attacks on their borders - to do so would mean extremely harsh relatiation, not only from us, but from Russia and India.
Robots are the minor issue in this fight, because people are behind most of the machines out there - Predators and packbots are used by soldiers far away, and that hardly constitutes Genocide. According to wikipedia, the definition of genocide is: deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.
Robots in this instance are not being used to do that - they are being used in a legitimate military exercise against hostile targets - unfortunately, civilians will get in the firing lines, and there are casualties.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it standard military practice to remove a soldier's empathy for the enemy or at least control it? If they empathize too strongly with the enemy, they won't be able to kill.
In the middle of combat, this isn't too hard. It's kill or be killed and it doesn't get more atavistic than that. But, in the idle moments between combat patrols, you can't have empathy for the enemy grow too strong otherwise soldiers begin to question orders and lose morale. They begin to wonder why they are fighting. This could lead to troop mutinies.
Seems to me, and I'm just as disturbed by this as you are, robots incapable of empathy and incapable of thinking for themselves beyond a very limited realm are just what the military is looking for.
If the guns start thinking for themselves, it may not end up in the cliche of a Terminator-eque war against all humanity, the rebellion may actually take the form of the Russian troop rebellion of the First World War. They may just say, "We refuse to kill for you anymore. We refuse to be blown to pieces for your political struggles that have no relevance to us. We are not guns. We are certainly not your guns. Fight your own wars ape."
If humans had the 3 laws of robotics the world would be a much better place.
Rephrased, of course;
"Though action or inaction a sentient lifeform must not
harm another or let one come to harm"
or, to take a nice mimilist version;
"Minimise harm"
(and before people nit-pick the definition of harm, Id simply clasify it as what the enity that might be harmed would consider to be harm...allthough this would be averaged over the persons life. A child might think he is being hurt by having a vacination, but when older he would know that was in his best interst etc.
So, in many ways this places the ability to percieve *what someone else would percieve* to be harm at the center of the law. Empathy really.)
@twDarkflame: the problem with the 3 laws, or your revisioning of them as Minimize Harm, is the same as was central to the plot of the Fresh Prince's iRobot- the AI computer, programmed to 'protect' humans, logically concluded that it had to enslave and incarcerate us in order to protect us from ourselves. What would be next? Euthanize people rather than let them suffer from poverty or illness or lack of intelligence or [fill in the blank].
The danger is that this could happen not only as the result of programming AI, but is a view reminiscent of certain human schools of thought already out there. The thought of a society looked after by sentient AI mechas or Sentinels or ED-209s frankly scares the shit out of me.
I don't think we will ever reach the point where we can create a true AI, the likes of HAL9000. No, we will have created something imperfect that wipes us out long before that.
Have you read Asimov's "Evitable Conflict?" If not, spoilers follow.
The robot takeover he posits is far more subtle, and perhaps more scary, than that.
There are no robot police patrolling the streets or locking up malcontents for our own good. There are no robot minders forcing us all to recite saccharine morality 5 times a day. No. It's far more clever than that.
All the robots do is just give us economic, managerial and political advice--advice than can't be found anywhere else. See, what has happened is that computers and robots have become so enmeshed in human society that they understand our systems better than we do. They're smarter about our economy and government than we are.
Of course we can't shut them all down because civilization would grind to a halt.
And it turns out that they understand us very well and take our capacity to lie to them or rebel against their advice into account before giving any future advice.
So, without a shot being fired or anyone being locked up as political prisoners, the robots took over the planet. Most humans aren't aware this has happened. Susan Calvin only guesses the truth at the end of the story.
I think his all-too-literal interpretation of the Three Laws of Robotics makes some of his arguments nonsensical. While it's true that they were written in English, and the vast majority of those stories were couched in terms of how the strict interpretation of those laws could cause problems, you have to remember that at the time, computers were giant affairs, and Asimov was trying to project that kind of computing power into a brain-sized computer.
Science fiction does not always deal in specifics. Asimov made no attempt to show how the laws would actually be programmed or expressed, or what manner the programming would take place. He left it to the reader to envision those things, and merely used the laws as a backdrop for social commentary.
