Prince of Persia is actually pretty good! [Archive]

Sithdarth

05-30-2010, 10:03 AM

It was actually a relatively good movie. There were just enough moments where you went "Hey I remember having to do something like that in the game." While at the same time being basically its own story. The banter was also good. I think a Warrior Within movie with the same team might be equally as good. This might go down in history as one of the best movie adaptations ever done.

bluestarultor

05-30-2010, 10:07 AM

loooooool

You paid to go to a movie and didn't stay for it all and are thus going to pay to go again?! Ridiculous.

Hey, not my fault they fucked around with his schedule.

I think the fact that I actually am willing to pay to see it again just for the last 5 minutes says something as to its quality.

BloodyMage

05-30-2010, 10:34 AM

I heard it was terrible, and I trust my sources.

Professor Smarmiarty

05-30-2010, 10:46 AM

It got 40% on RT with average rating of 5/10 which is pretty bad. It doesn't even pass the SMB test of the best movies being between 20-30%/70-80% on the meter.

bluestarultor

05-30-2010, 10:49 AM

I heard it was terrible, and I trust my sources.

Your sources need to define "terrible."

As an objective third party, I'll list off the good and bad:

Pros: great dialog, light comedy, serious parts done incredibly well, rock-solid characters, a complex plot that keeps you guessing, the best ranged combat sequence I've ever seen, superior special effects, good music that fits the movie, great acting, wonderful stunt work, no crapping out and doing any of the action in CG instead of real actors

Cons: fight scenes tend to make use of shakycam, bad CG snakes, inappropriate use of the word "poison"

This is coming from a guy who's never played the games and therefore isn't colored by them. As a standalone movie, it is objectively good. If you're looking for a carbon copy of the first game, from what I know of it, you will be disappointed that it's not.

Edit:
It got 40% on RT with average rating of 5/10 which is pretty bad. It doesn't even pass the SMB test of the best movies being between 20-30%/70-80% on the meter.

To be fair, the panning is strictly from the critics. The RT community gave it a 70%.

Edit for below:
Honestly, for me it was more just her tone all the time. She didn't exactly fall over the guy and spent half the movie running off and doing a damn good job taking care of herself. It wasn't until nearly the end that the two actually started liking each other and he was the one that made the first move. She was otherwise going to ditch him again. It really came off to me like his persistence won her over.

CelesJessa

05-30-2010, 10:51 AM

I thought it was pretty good. I've never played the games before, but I was glad I didn't have to in order to understand what was going on.

The lead female kept annoying me for some reason though. I'm not sure why. I think it was because she was the stereotypical "strong yet I still need a maaan" female lead in every movie like this. (not really a spoiler, but some people don't like to know anything about something they're going to see.)

Professor Smarmiarty

05-30-2010, 11:00 AM

Your sources need to define "terrible."

I'll help by listed off some of major complaints I heard abuot it (note I haven't seen film, just relaying)
Biggest one was that the dialogue was horrible in that it explained everything that was happening in excruitating detail and beat you over the head with it and characters wuold stop every ten minutes and be like "we must do this!"
Other complaints were special effects were from the 90s, plot was convulted and characters cartoonish.
Also it about as historically accurate as the flinstones.

bluestarultor

05-30-2010, 11:12 AM

I'll help by listed off some of major complaints I heard abuot it (note I haven't seen film, just relaying)
Biggest one was that the dialogue was horrible in that it explained everything that was happening in excruitating detail and beat you over the head with it and characters wuold stop every ten minutes and be like "we must do this!"
Other complaints were special effects were from the 90s, plot was convulted and characters cartoonish.
Also it about as historically accurate as the flinstones.

I'll tell you that there were only like three exposition dumps and they were all reasonable and relevant. Only one of them ran anywhere near too long, and that was explaining the dagger's story.

Also, the dialog was pretty damn good, with my only complaint being one character with a vendetta against... taxes. It was mildly humorous, but could have been done better. I'll agree on the "let's do this" bit, but it actually wasn't all that noticeable. My complaint is the "destiny" bit. That wears out its welcome by the end.

