That is exactly what I was trying to say gosh darn. Baldur's Gate is TOO EMPTY to be a movie because it lacks dialogue or story to fill up time. As I said, you have to spice it up. That very first part between Candlekeep and Nashkel is very empty.
You would indeed have to write some new interactions and make the iron crisis feel more.. horrible. Old farmers being held up by rogues, tavern keepers throwing out people who can't afford a room, Baldur's Gate gathering an army to fight Amn and while this happens Beregost and Nashkel are on the brink without a real garrison. Blacksmiths are in a panic and losing their business fast meaning goods are not produced.
Baldur's Gate is an action story. It's a game where you go here, talk, go here, talk, go here. Baldur's Gate 2 on the other hand ALWAYS has something big happening, which would make it a good movie.
I had the idea that when CHARNAME and Imoen find Gorion's corpse and read the letter, it flashes back and we see Elminister writing it to him. Then when we see the same man on the way to the Friendly Inn, we all go AAA YES IT'S HIM!
If they gonna do a film ( or more ) , the fan have to keep their expectataion low or none at all , just to avoid being dissapointed . Works for me , I might enjoy the movie , but I know it has nothing to do with the game except the title .
Speaking of Drizzt. I would prefer to watch film adaptation of The Dark Elf Trilogy more than watching movie called Baldur's Gate. We already got book based on the game and we know how well that went.
But as Bastion72 mentioned Prince of Persia movie wasn't bad. It just wasn't based so much on games as it should.
I don't know... I would maybe pick Peter Jackson to make these movies (or maybe Sam Raimi).
I want to point how dumb this sounds to say as a negative. To rail on a writer or producer for bringing life to a cinematic piece is like yelling at a doctor because he's doing too good a job curing your cancer.
Please, everyone, learn how filmmaking WORKS before you sound... stupid.
With all these different opinions, im glad that there never had come a movie or perhaps never will. Look how they f*** up DragonLance : Dragons of Autumn Twilight. So just be glad with the game, thats where our memories are. Not in a future ******* movie or cartoon..
Still ; BG3 and then A dragonlance game. :P ( the world of krynn is awsome)
Good that I never watched the Dragonlance movie then... the D&D one with the blue lipped dude was below the belt for me. And Krynn is indeed a great setting!
As long as David Warner plays Irenicus, I would be fine with it. The biggest problem as I see it is that Baldur's Gate is a MASSIVE game. Meaning MASSIVE movie... which indirectly means long movie, which means a lot of cuts. I'd rather see a TV series if I'd have to choose.
Then again, think of the consequences. I am almost positive most people wouldn't like it for the typical "That's not the decision I took!" reason. It's true, there could be a cannon. But then again the cannon set by the Novels wasn't really that much of a big success.
In other words : Idea is good, but accomplishing it is quite hard simply because of the existence of choices.
It would be the most beautiful day in my life. In my country - Poland this film wouldn't be as great as it might be earlier because of death of Krzysztof Kolberger who gave an incredible voice for irenicus. But I can still believe that this film would be really good and could give us a lot of pleasure. I hope that somebody will find time and money for this event. I am not good at judging but maybe James Cameron? Names don't important - just life important
Since I don't know what railing on someone means I'm going to assume it means pissing on them.
I'm not saying it has to be spiced up as if it's a bad thing. I'm saying it has to spiced up in order to make it a movie, rather than 30 minutes of killing between conversations. The game requires an artistic mind who understands the Baldur's Gate world and can add the required content to fill in gaps between key moments (the gap between Candlekeep and FAI, then Nashkel). If you show the regular scene of Imoen approaching you in the forest, how do you tackle it from there? Do you just show them walking? All those moments of travel and fighting have to be PLANNED OUT and WRITTEN.
The moment you commented on this thread you had to be a jerk. If people make themselves look stupid by not understanding whatever uninformed thoughts run through your head, then you should know that you make yourself look like, what they would describe at school, as an utter prick.