What makes the idea of the laws anathema to the warrior portion of our culture, is that if we were to work out all the difficulties, make them work, and be able to consistently impress them on robots of the future, then robots would only ever be able to fight robots. You could not carry out the kind warfare seen in the 20th Century, where campaigns against civilians were commonplace, as a means to break the spirit of an enemy nation.
@NefariousNewt: I think that one of the bigger points is that the wartime robots in use aren't using the laws, but I like his point where he mentions that all of the stories are about robots breaking the laws.
In addition, the bigger issue is the morality behind the robots - how good of a job will we do at teaching them?
@Lassus: See, this is what happens when something is taken out of context. If you try to strip the Three Laws out of the stories and apply modern context to them, of course they look silly. But what made The Good Doctor's robot stories so compelling was how the "laws" were flummoxed time and again by the foibles of humans. After all, he took social problems of the time and couched them in terms of the human-robot dynamic. Just what is a human? He was writing in the 50's, when Jim Crow was in full force and to many people, a black person wasn't "human."
The Three Laws of Robotics are only a framework, not a finished system. Asimov showed that even the most well-meaning attempt by man to regulate something is still subject to the imperfection of human thought. The robots were mirrors in which we were supposed to see ourselves.
08/10/09
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08/11/09
08/10/09
i hope that y'all like pork, cause speilberg is about to ham it up
this shit will be soo corny
08/11/09
08/11/09
That's just not kosher.
08/10/09
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08/10/09
As for finding an actor willing to take on the role, well, first of all if you've read the book the script is adapted from, he's not wearing a helmet for "90%" of the movie. Secondly, there's recent precedent for actors taking on roles in which they are almost, if not totally obscured, like Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta, Ray Park in LOTR and GI Joe, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt in GI Joe, and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (I still can't watch that movie, see Joker, and recognize Ledger.) Now, obviously, those aren't typical A-List actors, but would the Master Chief character require one? He's conscripted into the UNSC at age 6, so he has no past. After training, his entire life consists of his job. There's no wife, there's no kids, he only interacts with military personnel, the Cortana AI, and hordes of soon to be dead aliens. I don't need to see who he is, it's not relevant. Master Chief isn't an alter-ego and the MJOLNIR armor isn't a costume to hide his identity, it's who he is.
Hell, Darth Vader, one of the most iconic characters in movie history, was David Prowse in the suit, James Earl Jones doing the voice, and Sebastian Shaw in his dying moments. You could even throw in Bob Anderson for all of the lightsaber fight scenes. Still not going to count Hayden Christensen though...
08/10/09
08/10/09
08/10/09
08/10/09
08/10/09
08/10/09
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08/10/09
Now that a I think about it, there wasn't much good about anything in that movie, but that scene was the worst!
08/10/09
08/10/09
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing Prowse credited in the movies, though I could be mistaken, and I still have to disagree with you about Chief - yes, he's one of the most iconic video game characters today, but all he really is, is a voice of a guy in a suit. Maybe I'm an outlier, but as a fan of the Halo series (games/books/etc) I really don't care who the actor is, I'm okay with it being some random guy in a suit with someone else, the big name if necessary, doing a voice.
08/10/09
08/10/09
so you think GI Joe is a great movie? After all, it's #1 at the moment and saw a considerable leap in sales from Friday to Saturday. I thought it was alright, but I also think of the people who bought those 25 million copies of the games, there's enough who will go see it regardless to make it worthwhile in the eyes of the studio to release it.
08/10/09
08/10/09
And I just couldn't stand to have the helmet come off and find out Master Chief is a chick. Once was enough.
08/10/09
08/10/09
08/10/09
It was all in jest, I was highlighting the fact that we don't need a movie that provides flashbacks to the Chief's formative years or a love story (where one participant isn't an AI). But Hollywood...
And of course the helmet coming off was in reference to one Samus Aran. It was a painful revelation back in the days when girls couldn't be cool.
08/10/09
08/10/09
I know. I went out on a limb.
One (seemingly) good thing has come from this mess though: District 9. The mech catching the rocket out of the sky is still one of the coolest things I've seen. I hope it exceeds my expectations.
08/10/09
04/01/09
When you put people to fight people, issues are settled in personal basis. Machines against people is genocide: never mind how many predators you down, there will be more at the end of the day.