Also, the only bad special effects were plastic-looking snakes. Everything else was amazing.

And, uh, to put it lightly, expecting historical accuracy in any of The Prince of Persia is like expecting a singing dog. Maaybe you'll get a little hint of it, but overall, it's just not a good place to look for it.

Sithdarth

05-30-2010, 11:44 AM

Yeah the games weren't especially historically accurate to begin with. The exposition dumps where no worse than say any of the Terminator exposition dumps. There were basically no computerized special effects which frankly was totally awesome. The plot was about right for something involving time travel and the characters were as passable as basically anything else Hollywood puts out.

This is simply an example of the angry video game nerd. The movie is bad because it was based on a game. If it follows the game too closely it is bad because of that. If it doesn't follow the game really at all then it is bad because of that. These people just seem to want to complain. It's like they don't realize that of course you aren't going to get the same feelings from the movie as the game but that doesn't automatically make the movie bad.

BloodyMage

05-30-2010, 12:22 PM

This is coming from a guy who's never played the games and therefore isn't colored by them. As a standalone movie, it is objectively good. If you're looking for a carbon copy of the first game, from what I know of it, you will be disappointed that it's not.

Maybe it has something to do with this. I've never really played the games, but my friend has, and she didn't like it. I haven't seen it, but having not played the games and the mixed reviews, and not really in any rush to do so. So maybe it's a case of the movie not living up to expectations of the game as a movie, or she's just being an angry video game nerd, though the latter would be quite out of character for her.

Professor Smarmiarty

05-30-2010, 02:37 PM

Yeah the games weren't especially historically accurate to begin with.
The games were atrocious but they didn't have such a specific plot that you couldn't clean it up for a movie. You could at least go for Hollywood history rather than just ignore it completely.

This is simply an example of the angry video game nerd. The movie is bad because it was based on a game. If it follows the game too closely it is bad because of that. If it doesn't follow the game really at all then it is bad because of that. These people just seem to want to complain. It's like they don't realize that of course you aren't going to get the same feelings from the movie as the game but that doesn't automatically make the movie bad.

None of the critics I heard even referred to the game, I doubt many of them have even touched it.
They judging it as a movie with no reference to the game.

The Sevenshot Kid

05-30-2010, 03:42 PM

It was a pretty average film. It would have been a whole lot better if they had stuck more closely to the original script. My only real complaints are that the assassin's felt tacked on, we all knew what the hell Kingsley was up to, and it seemed like they were trying to make a parallel with the situation in the middle east.

I never really got into it but that may have been because the sound system in my theater wasn't up to par. Oh, and Gemma Arterton might just be the most beautiful woman in the world.

bluestarultor

05-30-2010, 05:16 PM

The games were atrocious

I know several people who would argue with that.

but they didn't have such a specific plot that you couldn't clean it up for a movie. You could at least go for Hollywood history rather than just ignore it completely.

That's kind of what they did? From what basics I know of the first of the Sands of Time trilogy, it's similar in several ways to that. And, uh, what? Hollywood history? It's Persia, and not even any specific region. You have an Aryan there as one of the bad guys above a room with a whirling dervish and swords ranging from falchions to scimitars. There's sand. It's a desert. And cities with shiny domes. Nobody bitched about this with Aladdin. They have the entire Arab world to work with, here. There's not much else you need.

None of the critics I heard even referred to the game, I doubt many of them have even touched it.
They judging it as a movie with no reference to the game.

Well, from that standpoint, it's a swashbuckler and doesn't really pretend to be much else. If critics wanted sophisticated, it's understandable why they were disappointed. It's not going to be the next Pirates, but then Pirates was in itself a total accident made from a theme park ride from a time when Disney was scraping as low as the Country Bears and just happened to work.

Professor Smarmiarty

05-30-2010, 05:31 PM

I know several people who would argue with that.

Then they should be writing to historical journals because they would revolutionise that field. Maybe they are right but it would contradict everything we know currentely.

