If done properly, could these Nintendo IP's make great movies

[IanTheGamer]

Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, Smash Bros, and F-Zero.
And I have a subquestion: Who would play each character and who should direct it

 

[ImaClubYou]

Zelda has definite movie potential. With the right people and funding it can even go live action and rival the likes of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc. However, Link may have to talk and I don't know how I feel about that, lol.

Metroid looks more like it belongs on the Syfi channel for a long series type thing. It definitely has potential for a 2 hour special kind of thing.

Starfox is a little tricky. Besides the Disney option, I feel Starfox may be limited solely because they're animals. It could be put into an anime series if nothing else.

Smash Bros. Movie? Do it. Keep it 3D, though. Live action Smash just screams butt ratings.

FZero is another excellent pick. It can be anything from comedy family film, mindless explosions, unending action, or all 3 together. This one HAS to be live action.

You forgot to mention Kid Icarus, btw. Imagine a movie like that with gods projecting themselves in the sky, lol. Hades is definitely a insta fan favorite.

As for directors I don't know, lol. Michael Bay for all of them?

 

[---]

I can't see a Zelda or Metroid movie working at all. Zelda would be cool for a beginning and end, but I can't see much of a middle, especially if Link doesn't talk (something like Spirit Track's plot could work though IMO). Metroid is in a similar boat.


Fire Emblem, Earthbound, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pikmin, Punch Out, Kid Icarus, I can all see working as films, especially Fire Emblem, Earthbound, Kid Icarus, and Star Fox.

 

[Drowzee64]

Given its popularity amongst a wide range of audiences, Zelda is the only Nintendo series I can realistically see getting a movie that hasn't already had one. I think it'd be about as good as the Mario Bros movie though, lol.

Most of the other series I can only see as a straight-to-dvd animated kids movie at best.

 

[Headcrab Jackalope]

I definitely think Pikmin would be great as a movie. The characters already have good personalities and voices(despite them not speaking real-world languages) and I could imagine it being pretty depressing towards the end.

 

[dimensionsword64]

The only one I could see working would be Zelda, and even then, I would prefer if it were animated, not live-action.

 

[D-idara]

Finding the perfect actress to play Samus would be tricky, but Metroid does lend itself to a cinematic, scary lost-space kind of film.

 

[IanTheGamer]

Finding the perfect actress to play Samus would be tricky, but Metroid does lend itself to a cinematic, scary lost-space kind of film.

True

 

[Calcobrena]

I could definitely see Zelda shaping up as a nice film, but really only something like a 1980s 60 minute anime, or something. Like that Mario anime film.

Personally, I wouldn't like seeing any Nintendo franchise (bar perhaps Metroid) as a live-action Hollywood film. Most of them wouldn't lend to that medium without heavy modifications. And we all know what that leads to...

 

[Depressed Gengar]

Zelda, Metroid, and F-Zero have good movie potential. Earthbound and Kirby do too.

 

[Zink Imp]

Actually, Zelda doesn't have much. It has a fantasy-epic setting, yes, but if there was a Zelda movie, the main character would be Link, no? Look at Link in the games: he's a blank slate. In the more recent games he has some personality, but it's not much. He's purposely made this way so the player can identify their selves in him. However, this transition can't work in a film. He would be boring. The movie would probably be boring. Link wouldn't go through any change. He'd start out in some village. "Link you must do this." And he does that. Movie over. A Zelda movie would have to be drastically different, even to a point where I don't think many of us would want it anymore.

I think Star Fox has the best shot for a movie. Great characters, great setting, I think it's begging for some sort of animated movie.

F-Zero could also work.

 

[Raxivace]

Assuming we're talking about live-action films here, F-Zero would probably work if they they do a The Fast and the Furious meets Cowboy Bebop type thing with it...maybe Metroid would work as well, though that's likely to just be an Alien clone if it ever happened. That Metal Gear Solid movie is happening too I guess, but does anybody really expect much from it?

The problem with video game to film adaptations is that most games just aren't meant to be compressed down to just a few hours, and the games out there with narratives worth a damn kind of need a longer format than just that few hours to tell their stories (Unless you get some genius like Orson Welles or Stanley Kubrick to do it, and as a friend of mine once said "they're both kind of dead at the moment").

Something like Star Fox would work well in an animated format I guess. Maybe Pikmin too.

However, this transition can't work in a film. He would be boring. The movie would probably be boring. Link wouldn't go through any change. He'd start out in some village. "Link you must do this." And he does that. Movie over. A Zelda movie would have to be drastically different, even to a point where I don't think many of us would want it anymore.

Characters don't have to change for movies/books/whatever to be good. There are plenty of perfectly good films with static main characters.

But yes, I do agree that a good Zelda movie wouldn't resemble the games much. And that's fine, I think, since they're entirely different mediums.

 

[FirestormNeos]

Zelda: That's a tough one. Should it focus on Link or the world around him? Should Link talk or no? The director is going to have to make a lot of tough calls, especially if they plan on making it live action. Also, do not bring any awareness to the concept of dungeons and how the flow of Zelda games work (go in dungeon, fight mini-boss, get item, fight boss, get heart container), or the movie will become extremely monotonous.

Metroid: Outsource all of the things to a dedicated movie studio. Otherwise we'll be getting Metroid Other M: The Movie.

And it will be horrible.

Star Fox: Animated. No ifs, ands or buts.

