Live-action The Legend of Zelda film announced

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

In terms of Zelda stories to adapt, I think the most appropriate would be The Wind Waker or Spirit Tracks. As they both have a more robust, relevant and mobile supporting cast than most Zelda games. But there's little point in even entertaining the idea that they'll go for any setting that isn't primarily Ocarina of Time with a bit of A Link to the Past sprinkled in.

Prediction - they're going to adapt Twilight Princess, by slapping a CGI Midna on top of a nature documentary about wolves.

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

I think that the best approach would be to tell a completely new story rather than try to adapt any specific game. That way gives more freedom to write for film with the fewest constraints. But if they do try to do a specific game, I'm going to go against the grain and say that I'd like to see Link's Awakening. I think that the whimsical dreamlike quality could translate well, and there's a decent emotional core to work with in Link's relationship with Marin. I'd be very surprised if they went down that path, but it's one I'd be interested in.

That would be really neat to see! But I'm highly doubtful of getting an inaugural Legend of Zelda film that doesn't feature... y'know... Zelda.

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

The story of Zelda typically involves Link going to several dungeons to collect several items to reach the next plot beat. How can you maintain that for a 100 minute movie while still having good pacing and not being redundant? How can you even implement a dungeon, let alone several, without it just ending up being an extended fight scene?

Obviously, the second through the second-to-last dungeon will be portrayed solely in a three-minute montage, with an upbeat "Zero to Hero"-like track blaring over all of Link's discoveries and bosskills.

47 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Yeah; it would be far easier to make a Zelda movie in animation; a live-action film is going to need enough CG that it may as well be fully animated. If the hardest thing to realize on-screen in a story is that story's world, then it probably should be animated.

I'd be all for a return to 80's-style practical effects, please and thank you. Give me Gorons in the way of TNG Klingons, dammit!

[vanguard333]

52 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, but for all the criticism of every Zelda game being the same... it's really not true. Like, they are not going to give us a game set on the Great Sea or Labrynna. It's going to be Hyrule. And it's going to be Hyrule as Hyrule and not the prehistory Skyward Sword. It's almost certainly not going to have trains very probably won't have Link splitting into four colour coded copies (unless it's a cameo). And it probably won't be the mostly barren wasteland of the original and Breath of the Wild. It's going to be Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, the Master Sword, Kakariko Village, the Lost Woods, Death Mountain, Lon Lon Ranch, Gerudo, Gorons and Zora if they have the budget. Which means it's primarily Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time with some other stuff thrown in. Maybe the Rito thanks to Breath of the Wild and Ordon from Twilight Princess to give Link a home town that isn't Kokiri Forest, but probably not the Twilight stuff unless it's a cameo.

In other words, not adapting any specific game and trying to go general means mostly being A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time as they were the most foundational games to the series image despite the actually rather impressive number of different directions and experimental paths they've taken with the series.

Fair point; an attempt to create an original story & Hyrule that's more of a grab-bag of various Zelda game ideas would likely lean towards A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time because they were foundational.

 

16 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I'd be all for a return to 80's-style practical effects, please and thank you. Give me Gorons in the way of TNG Klingons, dammit!

I could see the Zora be done through practical effects, as that wouldn't require much other than blue makeup and fins. The Gorons, however, would require more work; I'm picturing Fat B******d's bodysuit from Austin Powers combined with the makeup used for The Thing in the Fantastic Four movies in terms of how much work would need to be done for the Gorons. It just wouldn't be feasible.

[Fabulously Olivier]

I can't wait to see the cast for this one, lol.

 

"Danny Devito is Tingle!"

[indigoasis]

5 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I can't wait to see the cast for this one, lol.

Well, I think I can safely say that Matt Mercer has a legitimate chance at a live-action Ganondorf seeing as how he's actually done it before.

[Etrurian emperor]

26 minutes ago, indigoasis said:

Well, I think I can safely say that Matt Mercer has a legitimate chance at a live-action Ganondorf seeing as how he's actually done it before.

While that be cool in some ways I don't think Matthew Mercer is a good physical match for Ganondorf. Matthew seems pretty thin while Ganondorf has been getting bigger and bigger with each release. But more importantly I think an actor from a Middle Eastern or north African background should be chosen given how the Gerudo are depicted as somewhat Arabian inspired. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

4 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I can't wait to see the cast for this one, lol.

 

"Danny Devito is Tingle!"

