Mon 22 Sep 2003
I went to see Sony’s new flick, Underworld, this weekend. Not sure what critics are saying, but I quite enjoyed this stylish, very Goth melding of The Matrix, Blade and Romeo & Juliet. Not likely to win an Oscar, but fun nonetheless.
My guess is that most will view Underworld as pretty shallow - focusing on the leather clad heroin and Woo-inspired fight choreography. But, on closer inspection, one can notice some good character development, multiple story arcs, good use of visual/textual symbols, decent dialogue, a plot twist or two, emotionally complex decisions, etc. A lot of good stuff that we should see more of in games, come to think of it (good thing David Freeman is putting out a book on the topic of adding emotial depth to games)… But I digress.
From an Underworld related post at Game Girl Advance, it is interesting (shocking?) to hear that pen&paper RPG creator White Wolf is trying to sue Sony over copyright infringement - hmm, I swear I’ve seen such things as vampires/etc before…
Finally, thought it was ironic that in many theatres in the US (ie, the ones run by Regal Cinema) won’t be allowing violent/etc arcades games to be played, while simultaneously showing on the big screens all those depictions it aims to ban - I must say, Underworld had a lot of game-like gunplay to it. Sadly, how can we expect less when our very own “followers” can’t get the ratings thing figured out :(
September 22nd, 2003 at 7:16 pm
I thought that the White Wolf suit would be pretty frivolous too until I read a post of the actual complaint that they filed. They cited some very specific things in the film that are certainly potential violations. IANAL, but they seemed to have utilized downright illegal inspiration from that existing World of Darkness franchise.
September 29th, 2003 at 5:27 pm
What he said and then some. White Wolf’s World of Darkness milieu certainly does rest atop a foundation of traditional vampire & werewolf mythology. But it also consists of a huge pile of specific additions — for instance, the whole idea of Machiavellian sociopolitical warfare between ancient vampire clans with complex, hierarchical culutres and cute little names & symbols. And Underworld has apparently ripped off almost all of it.
September 30th, 2003 at 2:42 am
Did anyone read any prior editions of Vampire, or has anyone talked to it’s original creator Mark Rein-Hagen? His edition of Vampire has a HUGE bibliography of source and inspirational material. Vampire doesn’t so much add anything to vampire mythology so much as create a rule structure for atmospheres introduced by a number of other authors (note the suit is jointly filed by WW and Nancy Colins who apparently believes she’s the one who innovated the whole World of Darkness milieu) Vampire is a well designed synthesis of gothic horror and punk aesthetics that was already being explored in fiction in the 80s.
November 2nd, 2003 at 9:05 am
Many of the similarities can be found in any books on vampire and Werewolf myths. If you really want to get down to the basice idea of a vampire fight against a werewolf then go back back in the 1940’s with films like House of Dracula. Or pay a visit to Transylvania to see Dracula’s castle and a lot of pictures.
December 27th, 2003 at 2:42 am
It is not a very hard task to come up with the idea of love between aa werewolf and a vampire.Secondly were the WW the first one to tell or explain the tail of vampires or werewolf on earth.Secondly a kid could think of a battle between vampires and werewolf or snake men and werewolf or wizards or vampires i mean well come on grow up.Third of all if WW came up with these ideas years ago why didn’t they use them.I feel sorry for sony as they have made an effort and yet they get nothing.And if anyone thinks that the movie is a copy of the romeo or juliet hey practical life has also seen love at first sight secondly they didn’t wow to die together in the movie underworld.Or they were not headover heals in love with each other.I have all my synmpathies with sony pictures and secondly how do you expect the world to advance without taking an ideas of other minds.Imagine if newton sued other scientists for using his discovery of gravity to derive new formula’s.