This and Return of the King were my jam in middle school! I’d rather kick orc ladders in Helms Deep, or save Minas Tirith as Gimly than whatever the fuck that Gollum game was.
If you want a game that uses movie clips and proceeds to butcher the original movie plot and atmosphere, try the old Fifth Element game. It’s amazing, they took bits of the movie and used them to make a weird new cut that completely changes character motivations, adds huge plot holes and mess with the order of events.
For example : the game starts as Korben (at that point just a taxi driver) saves the lab where Leeloo is being revived (also random mutants freeing themselves from capsules).
In turn, Leeloo then saves Korben that’s been arrested by the police (you know that “meat popsicle” bit? They’ve recut it so it looks like Korben got arrested).
Leeloo then spends about half the game in her strap suit from the lab, instead of like 3 minutes. Just because they took the iconic plunge into Korben’s taxi scene to use it way later, in a random subplot they added, and she needed to be dressed like that because that’s how she is in the movie clip.
Which also means that in the game’s plot, her falling right on Korben’s taxi was somehow intended, and not how they met.
Many other examples of scenes that were reinterpreted like that to create new subplots, like that one time Zorg blows up a phone booth to kill an incompetent henchman becomes a terrorist attack on the spaceport with a dozen of exploding booths.
This was more than likely because work started on the game before a completed script was available or any actual filming had taken place. They probably rejigged a few things once they were close to finished with development and had some clips to use.
Maybe, not sure about that because of the level of detail in justifying the random stuff they added.
The spaceport thing in particular makes me think they had the clip with the exploding phone already, and tried to shoehorn more gameplay from it. It’s not a key scene at all in the movie, it lasts literally a few seconds and has absolutely no consequence. (Yeah, an explosion in an airport is basically filler content and is never mentioned again. It’s that kind of movie).
In the same vein, they have a whole level in that airport where Korben has to blast piles of garbage to progress. Technically there are piles of garbage in the movie because of a strike. It’s barely mentioned and has absolutely no incidence on the plot.
Imagine thinking that Tolkien didn’t write Lord of the Rings to make a fighting PS2 game in 2002 and writing an article 20+ years after it’s release thinking it’s a clever thought. That game is master piece!
I’ll write a piece about how the 2004 PS2 game: The Polar Express misses the point of Christmas and collect my pay check.
I love when these games get discussed. I have a crt setup equally dedicated to melee and running through two towers and return of the king on ps2 with the buddies.
Add comment