The problem with a film, as with the novel & the canon party is that everyone experienced the games differently. The would have to miss out lots of things that we all enjoy, and couldn't have all our favorite NPCs in either due to time constraints (that and the PC would have a small army if they all came along).
A film would trap one gameplay path in amber, and miss the potential variety of experiences and pathways. Let's face it, a big chunk of why there's a lot of us discussing this more than a decade after release if because of the different ways to approach things each playthrough.
Would never want to see a movie made over Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 - Because look what happens with so many game related movies.. most of them suck BIG time.
With all these different opinions, im glad that there never had come a movie or perhaps never will. Look how they f*** up DragonLance : Dragons of Autumn Twilight. So just be glad with the game, thats where our memories are. Not in a future ******* movie or cartoon..
Still ; BG3 and then A dragonlance game. :P ( the world of krynn is awsome)
Dragonlance deserves a good game. The NES ones are terrible.
BG mini series would be better than a movie in my opinion and I agree that first game fit much better scenario than second, becouse it is easier to introduce people to the world than have BG2 setting and forgotten realms in all its glory and diversity crushing down on unsuspecting audiance. Oh and let HBO do it so far they have done beautifull things with song of fire and ice
@Ward On the contrary, I have nothing against you at all. It's just the idea that I would go to nuclear war over. I hope I didn't make it sound like I was here to mock you.
God damnit you people don't understand when I'm TRYING to be funny do you?
Not every amusing comment I make is meant to be insulting. In fact, I try to be as blunt as possible as not to confuse.
How else am I meant to forgive than to make a joke? I'm being serious here, lighten up. I am gasping how many flags people give things without reading them or thinking about their intention. I'm worried about this community if you guys can't tell malicious writing apart from the rest.
God damnit you people don't understand when I'm TRYING to be funny do you?
Not every amusing comment I make is meant to be insulting. In fact, I try to be as blunt as possible as not to confuse.
How else am I meant to forgive than to make a joke? I'm being serious here, lighten up. I am gasping how many flags people give things without reading them or thinking about their intention. I'm worried about this community if you guys can't tell malicious writing apart from the rest.
God damnit you people don't understand when I'm TRYING to be funny do you?
Not every amusing comment I make is meant to be insulting. In fact, I try to be as blunt as possible as not to confuse.
How else am I meant to forgive than to make a joke? I'm being serious here, lighten up. I am gasping how many flags people give things without reading them or thinking about their intention. I'm worried about this community if you guys can't tell malicious writing apart from the rest.
Oh I think both BG 1 + 2 could be made into movies. I think both would have to be three-parters, maybe two and it would be action/adventure. Here's my partial intro to BG1:
Gorion would wake PC up in the middle of the night and with a sense of urgency tell the PC that they have to leave immediately. Gorion would give PC all the extra equipment he/she would need and they head off. They audience sees a shadowy figure following them as they head out. Of course we know it is Imoen. It is night time, raining and the couple runs into Sarevok and company. Gorion tells PC to run or perhaps teleports PC away and has an epic with Sarevok and Gorion kills most of his company. Gorion dies. We cut to Imoen waking up PC because PC hit his head on something during the flight to get somewhere safe. This would be the first 5-10 minutes max.
No man. Dazzu has been nothing but rude to me here and when I finally tell him to bugger off, he apologized (sort of).
As a way of accepting it, I made the Taunt joke, as if he was trying to make a taunt check against me and got the roll. It was NOT hurtful towards him at all.
And now my profile says I'm abusive? I should have flagged all the abuse I've been given, but I didn't think it was necessary, but due to the fact that he flagged ALMOST EVERYTHING I've said, maybe only admins and mods should flag things. I get the feeling this 'Weberstock' and 'Dazzu' are the same person.
All together now ... This is just the internet !!! My favorite mantra from wayyyyyy back . When still active in wwe/f chatrooms and boardgamer.com forum ( all dead now )
I think they could make a great saga of movies out of the series, but i think it would be better as TV show. So they could go in to move depth and develop the characters more and make the expansions in to movies. But if they were to make a movie they should use the opening scene for Baldurs gate the one where Sarevok flings the guy of the roof as the trailer.
