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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29307 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Sega is adapting Comix Zone into a movie. The old Sega Genesis game.

Comix Zone will revolve around "a jaded comic book creator and a young, queer writer of color who, when sucked into the final issue of his popular series, must put aside their differences to stop a dangerous supervillain from sowing complete destruction — and in the process wittily explore the ever-evolving power of storytelling itself."

No link, but it's on IGN and is easy to Google.

I first heard about this on a Sega podcast and the hosts didn't even think it was worth commenting on the young queer of color part.

This probably wouldn't be good anyway, but the shoehorned culture war element doesn't make me optimistic, either.

A story about the power of stories? Find me Neil Gaiman's non-union Mexican equivalent!

Well I think it's fine to borgify characters that no one on earth cares about, like the protagonist of Comix Zone. They're also developing Toejam and Earl and Space Channel 5 games, btw.

I'm honestly surprised that Sega owns the rights to that game, i would have guessed it was a 3rd party Ip. That said, why make a movie of a game so far outside of popular memory? It's not a particularly unique concept and attaching the comix zone name to it is basically just asking people like me to notice that its not like the original.

I actually appreciate that they didn't just retcon the original white guy who wears jean shorts into a homo, but really don't understand the urge to dredge up obscure media properties and put culturally progressive lipstick on them. i mean, whats next, making the ooze gay ?

Comix Zone was developed by Sega Technical Institute, an American division that made Sonic 2 and Sonic Spinball, but fell apart during and after the troubled development of the canceled Sonic X-Treme, being closed down in 1996.

I don't know why they'd pick Comix Zone, it's kind of a forgotten game. On the other hand, if they're working with the same people who made the Sonic movies, maybe it could be good? Still, there's like 10 other Sega IPs I'd have picked before Comix Zone (Vectorman, anyone?).

I suspect after the success of sonic Sega put out feelers for anyone interested in adapting any of their ips, and someone pitched comix zone - the team making it are called picturestart and they have apparently snared a few deals off the back of their upcoming film cha cha real smooth, aside from this they are also producing the borderlands and animorphs adaptations. Sega has been a cautious company since the end of the dreamcast though, so they probably picked comix zone specifically because it is so obscure - it doesn't matter if it bombs. And the corollary to that is that the people making it can take risks the suits wouldn't allow on a big ip.

Ooh, good point.

Well, the original plot of Comix Zone was pretty darn thin. "Beat up your own creations, save the girl." Being faithful to the game in total wouldn't be creating anything worth keeping.

Why not add a diversity hire? Wouldn't that make it even more 90s?

Wow, I've played that game. Never beat it, it is pretty damn hard.

It's an entirely appropriate vehicle to do metacommentary on storytelling, and 'updating' it to current day could involve adding queer characters.

But yeah, as I've said before, when they start making the wokeness a selling point it tells me they're not prioritizing other markers of quality.

I tried so hard as a kid to beat it, but never succeeded. I think I even managed to get to the final tile once, there’s only 3 levels iirc. None of my friends managed to beat it either.

It also came with a CD with all the songs, performed by “roadkill”, which was so awesome. I hope they at least use that in the movie.

I think it was Mario Brothers that taught us video games tend to make terrible movies and visa versa. i'm not sure if it's because too much of the budget is spent on the licesnce or screenwriters don't like working on video game adaptions, or the mediums are too different or what, but I wouldn't expect this to be one of the exceptions (unless we learn the game was the director and lead actor's childhood favorite). That requires someone in the production caring a lot about the final product (like Vin Diesel's influence on Escape from Butcher Bay it wasn't getting released until he approved).

Ironically, I think the Sonic movies have truly broken the paradigm and shown that it really is possible to make a good video game movie. The new Mario movie coming out probably won't be too bad either.

I haven't seen it, but some people speak highly of the 2018 Tomb Raider movie.

Edit: there's also this scene from the 2007 Postal movie

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_tv7t79WY

2018 Tomb Raider is too bland and inoffensive to be interesting, but it's a pleasantly forgettable way to spend 2 hours.

In contrast, the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movies are legitimately a lot of fun, in that early 2000s everyone in Hollywood just discovered Hong Kong wire work sort of way. They've always been favorite rainy day action movies in my family and I've never understood why no one ever mentions them when talking about video game movies.

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