But, fantasies aside, what do people think should be in a good movie about the setting? Personally, I think if one were made, it should distance itself from D&D in the advertisement. D&D has a negative stigma from the god-awful movie, and, let's face it, pop culture in general. It would probably also give people the wrong impression. The PS mythos is very distinct and I think it could hold up on its own. Perhaps just a "Based on the Planescape Setting From Dungeons and Dragons" in the opening credits.
But what about details? What planes should be in it? What factions should play a major role? What kinds of planars? Story?
It'd have to be set pre-FW... and it'd have to involve a Prime (or group of them) stepping into the Cage and mayhem ensuing!!!
Spectators would learn about the setting as the main character would.
Only as few factions (philosophies) are featured, which would not overwhelm the audience with info.
A lot of the action is set in the Cage, which is a good placeto start with Planescape. The movie wouldn't want to go delve to deep in Baator or the Abyss, because of the association with Hell and the criticism the would follow. Planescape's view on the Lower Planes is much different than the general view about Hell, were sinners go.
The same goes for the Upper Planes.
In fact, while the basics about the planes and alignment are relatively easy to get, going in to much detail about these subjects doesn't seem like a good idea for movie.
With Torment, we also have a surprising twist of events and ending.
Plus, we have Morte. How bad could a Planescape movie be with a floating skull in it?
Remember, Hollywood ruins EVERYTHING.
As for Planescape: The Movie, you'd probably have to have mostly hints towards things.. maybe a "This is what the planes look like" scene, but I doubt you could do much with the planes themselves. Trying to fit in the inner planes, the ethereal, the astral, the prime, and the outer planes AND Sigil...
LotR would look like a commercial.
Now.. a Planescape TV series... even a cheesy one...
Even a triology couldn't begin to explain the planes.
A tv serie could get closer.
Personally, I'd prefer novels (;
I think to do a Planewalking movie you'd have to start with Primes and have them in the traditional D&D setting that the audience is familiar with. The movie would have to be pretty straight forward & not focus on an epic "philosophy" scenario like Matrix, LotR or Star Wars episode 1-2. It would need to just be a fun but serious adventure movie that won't go over peoples heads (if successful then make a part 3 or 4 that's more philosophical). First I'd wisk them to a Plane that isn't too different than the Prime world. Something that the audience could relate to but still be amazed by. Maybe the Beastlands, showing off the oversized animals and causing the Primes to grow odd animal parts. Then throw them into Sigil and amaze the audience with the stunning view of the city and the traffic of hundreds of races and bustling activity. By then it might be an acceptable opportunity to overwhelm the audience with the huge amount of diversity.
Have a few fun encounters with simple factions that a person doesn't need to know much info to understand what the faction is about. Hardheads, Sensates, Anarchists, & Xositects (sp) maybe. Other factions would need lots of screen time just so the audience can get aquainted with what it means to be that faction & you wouldn't want to punish a first time audience with that.
You'd have to do the bar encounter, but doing it in Sigil would be too much like the Star Wars bar scenes. A D&D bar fight might need to be in a less diverse tavern & more typical fantasy setting. I'd do it in a Gate Town & maybe at a gambling table (darn cheating rogue party member).
After Sigil I'd stick them in the Outlands heading towards a Gate Town. Show off the Spire with an image of Sigil floating above.
Being D&D you'd HAVE to do a dungeon crawl for a bit, Pandemonium would be great but it would take some adjusting to account for the noise....viewers wouldn't stand howling winds for very long. If you used an inner plane I'd go with Earth. Wind & water was basically done in Star Wars and Earth would be more unique than Fire I think...which could also be your dungeon crawl.
Using the Gray Waste would be fun just to show the loss of color and to show the depression. I wouldn't stay there long though. I'd also use Mechanus just for a short trip. I think you'd need to add more sunshine to the movie so a romp in Elysium or a mountain treck up Mt. Celestia. I agree, staying away from Baator, Gehenna, or the Abyss (at first) would be good because of all the religious fanatics. But I'd definately end the movie with them escaping Carceri.