That's kind of what they did? From what basics I know of the first of the Sands of Time trilogy, it's similar in several ways to that. And, uh, what? Hollywood history? It's Persia, and not even any specific region. You have an Aryan there as one of the bad guys above a room with a whirling dervish and swords ranging from falchions to scimitars. There's sand. It's a desert. And cities with shiny domes. Nobody bitched about this with Aladdin. They have the entire Arab world to work with, here. There's not much else you need.

By Hollywood history I mean at least get the names right, at least set it somewhere and somewhen ( they gave a date when they were filming but it doesn't make any sense with everything else in the movie). Skim a high school text book, that's all I'm asking.
A lot of people here would go nuts over say a science-fiction movie with bad science, this movie is to history as Wing Commander is to physics.

Well, from that standpoint, it's a swashbuckler and doesn't really pretend to be much else. If critics wanted sophisticated, it's understandable why they were disappointed. It's not going to be the next Pirates, but then Pirates was in itself a total accident made from a theme park ride from a time when Disney was scraping as low as the Country Bears and just happened to work.

Pirates wasn't rated that well either... it got 7/10 and 70% which is better though.

stefan

05-30-2010, 06:25 PM

Best VG film adaptation. Maybe not an absolutely amazing film, but quite enjoyable, and worth a ticket.

also, Smarty, I hate to be a dick but you're an idiot if you expected this to be anything resembling historical accuracy. You're looking at it from a Kingdom of Heaven perspective when you should be looking at it one thousand and one Nights style.

bluestarultor

05-30-2010, 06:27 PM

Then they should be writing to historical journals because they would revolutionise that field. Maybe they are right but it would contradict everything we know currentely.

I thought you were speaking in terms of story. Never mind.

By Hollywood history I mean at least get the names right, at least set it somewhere and somewhen ( they gave a date when they were filming but it doesn't make any sense with everything else in the movie). Skim a high school text book, that's all I'm asking.
A lot of people here would go nuts over say a science-fiction movie with bad science, this movie is to history as Wing Commander is to physics.

The difference between retarded history and retarded physics is that everyone knows what gravity is. Most people know jack about history and don't care who happened to be king of the Pygmies in 1077 A.D. as long as the movie is good.

Pirates wasn't rated that well either... it got 7/10 and 70% which is better though.

That just shows that mainstream movie critics are all stuck up their own backsides and need a little joy in life.

The same can be said for critics of all types, I suppose, given the vast chasm between critical and popular ratings of several video games and the fact that both a monkey and a bear have won art contests.

The Sevenshot Kid

05-31-2010, 12:08 AM

This has been bothering me for a couple of days and I just want to see if anyone else understands what I'm saying.

EDIT: Spoilers Ahead
Tamina told Dastan that turning back time with the Dagger connected directly to the sands would destroy the world. So he did it. And nothing bad happened! All we saw was that sandstorm rewinding for no damn reason because it showed up out of nowhere for no reason at all.

RickZarber

05-31-2010, 12:44 AM

Whoa. Spoilers much?

stefan

05-31-2010, 01:44 AM

Tamina told Dastan that turning back time with the Dagger connected directly to the sands would destroy the world. So he did it. And nothing bad happened! All we saw was that sandstorm rewinding for no damn reason because it showed up out of nowhere for no reason at all.

You weren't paying attention, it seems. What she said was that stabbing the dagger into the sands and opening the dagger's compartment would cause the sands to be released. What happened was, Nizam stabbed the sands, the dagger was opened accidentally when Dastan and Nizam were struggling, and Dastan managed to close it and hit the jewel-button to reset everything.

Magus

06-01-2010, 12:33 PM

I heard this was a good movie but it's not a good adaptation. Adaptation implies they adapted something to the screen and while I'm sure they adapted plenty of elements of The Sands of Time to the screen the bulk of it probably isn't there.

I've bitched about the fact this movie should've been called something else a long time ago, though, so forgetting that, I'll trust that it's not that bad a film if it gets 40% on RT.