Pete Davidson is my fancast for Tingle.

[Hrothgar777]

Hold on, those dumb clickbait articles were actually right?

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Obviously, the second through the second-to-last dungeon will be portrayed solely in a three-minute montage, with an upbeat "Zero to Hero"-like track blaring over all of Link's discoveries and bosskills.

7 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

While that be cool in some ways I don't think Matthew Mercer is a good physical match for Ganondorf. Matthew seems pretty thin while Ganondorf has been getting bigger and bigger with each release. But more importantly I think an actor from a Middle Eastern or north African background should be chosen given how the Gerudo are depicted as somewhat Arabian inspired. 

Full agreement. It'd be a major shame if the most prominent non white guy Nintendo has is just a dude in make up. Though, I can't think of any black or Arabic looking actor physically big enough for the role. Hopefully they'll find a pretty talented unknown that fits the bill.

[vanguard333]

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

Full agreement. It'd be a major shame if the most prominent non white guy Nintendo has is just a dude in make up. Though, I can't think of any black or Arabic looking actor physically big enough for the role. Hopefully they'll find a pretty talented unknown that fits the bill.

True. That said, any actor would need makeup to look like Ganondorf does in the games, since, in the games, his skin tone is always either green or dark grey. In Ocarina of Time, he's green. In Wind Waker, he's green. In Twilight Princess, he's dark grey. And, in Tears of the Kingdom, he's both: he's green in his base form and he's dark grey in his Demon King form.

[Lord_Brand]

I'm none too excited by the "live action" part. Zelda's perfect for an animated film or TV series, I'd rather that than live action.

[Zanarkin]

Rip a studio ghibli zelda movie. I don't quite understand what the fascination with live action is, but I don't want any of it. Fantasy tends to look much better as animation imo.

[vanguard333]

2 hours ago, Zanarkin said:

Rip a studio ghibli zelda movie. I don't quite understand what the fascination with live action is, but I don't want any of it. Fantasy tends to look much better as animation imo.

I think it's because Hollywood has always seen live-action as prestigious and animation has long been seen as solely the realm of kids' media (despite that perception having repeatedly been proven untrue). Nintendo wants these to be big movies, so they're working with big studios that carry these perceptions.

Mario is seen as cartoony, commercial, and mainly aimed at kids, so it got an animated movie. The Legend of Zelda, by contrast, is seen as the more prestigious and epic franchise, so it's live-action. It's a really dumb reason, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the reason that this is live-action.

I don't think a Studio Ghibli Zelda movie was ever going to happen, but I would've really liked to see a Zelda anime or animated movie. And yeah; fantasy does usually look better animated.

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 11/7/2023 at 10:27 PM, Jotari said:

How can you maintain that for a 100 minute movie while still having good pacing and not being redundant? How can you even implement a dungeon, let alone several, without it just ending up being an extended fight scene?

There are several popular movies* which are, in essence, a very long extended fight scene.

*- in Hong Kong

On 11/8/2023 at 11:52 AM, Fabulously Olivier said:

I can't wait to see the cast for this one, lol.

 

"Danny Devito is Tingle!"

Yes.

Give it to me.

I still won't watch it, but I want it to exist.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I think it's because Hollywood has always seen live-action as prestigious and animation has long been seen as solely the realm of kids' media (despite that perception having repeatedly been proven untrue). Nintendo wants these to be big movies, so they're working with big studios that carry these perceptions.

Mario is seen as cartoony, commercial, and mainly aimed at kids, so it got an animated movie. The Legend of Zelda, by contrast, is seen as the more prestigious and epic franchise, so it's live-action. It's a really dumb reason, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the reason that this is live-action.

I don't think a Studio Ghibli Zelda movie was ever going to happen, but I would've really liked to see a Zelda anime or animated movie. And yeah; fantasy does usually look better animated.

I actually think live action might be more practical. As I went into earlier, if something like this wants to be authentic to the games, there's going to be a lot of pacing issues, and animated movies, in that regard, just are a lot harder to make. Live action gives more freedom for the script to develop and change to suit a run time approaching two hours. Not that it would be impossible to make a two hour+ Ghibli film that looks amazing, it'd just be a lot easier to fuck up, and my hopes are already reasonably low.