Using the Astral/Etheral or para elemental planes would be a bad idea because you'd need more screen time to make the viewers understand what's going on, which would take time away from better scenes.
And the #1 thing that needs to be used to capture the audience would be to make the friggen magic users cast spells. None of this "I'm Gandalf & I hit you with my stick" nonsense or "we spent our money on thousands of pointless dragons so our wizard can't cast spells" jive from the D&D movie. I'd stay away from typical characters too, the dwarf can't be the comedy relief, the rogue can't be the goofy helpless character, and I'd stick a Cleric & Druid in the group. Each member would need to shine too, that's what made LotRs good and what annoyed me with the D&D movie (The main character actually told the other members they shouldn't help him...& they never did anything).
I've thought for years that if PS was made into a movie and done well it could be one of the craziest most memorable movies made...better than Star Wars.
Originally posted by Brun
The movie wouldn't want to go delve to deep in Baator or the Abyss, because of the association with Hell and the criticism the would follow.-
Movies should never let their plotlines be dictated by fear of criticism. The movie-going public isn't very worried about such things in any case. There are hundreds of movies that feature heretical visions of Heaven and Hell - What Dreams May Come, Hellraiser, Ghost, Field of Dreams, Heaven Can Wait, Bruce Almighty, Oh God! You Devil!, Spawn, South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, Little Nicky...
It's a popular theme, and as long as the film doesn't feature angels urinating on one another and Kevin Smith isn't involved, there won't be a problem. Not that Kevin Smith has ever filmed angels urinating on one another; it was just an example.
Personally, I see an animated movie set on a variety of planes but with Sigil in the beginning and end. I see slaadi hopping around with enormous ninja leaps, flinging gobs of chaos hither and yon. I see massive regiments of modrons, as far as the camera can see. I see the camera running the complete loop over Sigil and framing the misty arc in the sky, running up the Spire and following rainbow herds of nic'epona across the planes. The characters could be hovering in the silent plane of vacuum and swim in the colored mists of the Ethereal Plane. I see dramatic fights with githyanki in the silver Astral void filled with vivid psionic displays.
Something like Fantasia meets Akira, I guess.
The number of films would have to be 3, and they'd always seem to get right back to where they started - infuriating for the Clueless moviegoer, but like the haiku of the seasoned planewalker.
If filmmaking were up to the challenge, though, then there's a few things that should happen...
- The film itself would have to be infinitely long, yet fit inside a finite can
- The plot, the props, the background and even the characters are subjectively based on the beliefs of the audience
- The Red Death would have to kill anyone talking in the movie
- Same again for phones ringing
- use sellers scamblespeak Ticket should.
- Cinema employees working to arrange the purchase of various beverages and food items should speak in a manner that would suggest their remuneration is being provided in whole or in part by the Fraternity of Order or a sect thereof.
- In the DVD release, the correct portal key must be used for the layer change
- In the DVD release, on the 'scene selection' screen, numbers should change dynamically so that each scene is the exact middle of the movie - including title sequence and credits
- The Lady of Pain should be conspicuously absent from the credits. Failing that, the name attached should be replaced with an aethyreal, glowing symbol of Her Serenity - dabus style.
- The film title must be written as a rebus.
- When you walk into the movie, regardless of the actual time, the film should have already started. Thing is no-one - not even the projectionist - knows when it did.
- Prominent religious figures should find that, while they can certainly get tickets to the movie, they can't seem to get through the door.
- And, for a PS:T touch, hot coals must be applied to at least one lim-lim.
Originally posted by Persephone Imytholin
There'd be rules, though.
Those are good rules. I'm humbled.
Originally posted by Persephone Imytholin
There'd be rules, though.
[ the rules ]
YAUS.