Smash Bros: Marvel Vs Nintendo Confirmed.

F-Zero: Captain Falcon must save the day at the end by Falcon Punching the antagonist, and it must be awesome. That is the only quota I have for the film as long as the rest is done at least tolerable.

Also, not on the list, but worth commenting on.

Kid Icarus. Directed by whomever did The Lego Movie. NOW.

That Metal Gear Solid movie is happening too I guess, but does anybody really expect much from it?

Metal Gear Solid: the best movie i ever played.

 

[IanTheGamer]

Zelda: That's a tough one. Should it focus on Link or the world around him? Should Link talk or no? The director is going to have to make a lot of tough calls, especially if they plan on making it live action. Also, do not bring any awareness to the concept of dungeons and how the flow of Zelda games work (go in dungeon, fight mini-boss, get item, fight boss, get heart container), or the movie will become extremely monotonous.

Metroid: Outsource all of the things to a dedicated movie studio. Otherwise we'll be getting Metroid Other M: The Movie.

And it will be horrible.

Star Fox: Animated. No ifs, ands or buts.

Smash Bros: Marvel Vs Nintendo Confirmed.

F-Zero: Captain Falcon must save the day at the end by Falcon Punching the antagonist, and it must be awesome. That is the only quota I have for the film as long as the rest is done at least tolerable.

Also, not on the list, but worth commenting on.

Kid Icarus. Directed by whomever did The Lego Movie. NOW.



Metal Gear Solid: the best movie i ever played.

In the Guardians of The Galaxy movie, Rocket Racoon is CGI animated in a live action movie, and who could play Solid Snake in MGS movie, in the Star Fox movie, who could voice Fox, Falco, Slippy, Krystal, and Peppy, Who could voice Wolf, Leon, and Panther?

 

[Cheezey Bites]

Zelda: Yes! absolutely! Not to say it would be easy, but we've seen plenty of growth from various Links where he starts out mildly adventurous, but ultimately a little lazy and finds something worth fighting for (ie. saving the world, his sister, Zelda so on so forth). Making him mute would be difficult though, as would the dungeons. You can definitely pull off the mute lead, but you have to make allowances for it, bring it up as a plot point, and perhaps use it to advantage (make it the reason Zelda an Link are such good friends). I think you'd have to make Link and Zelda romantic, which isn't entirely unjustified, but it could work. The dungeons though, that's a more difficult one; there has to be some lantern hung somewhere to explain Link's journey across the land, and a magic barrier won't cut it for the big screen, but it also has to be done first so that you can just make the dungeon scenes into exciting action segments... how you justify the dungeons is the whole crux of the movie, and I doubt you could do more than 4 temples even with a lantern (though the tri force is a good and recognisable excuse to turn it into 3), but if someone can find it, yes it could be a great movie, if not necessarily a great adaption of LoZ.


Metroid: It's called Alien... The only way to make it work is to go the Other:M route or a horror... and given Samus wears battle armour neither would make a good movie, let alone a great one.


Star Fox: Eh... it'd have to be a kid's film, and sadly Star Fox doesn't have quite the humour or adventurous spirit that the Ratchet and Clank or Sly Cooper have... and they look like they'll be strictly average movies anyway... Unfortunately 'Andross killed my father' isn't a good justification for wacky swash-buckling space adventures, so without rewriting Fox into some form of fish out of water it couldn't work... With such a rewrite though it could be a fun adventure, but it'd probably be a bit too close to star wars to be really considered good by most people.


Smash Bros: Nope, subspace shows us that story and smash don't go together, and smash doesn't even have a potential lead for the audience to follow through the story as a fighting tourney movie.


F-Zero: Let's be honest here, no race movie will ever be 'great', but enjoyable is totally possible. I think you'd have to rewrite the story a little, like make Falcon an ex-racer, and now he's bounty hunting 'cos it's a living, but one day on a shady job he meets someone (Jody Summers? Rick Wheeler? Samurai Goroh? pick one and write the scenario and their motivation as you wish) who helps him through his crisis of conscience and makes him come out of retirement, but a literal Black Shadow follows him from the sordid underworld that he once lived in as a bounty hunter and it's a race to survive in a zero-gravity future.

Honestly the story writes itself with that one, and it would allow for some awesome action scenes, but I don't know how well audiences would react to full CG car chases... it kinda looses it's sense of drama when it's all made in a computer. Oh and the conclusion would clearly be a Falcon Punch to the face!

 

[FirestormNeos]

In the Guardians of The Galaxy movie, Rocket Racoon is CGI animated in a live action movie, and who could play Solid Snake in MGS movie, in the Star Fox movie, who could voice Fox, Falco, Slippy, Krystal, and Peppy, Who could voice Wolf, Leon, and Panther?

Guardians of the Galaxy actually has money. I do not imagine the studio that produces a Star Fox movie would bother to put that kind of cash in.

 

[Booster]

Not Smash or Star Fox, they would be WAY too heavy on the CGi

 

[FirestormNeos]

Not Smash or Star Fox, they would be WAY too heavy on the CGi

CGi is fine when placed in the hands of a director who isn't George Lucas.

 

[Booster]

CGi is fine when placed in the hands of a director who isn't George Lucas.

Or the guy who made this trash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4APrSSvvK2g

 

[FirestormNeos]

Or the guy who made this trash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4APrSSvvK2g

(I wish that was the link to the Nostalgia Critic's review of the movie T_T)