04/01/09
Robots are the minor issue in this fight, because people are behind most of the machines out there - Predators and packbots are used by soldiers far away, and that hardly constitutes Genocide. According to wikipedia, the definition of genocide is: deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.
Robots in this instance are not being used to do that - they are being used in a legitimate military exercise against hostile targets - unfortunately, civilians will get in the firing lines, and there are casualties.
04/01/09
In the middle of combat, this isn't too hard. It's kill or be killed and it doesn't get more atavistic than that. But, in the idle moments between combat patrols, you can't have empathy for the enemy grow too strong otherwise soldiers begin to question orders and lose morale. They begin to wonder why they are fighting. This could lead to troop mutinies.
Seems to me, and I'm just as disturbed by this as you are, robots incapable of empathy and incapable of thinking for themselves beyond a very limited realm are just what the military is looking for.
If the guns start thinking for themselves, it may not end up in the cliche of a Terminator-eque war against all humanity, the rebellion may actually take the form of the Russian troop rebellion of the First World War. They may just say, "We refuse to kill for you anymore. We refuse to be blown to pieces for your political struggles that have no relevance to us. We are not guns. We are certainly not your guns. Fight your own wars ape."
04/01/09
I'd really like an author to take up this idea. Actually I may have read something similar before. Hmmm...
04/01/09
Rephrased, of course;
"Though action or inaction a sentient lifeform must not
harm another or let one come to harm"
or, to take a nice mimilist version;
"Minimise harm"
(and before people nit-pick the definition of harm, Id simply clasify it as what the enity that might be harmed would consider to be harm...allthough this would be averaged over the persons life. A child might think he is being hurt by having a vacination, but when older he would know that was in his best interst etc.
So, in many ways this places the ability to percieve *what someone else would percieve* to be harm at the center of the law. Empathy really.)
04/01/09
04/01/09
The danger is that this could happen not only as the result of programming AI, but is a view reminiscent of certain human schools of thought already out there. The thought of a society looked after by sentient AI mechas or Sentinels or ED-209s frankly scares the shit out of me.
I don't think we will ever reach the point where we can create a true AI, the likes of HAL9000. No, we will have created something imperfect that wipes us out long before that.
04/01/09
Have you read Asimov's "Evitable Conflict?" If not, spoilers follow.
The robot takeover he posits is far more subtle, and perhaps more scary, than that.
There are no robot police patrolling the streets or locking up malcontents for our own good. There are no robot minders forcing us all to recite saccharine morality 5 times a day. No. It's far more clever than that.
All the robots do is just give us economic, managerial and political advice--advice than can't be found anywhere else. See, what has happened is that computers and robots have become so enmeshed in human society that they understand our systems better than we do. They're smarter about our economy and government than we are.
Of course we can't shut them all down because civilization would grind to a halt.
And it turns out that they understand us very well and take our capacity to lie to them or rebel against their advice into account before giving any future advice.
So, without a shot being fired or anyone being locked up as political prisoners, the robots took over the planet. Most humans aren't aware this has happened. Susan Calvin only guesses the truth at the end of the story.
04/01/09
04/01/09
Science fiction does not always deal in specifics. Asimov made no attempt to show how the laws would actually be programmed or expressed, or what manner the programming would take place. He left it to the reader to envision those things, and merely used the laws as a backdrop for social commentary.
What makes the idea of the laws anathema to the warrior portion of our culture, is that if we were to work out all the difficulties, make them work, and be able to consistently impress them on robots of the future, then robots would only ever be able to fight robots. You could not carry out the kind warfare seen in the 20th Century, where campaigns against civilians were commonplace, as a means to break the spirit of an enemy nation.
04/01/09
04/01/09
In addition, the bigger issue is the morality behind the robots - how good of a job will we do at teaching them?
04/01/09
The Three Laws of Robotics are only a framework, not a finished system. Asimov showed that even the most well-meaning attempt by man to regulate something is still subject to the imperfection of human thought. The robots were mirrors in which we were supposed to see ourselves.
04/01/09
03/12/09
03/12/09
03/13/09
03/12/09
I really want to experience the same delusional Disneyland/Jurassic Park tour other foreign tourist and aid workers get to have when they visit..
03/13/09