[lenticular]

13 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I think it's because Hollywood has always seen live-action as prestigious and animation has long been seen as solely the realm of kids' media (despite that perception having repeatedly been proven untrue). Nintendo wants these to be big movies, so they're working with big studios that carry these perceptions.

I don't think I'd agree that the perception has been proved untrue, honestly. If we're looking specifically at feature-length animation made for an adult audience outside of Japan, then there really isn't a whole lot out there. Wikipedia has a handy list of the highest grossing animated films with ratings of PG-13 or above and if you look down the list there's not much there from outside of Japan. Yeah, The Simpsons movies did well, but that was very much a special case and even then, it barely breaks the top 50 of overall most successful animated films. (This is in contrast with live action films, where PG-13 ratings are pretty overwhelmingly the most successful ones.)

Now, there's definitely an argument that there's a chicken and egg situation going on here. There aren't many successful animated films for adult audiences, so Hollywood don't make them, which means that they don't get an opportunity to be successful, and so on and so forth. But if I were a risk-averse Hollywood executive looking to fund a project for hundreds of millions of dollars, or if I were a Nintendo executive trying to protect the brand for one of my most important IPs... honestly, I think I might come down the same way. I mean, I personally love animation and wish that we saw more of it and wish that Hollywood were more willing to take risks on it. But it's easy to spend someone else's money. If it were my money on the line, or my reputation, then I just don't think there is enough evidence out there to be able to say with confidence that adult animation is a winning bet.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

I don't think I'd agree that the perception has been proved untrue, honestly. If we're looking specifically at feature-length animation made for an adult audience outside of Japan, then there really isn't a whole lot out there. Wikipedia has a handy list of the highest grossing animated films with ratings of PG-13 or above and if you look down the list there's not much there from outside of Japan. Yeah, The Simpsons movies did well, but that was very much a special case and even then, it barely breaks the top 50 of overall most successful animated films. (This is in contrast with live action films, where PG-13 ratings are pretty overwhelmingly the most successful ones.)

Now, there's definitely an argument that there's a chicken and egg situation going on here. There aren't many successful animated films for adult audiences, so Hollywood don't make them, which means that they don't get an opportunity to be successful, and so on and so forth. But if I were a risk-averse Hollywood executive looking to fund a project for hundreds of millions of dollars, or if I were a Nintendo executive trying to protect the brand for one of my most important IPs... honestly, I think I might come down the same way. I mean, I personally love animation and wish that we saw more of it and wish that Hollywood were more willing to take risks on it. But it's easy to spend someone else's money. If it were my money on the line, or my reputation, then I just don't think there is enough evidence out there to be able to say with confidence that adult animation is a winning bet.

I'm not sure why this is even an aspect of the conversation. Adult focused animation outside of Japan is an interesting topic, and one I'm pretty into, I've watched all of Ralph Bakshi's movies...but with all that said, wether live action or animated, a Zelda movie is going to have kids in the audience. Like...yeah, it is considered more serious than Mario, but it's still a prominent Nintendo series. Link is not cutting bloody ribbons through people and Zelda isn't have affairs and stuff. They have themes and adults can certainly enjoy them, but children and teens are the target audience. Only Twilight Princess and Majora's Mask got 12+ ratings, the rest are 3+. Fire Emblem is more adult oriented than Zelda is by a country mile and even that's still steeped pretty much in the family genre in terms of tone and target audience, so much so that people have genuine fears that a Genealogy remake could undergo censorship.

[vanguard333]

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

I don't think I'd agree that the perception has been proved untrue, honestly. If we're looking specifically at feature-length animation made for an adult audience outside of Japan, then there really isn't a whole lot out there. Wikipedia has a handy list of the highest grossing animated films with ratings of PG-13 or above and if you look down the list there's not much there from outside of Japan. Yeah, The Simpsons movies did well, but that was very much a special case and even then, it barely breaks the top 50 of overall most successful animated films. (This is in contrast with live action films, where PG-13 ratings are pretty overwhelmingly the most successful ones.)

Now, there's definitely an argument that there's a chicken and egg situation going on here. There aren't many successful animated films for adult audiences, so Hollywood don't make them, which means that they don't get an opportunity to be successful, and so on and so forth. But if I were a risk-averse Hollywood executive looking to fund a project for hundreds of millions of dollars, or if I were a Nintendo executive trying to protect the brand for one of my most important IPs... honestly, I think I might come down the same way. I mean, I personally love animation and wish that we saw more of it and wish that Hollywood were more willing to take risks on it. But it's easy to spend someone else's money. If it were my money on the line, or my reputation, then I just don't think there is enough evidence out there to be able to say with confidence that adult animation is a winning bet.