And don't go all "WELL PIRATES WAS A POOR ADAPTATION OF AN AMUSEMENT PARK RIDE THEN" because I will probably agree with you, the only similarity was the name and that there are pirates. This is a better adaptation than Pirates but it's not as good a movie, then

Professor Smarmiarty

06-01-2010, 12:45 PM

The difference between retarded history and retarded physics is that everyone knows what gravity is. Most people know jack about history and don't care who happened to be king of the Pygmies in 1077 A.D. as long as the movie is good.

But I care :(.

That just shows that mainstream movie critics are all stuck up their own backsides and need a little joy in life.

The same can be said for critics of all types, I suppose, given the vast chasm between critical and popular ratings of several video games and the fact that both a monkey and a bear have won art contests.

You on dangerous ground here! I considered a long and off-topic rant!

I though Pirates was pretty faithful to the ride, obviously the change of medium meant some things had to be changed but it was pretty close.

Magus

06-01-2010, 01:07 PM

Sithdarth

06-01-2010, 02:20 PM

I heard this was a good movie but it's not a good adaptation. Adaptation implies they adapted something to the screen and while I'm sure they adapted plenty of elements of The Sands of Time to the screen the bulk of it probably isn't there.

One might argue that actually makes it a good adaptation. After all most of what goes on in a game wouldn't work in a movie to begin with. Trying to fit as much of the game's story into the movie as possible with out respecting the differences in the two media are what makes a bad adaptation. Personally I think at the very least this movie hit very close to the perfect balance of stuff from the game vs. different stuff needed to make it work in the new medium. Which incidentally is why we ended up with a good movie that didn't seem much at all like the games.

Magus

06-01-2010, 03:01 PM

I don't think that anything in the game wouldn't work in the movie, since I think everything IN the game is in the movie. They added stuff to it, they didn't take anything away from what I can see.

I think certain elements of adaptations work out even if the thing as a whole is terrible. Like, I'll take Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li for example. It solved the basic problem of character's costumes looking all kinds of ridiculous by simply getting rid of them. I totally bought Bison in an expensive suit instead of a bright red military uniform. It made sense.

All the alterations they made to the plot and characters, of course, was horrible, but Bison in a suit made all kinds of sense! But it didn't lead to a good movie in the end, they didn't even follow the plot of the games (too many things to point out).

This movie succeeded but I don't know if it's on the merits of being a Prince of Persia adaptation or just a good movie that could've just been a live-action Aladdin movie, which quite frankly would've sold a lot more tickets! Why didn't Disney realize that?

Professor Smarmiarty

06-01-2010, 03:18 PM

To be fair, I haven't been to Disney World, so I don't really know. It is perhaps the best adaptation of a Disney World ride since The Haunted Mansion.

Like there are characters named Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbarossa on this ride and they are looking for a treasure chest full of cursed doubloons?

The characters may not be the same but that is reflective of the movies where the characters were over the top, simply playing role as themselves- manifesting as elements of the pirate culture. As the movie progresses, however, we begin to see subtleties in the characters and the same with the ride- what were once indistiguishable puppets take on mannerism and characterisations- recurring stories raise their heads. Indeed when the ride was adapted to tie in with the movies all they had to do was replace some puppets that already basically played the roles of the film characters with puppets that just looked more like them.
More importantly is the tone of the piece- the ride was about jarring tones- starting off with light hearted sea shanties- at odds with their subject- before brutally throwing you into the world of pirates. The use of light in the ride reflects this with jarring light and dark patches, very noirish. The film is similar as the characters have conflicting tones- most of the pirates have highly comic sides which contrast with their often violent deeds and their undead forms. Light again becomes important- becoming a character in itself in the final scenes as it distinguishes the dead from the living.
Most importantly, the movie is paced like the ride- the movie is an adventure- scenes are short, locations are thrown about constatnly and there is a jarring sense of a lack of place, with mimics the ride with its constanlty changing sets and disconcerting sounds and visuals designed to elave you uneasy.

bluestarultor

06-01-2010, 03:19 PM

You on dangerous ground here! I considered a long and off-topic rant!