@Ward It's kind of funny. I wouldn't worry too much about retaliation from above for all of your "abuse". I have no idea how to remove that status though. I'll look into it.
Saw this and had to comment, even though it's a bit old.
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If it's a movie:
Peter Jackson, no doubt. He proved with Lord of the Rings that a fantasy movie can be more than epic and that he has the mind to make it. I don't think anyone else could do better.
There are many good actors, but to be honest it is best to find some relative unknowns with a few of the well known (think Star Wars). If it was done with a bunch of A-Lister's it would be an X-men movie or something like that, and this needs to be so much more.
There would need to be a creative outlook on the movie and it would be open. The core story would need to be there of course, but embellishments to the story, action, or dialogue is a must in order to flesh out not only the main character but the party members. It needs to take a page from Lord of the Rings and start the cast small, grow it, and then split it (Frodo, Hobbits, Aragon).
So first movie, obviously, BG1: No splitting the characters up, focus on fleshing out the characters and introducing the audience to world of Faerun (specifically the sword coast, perhaps throwing in a few cameos like Elminster). Let the audience in on that there may be more than just the "Iron Shortage" at work, more than just Sarevok and his crazy plan.
Second Movie: Time to split the party up, and the opening scene of BGII is perfect in telling that. Show Imoen a few times and what happens, show Irenicus, embellish a few things. There isn't too much you need to do, but remember that the theme of Baldur's Gate isn't Irenicus... it's the Bhaalspawn. They need to be the focus, the second film needs to be dark, it needs to have Irenicus, but he cannot be the focus. It needs to be like Saruman from Lord of the Rings. We know that he is a villian that needs to be stopped, but what comes after him is the chaos of Mount Doom (in BG terms, it's the five in Throne of Bhaal).
Third Movie: Chaos, battles, destruction, and murder. Somehow the hero needs to be shown to overcome all this. His character needs to be completely fleshed out, have a personality. And it needs to end like Lord of the Ring. He must become a God.
A few notes. The movie cannot be name "Baldur's Gate". I think a more befitting name is "Tales of the Sword Coast: Baldur's Gate", "Tales of the Sword Coast: Shadows of Amn", and "Tales of the Sword Coast: Throne of Bhaal". Why? Because it's more befitting to the story and to the mythos and it always mystified me as to why Bioware chose that name in the first place.
Important characters (party): Main Character Imoen Jaheira Khalid (until he dies, which may or not be good to show) Minsc Yoshimo (for the second movie, show a redemptive Yoshimo as well, that and a betrayal makes a good movie) Sarevok (for the 3rd, it would make for a fantastic atmosphere and make the movie more dynamic) Dynaheir (for the first movie) [Maybe] Aerie (Minsc needs someone to protect) [Maybe]
The rest of the characters are, no offense, not really necessary and are at most, cameo worthy. Too many characters has the movie stretched thin and would make the movie seem disconnected.
Romance also shouldn't have a huge role in the movies. The main character should be male, simply because the best secondary characters are already female (though Imoen can be argued almost a main character). Romance should be between the other characters (Khalid and Jaheira, perhap's aerie and another).
-----
If it's a series:
This would be almost the preferred role, but because of dragons, magic, and a host of other things, it would be very expensive to do it this way. But there could be MANY more characters, backstories, and other things that would be very cool to do here. You could literally do almost every character and have many seasons working towards the epic finale in ToB. I would still call it Tales of the Sword Coast, and perhaps even have the seasons take the secondary title.
This idea takes what is from the movie and just expands upon it in all directions. I can't think a good producer or director for this. But HBO would be an excellent fit for the series.
I want this one, only if it could be done properly.
-----
Well that's my take. I wish I had the know how and money (and contacts) to get it done this way. But perhaps I should just leave it to my dreams.
Comments
That is exactly what I was trying to say gosh darn. Baldur's Gate is TOO EMPTY to be a movie because it lacks dialogue or story to fill up time. As I said, you have to spice it up. That very first part between Candlekeep and Nashkel is very empty.
