Yup, that’s right … according to Variety, Universal Studios will produce a full-length feature film based on the classic 1979 Atari video game Asteroids. Now, I know you might be thinking that the game had absolutely no plot whatsoever, so why make it a movie? Or more to the point, what is there in the game that you could make a movie from?
I see it in a completely different way. There is a basic premise – guys in space ships blowing up stray asteroids and alien spaceships. Definitely interesting visuals for today’s CGI wizards. However, beyond that, there is nothing for this movie to live up to. The original game was white-on-black vector graphics. There’s not even a visual style to emulate (although if the fighter cockpit displays don’t give a nod to this game aesthetic, I’d be really disappointed).
Think about it – instant “franchise” recognition and no creative shackles. Sure, this could get screwed up big time if they just go for visuals with no story or characters. However, the producers are not obligated to shoehorn their movie into a world designed for a completely different medium. This is why video game movies, in my opinion, generally suck. There’s so much back-and-forth about how to adapt the game world to the movies, that they forget to write a good movie. With Asteroids, the checklist is small:
- Asteroids
- Spaceships
- Explosions
Beyond that, it’s a clean slate.
Contrast this with the World of Warcraft movie that’s been talked about for the last few years. The Warcraft universe that Blizzard Entertainment has created is huge and vast. Beyond that, WoW is the most popular video game of all-time, with millions of players around the world, who are literally spending weeks, even years of real-world time, completely immersed in the WoW universe. How do you please an audience who would look at a scene and feel that something is wrong because a rock or a tree or a building is out of place, or painted the wrong color? How do you balance the experience of people playing Horde vs. Alliance? High-end raiders vs. casual players? Players who play against the game vs. against each other vs. immerse themselves in the role-playing aspect? There is so much to the world, that surely it’s a curse not a blessing. It’s seems that the more story comes with the video game, the more likely that you’ll wind up disappointing everybody.
So, do I think “Asteroids” will be great? Not sure, but I think it has the potential to be, if the producers use the blank slate as an opportunity to tell us a good story with good characters. Who knows, if they can pull that off, will “Missile Command” or “Defender” be far behind?