Yeah, I suppose in terms of film specifically, it hasn't been disproven much outside of Bahkshi's films in the 70s and Don Bluth's films in the 80s (and even Don Bluth's films were still aimed at kids). But, if we also include animated series and not just films, there are more examples. Castlevania was the first video game adaptation to receive widespread acclaim from audiences, and it was an animated series aimed at adults. Perhaps most notably, Arcane has probably received the most acclaim of any video game adaptation so far: being the only video game adaptation to obtain 100% on rotten tomatoes, as well as win nine Annie Awards and be the first animated streaming series to win an Emmy Award, and it too is an animated series aimed at adults.

Yeah, part of it is definitely a chicken-and-egg situation, as Hollywood is infamously very risk-averse.

 

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

I actually think live action might be more practical. As I went into earlier, if something like this wants to be authentic to the games, there's going to be a lot of pacing issues, and animated movies, in that regard, just are a lot harder to make. Live action gives more freedom for the script to develop and change to suit a run time approaching two hours. Not that it would be impossible to make a two hour+ Ghibli film that looks amazing, it'd just be a lot easier to fuck up, and my hopes are already reasonably low.

True that animated films are generally shorter than live-action films. That could be a reason.

[Jotari]

27 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Yeah, I suppose in terms of film specifically, it hasn't been disproven much outside of Bahkshi's films in the 70s and Don Bluth's films in the 80s (and even Don Bluth's films were still aimed at kids). But, if we also include animated series and not just films, there are more examples. Castlevania was the first video game adaptation to receive widespread acclaim from audiences, and it was an animated series aimed at adults. Perhaps most notably, Arcane has probably received the most acclaim of any video game adaptation so far: being the only video game adaptation to obtain 100% on rotten tomatoes, as well as win nine Annie Awards and be the first animated streaming series to win an Emmy Award, and it too is an animated series aimed at adults.

We're definitely seeing a very slow and gradual shift in the perception of animated media for adults in the west. Well, specifically adult animated dramas, adult animated comedies have been going strong for several decades now. It's serious dramatic stories that have never managed to achieve all they could be. In addition to what you mentioned, I'd also throw a lot of credit the way of Samurai Jack Season 4, which was made very specifically for the adult fans of the original show.

[vanguard333]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

We're definitely seeing a very slow and gradual shift in the perception of animated media for adults in the west. Well, specifically adult animated dramas, adult animated comedies have been going strong for several decades now. It's serious dramatic stories that have never managed to achieve all they could be. In addition to what you mentioned, I'd also throw a lot of credit the way of Samurai Jack Season 4, which was made very specifically for the adult fans of the original show.

I'll take your word for it since I haven't seen Samurai Jack; I just know that it was created by the same person who created the original Star Wars Clone Wars micro-series (the 2D one where General Grievous was actually competent and scary).

 

Anyway, back to the Zelda movie, this movie will probably be an original story and I imagine it probably won't be anywhere on the Zelda timeline, especially since Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have kind-of made it obvious that the Zelda team wants to wash their hands of the Zelda timeline. But the real question for me is this: what will they include?

For example: the Triforce. Breath of the Wild made brief allusions and nods to the Triforce while Tears of the Kingdom ignored it completely in favour of the Zonai secret stones. The Triforce has been around since the start of the series and this film will probably want to embrace the series as a whole, so I imagine the Triforce will appear in some way.

For another example: the Master Sword: the blade of evil's bane. This is one of the few ideas introduced in A Link to the Past that even Breath of the Wild kept, so I imagine it will appear.

There is one that I'm not sure of: an adventuring companion. In most 3D Zelda games and in some 2D Zelda games, the silence was filled by Link having an adventuring companion that did all the talking for Link. Navi, Tatl, the King of Red Lions, Midna, Linebeck and the Phantom Hourglass fairy, Spirit Tracks Zelda, Fi, etc., while other games had Link adventure alone. I've seen some say that it would be impossible to have Link be silent for an entire movie, while others have pointed to old Western and Samurai movies and said that a movie can have a silent protagonist and be good; I don't know if either are correct, but I do think that, if Link can be silent, it will be a lot easier if he has an adventuring companion in the movie.