I though Pirates was pretty faithful to the ride, obviously the change of medium meant some things had to be changed but it was pretty close.

To be fair, I haven't been to Disney World, so I don't really know. It is perhaps the best adaptation of a Disney World ride since The Haunted Mansion.

Like there are characters named Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbarossa on this ride and they are looking for a treasure chest full of cursed doubloons?

I HAVE been on the ride and allow me to explain the similarities and differences:

Similar: Title, pirates, gunfire, the song the Jack and Elizabeth/the ride pirates sing
Different: Everything else, including that the ride's song was changed from "bottles of rum" to "bottles of milk" after somebody sued.

The ride is, put simply, not a story in any way, shape, or form. You start off getting on a boat, possibly go through a scene I've forgotten, go through a jail, go through a raid, go through a gunfight, and get off the boat.

Edit: That's not to say the ride is in any way not worth every dime and second, but complex, it's not.

Professor Smarmiarty

06-01-2010, 03:30 PM

Psssh, the ride is not about plot, its about the jarring dissonance between the popular image of piracy and the reality- a fact held up by the movie.

bluestarultor

06-01-2010, 04:04 PM

Psssh, the ride is not about plot, its about the jarring dissonance between the popular image of piracy and the reality- a fact held up by the movie.

Uh, I dunno what version you saw over at EuroDisney, but over here, there's zero dissonance. Reality doesn't factor in.

Professor Smarmiarty

06-02-2010, 03:49 AM

You are missing a key element of the ride and that is that the ride is staffed with puppets. We don't really have the art of puppet theatre in the West but it is still an important art in Eastern Europe in particular and the theatre there brings up an important point about puppets.
Puppets are very uncanny valley, combined human features with stiff roboticness, an unease by the fact that they are so shiney, so perfect, so unhuman. To mitigate this when watching puppet shows we infuse something of ourselves into the puppets, some essence of who we are and what we expect to see. Thus how you interpret the ride comes down to your own preconceptions of the ride. If you come onto the ride (or the movie intriguingly) just looking for a fun-filled romp through the world of comical pirates that is what you get, if you're looking for a deep social commentary on the role of literature/the arts on our perception of the removed past then that is what you'll get.

Archbio

06-02-2010, 03:55 AM

Yeah, critics criticizing things. What's that about?

Magus

06-03-2010, 01:29 PM

the ride's song was changed from "bottles of rum" to "bottles of milk" after somebody sued.

A little bit of me died when I read that.

Red Fighter 1073

06-10-2010, 01:14 PM

Okay, all I have to say about this being a good adaptation of the VG series is that when you don't even have the same NAMES as the VG series, let alone a fucking completely different plot altogether, then you've got yourself a pretty awful movie adaptation. I mean sure, if they had called it Prince of Persia: This Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With The Game, then I would've just brushed the movie off as just another mindless film.

But I mean, c'mon at least get the names right! Okay, give the Prince a name if you really feel like he must have one, but I mean at least keep the daughter's name as Farah! What's so wrong about that name that you feel the need to change it?

EDIT: And Warrior Within be damned, Sands of Time actually had a decently enough plot to try and adapt into a film. But with that being said, I guess I'll go see the movie and at least appreciate it in its own right.

The Sevenshot Kid

06-10-2010, 01:48 PM

A Prince and Princess trapped in a palace filled with monsters might make a good plot for a horror film, sorta like Pandorum, but that doesn't fit the tone of the series. It's action/adventure and the movie made changes to fit the tone of the games while sacrificing plot. A straight adaptation would have been horrible and this one turned out to be pretty okay.

TDK

06-10-2010, 09:35 PM

I just got back from Prince of Persia and I greatly enjoyed it, even if it has little to do with the games besides the dagger and junk.

ZAKtheGeek

06-10-2010, 10:01 PM

It seemed like they were short on time or something, because some parts of it almost seemed to play in fast-forward. Also, the story didn't end up making too much sense. I might not have been paying enough attention.

I thought it was okay. Never played the games.

bluestarultor

06-10-2010, 10:16 PM