You would indeed have to write some new interactions and make the iron crisis feel more.. horrible. Old farmers being held up by rogues, tavern keepers throwing out people who can't afford a room, Baldur's Gate gathering an army to fight Amn and while this happens Beregost and Nashkel are on the brink without a real garrison. Blacksmiths are in a panic and losing their business fast meaning goods are not produced.
Baldur's Gate is an action story. It's a game where you go here, talk, go here, talk, go here. Baldur's Gate 2 on the other hand ALWAYS has something big happening, which would make it a good movie.
I had the idea that when CHARNAME and Imoen find Gorion's corpse and read the letter, it flashes back and we see Elminister writing it to him. Then when we see the same man on the way to the Friendly Inn, we all go AAA YES IT'S HIM!
But as Bastion72 mentioned Prince of Persia movie wasn't bad. It just wasn't based so much on games as it should.
I don't know... I would maybe pick Peter Jackson to make these movies (or maybe Sam Raimi).
Please, everyone, learn how filmmaking WORKS before you sound... stupid.
So just be glad with the game, thats where our memories are. Not in a future ******* movie or cartoon..
Still ; BG3 and then A dragonlance game. :P ( the world of krynn is awsome)
The biggest problem as I see it is that Baldur's Gate is a MASSIVE game. Meaning MASSIVE movie... which indirectly means long movie, which means a lot of cuts. I'd rather see a TV series if I'd have to choose.
Then again, think of the consequences. I am almost positive most people wouldn't like it for the typical "That's not the decision I took!" reason. It's true, there could be a cannon. But then again the cannon set by the Novels wasn't really that much of a big success.
In other words : Idea is good, but accomplishing it is quite hard simply because of the existence of choices.
Since I don't know what railing on someone means I'm going to assume it means pissing on them.
I'm not saying it has to be spiced up as if it's a bad thing. I'm saying it has to spiced up in order to make it a movie, rather than 30 minutes of killing between conversations. The game requires an artistic mind who understands the Baldur's Gate world and can add the required content to fill in gaps between key moments (the gap between Candlekeep and FAI, then Nashkel). If you show the regular scene of Imoen approaching you in the forest, how do you tackle it from there? Do you just show them walking? All those moments of travel and fighting have to be PLANNED OUT and WRITTEN.
The moment you commented on this thread you had to be a jerk. If people make themselves look stupid by not understanding whatever uninformed thoughts run through your head, then you should know that you make yourself look like, what they would describe at school, as an utter prick.
If you can't behave then don't post.
A film would trap one gameplay path in amber, and miss the potential variety of experiences and pathways. Let's face it, a big chunk of why there's a lot of us discussing this more than a decade after release if because of the different ways to approach things each playthrough.
Neverwinter Nights Taunt Check: DC 9000
Dazzu: Here, FIGHT ME. COME ON!
Ward: TO THE FIGHT!
-lunge-
Ward: Heal my WOUNDS, NOW!!
Ward: I need some help here, NOW!!!!
-die-
Not every amusing comment I make is meant to be insulting. In fact, I try to be as blunt as possible as not to confuse.
How else am I meant to forgive than to make a joke? I'm being serious here, lighten up. I am gasping how many flags people give things without reading them or thinking about their intention. I'm worried about this community if you guys can't tell malicious writing apart from the rest.
Did you make fun of trains or something?
Gorion would wake PC up in the middle of the night and with a sense of urgency tell the PC that they have to leave immediately. Gorion would give PC all the extra equipment he/she would need and they head off. They audience sees a shadowy figure following them as they head out. Of course we know it is Imoen. It is night time, raining and the couple runs into Sarevok and company. Gorion tells PC to run or perhaps teleports PC away and has an epic with Sarevok and Gorion kills most of his company. Gorion dies. We cut to Imoen waking up PC because PC hit his head on something during the flight to get somewhere safe. This would be the first 5-10 minutes max.
No man. Dazzu has been nothing but rude to me here and when I finally tell him to bugger off, he apologized (sort of).
