Wow, so everybody hates the movie here? Just curious, what will you do if you actually end up liking the movie? Will the universe end?
I don't hate the movie as such and when it is a dollar at the video store I MAY watch it - IF someone else supplies the dollar.
My problem with Paradox, the 54mm game and the movie, has been touched on by several but I will lay it out for you.
ParadoxWhen Thom ran Excelsior it was a small group of fans with a vison for the game who produced a good product. There were problems as there are anytime life is lived outside a vaccum. Paradox added to the problems with bull**** requirements and promises that never materialized. They were quick to cause problems but when it came time to stand up and be counted they left Thom holding the bag. Their denial of problems they caused added to the legitimate problems Excelsior had and made Thom et al look like screw-ups who were trying to pass the buck. Many so called fans - some holdovers from the Target days were quick to turn on Excelsior and go from thanking them for saving the game from the trash heap to blaming Thom and Excelsior for things they had nothing to do with. A major schism was caused in the fan base when the Excelsior/Demonblade debacle occured. It really got ugly after that. Several of the biggest supporters took sides and it got real personal. People, myself included, made online reputations that have stuck to them to this day. I am one of the few if not the only who has managed to overcome that rep. That is mostly due to the guys here giving me the chance to redeem myself. On other sites I am still considered one of the ultimate assholes of the 20th century. Against the backdrop of all this Paradox used the movie as a classic carrot and stick. They made promises that if Thom did something it would result in a movie credit or other movie related tangible benefit and if he stood against them, they threatened to cut Excelsior out of all the movie bennies. I was sick of hearing about the movie by 2001.
FFG and 54mm WarzoneI have nothing against the game or FFG directly. It is just not for me. I don't see the need to abandon a game I like to rebuild all my terrain and prepare for a game that so far has failed to ship. People used to crucify Thom for lack of communications and missed deadlines and Excelsior was a small company with 0 fulltime and only 4 part-time employees. Luckily most of the Philly crew from here would go by and volunteer their time to help out. In truth that is the secret of the close camraderie of those of us who have been around for awhile. Everyone knows that the others that have been here have been thru the fire and gave of themselves for this game and each other. Along the way more than one of us have gone thru marital problems that can be traced at least in small part to devoting our time and selves to this game and each other. I once told a guy we don't call each other
"Brother" because we grew up as Hulk-amaniacs and it's true - we have come to know and care about each other.
When the news was announced that Paradox had pulled the license and given FFG the rights to produce a collectible game we were stunned and needed time to absorb the news. Mike Z came over from FFG to announce it on our forums annd to recruit for play-testors for what was then going to be a 32mm game. He was thanked but decided to stick around and cross the line. What should have been a smooth transition was ruined by his smart aleck approach. Then some former fans began talking about making thier own quasi-official versions. I still think FFG decided to go to 54mm because we all agreed that 32mm wasn't too far off the scale and we could pop thier figs off the collectible bases and use them as proxies.
On top of all this, FFG has blown their release date at least 3 or 4 times. Of course everyone is still cutting them slack and making excuses for them. It ****es me off that Excelsior - a small company that was doing it's best - was crucified over delays while FFG - a large company with many, many employees - is forgiven for delaying the game tme and time again.
The MovieThis movie has been in varying stages of production for almost 15 years and they still haven't gotten it done. They have also completely rewritten the backstory and done major character revisions as well. It doesn't resemble the Warzone I have come to know and love. It may be a great sci-fi movie but it won't be Warzone an more than the Matthew Broderick version was Godzilla. It was a passable giant lizard movie but it wasn't the Big G. Me personally, if I wanted to keep the tie to the Warzone universe I would have called it
"Warzone: Darkness Rising". I would have set it on Earth in the last days and I would have used soem of the same last names so that fans could make the connection that the heroes of UWZ are descendents of the movie heroes. My final line would have been,
"Thank God we have escaped. Let the denizens of evil have this accursed place. We are on our way to a new world and a new life. We will never see such abominations again." And then the camera would pull back to show the planets and just beyond Pluto, I would have a small, dark planet come into view as if following an ellipical orbit.