As a way of accepting it, I made the Taunt joke, as if he was trying to make a taunt check against me and got the roll. It was NOT hurtful towards him at all.
And now my profile says I'm abusive? I should have flagged all the abuse I've been given, but I didn't think it was necessary, but due to the fact that he flagged ALMOST EVERYTHING I've said, maybe only admins and mods should flag things. I get the feeling this 'Weberstock' and 'Dazzu' are the same person.
I wish for all of us to be friends.
-----
If it's a movie:
Peter Jackson, no doubt. He proved with Lord of the Rings that a fantasy movie can be more than epic and that he has the mind to make it. I don't think anyone else could do better.
There are many good actors, but to be honest it is best to find some relative unknowns with a few of the well known (think Star Wars). If it was done with a bunch of A-Lister's it would be an X-men movie or something like that, and this needs to be so much more.
There would need to be a creative outlook on the movie and it would be open. The core story would need to be there of course, but embellishments to the story, action, or dialogue is a must in order to flesh out not only the main character but the party members. It needs to take a page from Lord of the Rings and start the cast small, grow it, and then split it (Frodo, Hobbits, Aragon).
So first movie, obviously, BG1: No splitting the characters up, focus on fleshing out the characters and introducing the audience to world of Faerun (specifically the sword coast, perhaps throwing in a few cameos like Elminster). Let the audience in on that there may be more than just the "Iron Shortage" at work, more than just Sarevok and his crazy plan.
Second Movie: Time to split the party up, and the opening scene of BGII is perfect in telling that. Show Imoen a few times and what happens, show Irenicus, embellish a few things. There isn't too much you need to do, but remember that the theme of Baldur's Gate isn't Irenicus... it's the Bhaalspawn. They need to be the focus, the second film needs to be dark, it needs to have Irenicus, but he cannot be the focus. It needs to be like Saruman from Lord of the Rings. We know that he is a villian that needs to be stopped, but what comes after him is the chaos of Mount Doom (in BG terms, it's the five in Throne of Bhaal).
Third Movie: Chaos, battles, destruction, and murder. Somehow the hero needs to be shown to overcome all this. His character needs to be completely fleshed out, have a personality. And it needs to end like Lord of the Ring. He must become a God.
A few notes. The movie cannot be name "Baldur's Gate". I think a more befitting name is "Tales of the Sword Coast: Baldur's Gate", "Tales of the Sword Coast: Shadows of Amn", and "Tales of the Sword Coast: Throne of Bhaal". Why? Because it's more befitting to the story and to the mythos and it always mystified me as to why Bioware chose that name in the first place.
Important characters (party):
Main Character
Imoen
Jaheira
Khalid (until he dies, which may or not be good to show)
Minsc
Yoshimo (for the second movie, show a redemptive Yoshimo as well, that and a betrayal makes a good movie)
Sarevok (for the 3rd, it would make for a fantastic atmosphere and make the movie more dynamic)
Dynaheir (for the first movie) [Maybe]
Aerie (Minsc needs someone to protect) [Maybe]
The rest of the characters are, no offense, not really necessary and are at most, cameo worthy. Too many characters has the movie stretched thin and would make the movie seem disconnected.
Romance also shouldn't have a huge role in the movies. The main character should be male, simply because the best secondary characters are already female (though Imoen can be argued almost a main character). Romance should be between the other characters (Khalid and Jaheira, perhap's aerie and another).
-----
If it's a series:
This would be almost the preferred role, but because of dragons, magic, and a host of other things, it would be very expensive to do it this way. But there could be MANY more characters, backstories, and other things that would be very cool to do here. You could literally do almost every character and have many seasons working towards the epic finale in ToB. I would still call it Tales of the Sword Coast, and perhaps even have the seasons take the secondary title.
This idea takes what is from the movie and just expands upon it in all directions. I can't think a good producer or director for this. But HBO would be an excellent fit for the series.
I want this one, only if it could be done properly.
-----
Well that's my take. I wish I had the know how and money (and contacts) to get it done this way. But perhaps I should just leave it to my dreams.