Although 3, 4, 5, and 6 would be most easily attained by hiring cosplayers, and I'm not sure one could pull off 1, 2, 11, or 12 at all with our annoying lack of magic.
That still leaves 5 suggestions that work just peachy!
Those are good rules though! (:
Characters might start at level 3, and gain two levels every year, so that the very last movie touches on epic, and they can fight a lesser demon lord, or perhaps they can end the series with the faction war.
Characters need to die. Permanently. Perhaps three they can be rescued, but there needs to be at least six lovable characters that must perish completely.
Every plane should be mentioned and at least pictured at one point, though they don't -have- to spend a full episode on each quasiplane.
Three Prime worlds should be visited, including "Escape from The Planet of the Hardheads".
Obviously, Shemmy should be a common villain/ally, depending on situation.
The City of Brass and the City of Glass should be gone to at least twice each, once each in their own episodes, and then together in a single episode.
The Lady should almost never be seen, outside of the title scenes. Perhaps her showing up can be for sweeps.
The towers and fortresses on Positive and Negative must be visited.
Razorvine should be the death of someone at some point.
Of course, we could just be lazy and adapt the Futurama cast - male human rogue, female tiefling fighter, male warforged rogue, etc.
Definitely, DS9 is suprisingly good.
As for a PS series, IMHO these things always translate better as anime.:D
My idea for a plot would be an old Harmonium beat cop has his family captured and experimented on by mind flayers. He can't touch them because they're being protected, for sinister reasons, by the Believers of the Source or (post Faction War) the Mind's Eye. So he brings the twisted remains of his family to the githyanki for help - a group of relatively mild githyanki who respect science as much as they do the relatively hands-off Knight who rules their citadel. But then the githyanki fortress is destroyed by githzerai, and the Hardhead and a few of his githyanki friends escape through the first color pool they find. The rest of the movie is about getting revenge against the githzerai and the Believers of the Source while the beat cop's kids start to develop strange psychic powers from the interaction of the illithid/Godsman implants and the githyanki science.
It would be mostly for a limited audience of geeks, rather than a mainstream film.
Though if it is a movie, just do it about the Blood War. That'll bring people in droves.
First off, it should DEFINATELY be pre-Faction War. Should be post-Lady's Edict, though. Having 42 different factions running around gets confusing and obscures the plot (not that Hollywood cares about that, but still).
Secondly, there need to be slaadi and Xaositects (preferably with Xanxost as a recurring character, bordering on running gag). The audience should see Xaos, but stay out of Limbo itself. Try not to make the Xaositects and slaadi speak scramblespeak CONSTANTLY; they should, however, backtrack on their own conversations, correct themselves a lot, and need to deal with numbering issues (especially Xanxost).
Thirdly, if you want a war scene, do it on Acheron - no - better yet, Arcadia. The Blood War gets old, and does not make for a good plotline.
Fourth, they NEED to visit the following planes: Gray Waste, Elysium, Mechanus, and Arborea. Probably the Prime, too. There should be issues with the River Lethe (NOT the Styx - Lethe can be cured) unless they bring out a movie version of "The Hobbit," in which case you need to avoid that idea like it was disease-ridden and covered with razorvine.
Fifth, it needs to be partially CGI, since you can't really do slaadi like somebody dressed up in a frog suit. Parai would be tricky, too.
Sixth, recurring characters; in addition to Xanxost, we need Shemeska, and any celestial (depending on context, this could range from an excitable coure (wait, that's redundant and repetetive) to a bookish ursinal to a slightly overzealous lantern archon, or mabey even Unity-of-Rings himself), a rogue modron, and a dabus, probably an informant (conversations should take at least five minutes).
What about instead of a movie, a tv series where a group of Primes jump from plane to plane.
Can anyone say "Sliders"? lmao
No but seriously, it would be alot better IMO to make it an ongoing series or animated series where different aspects of the planes could be covered in different episodes, as opposed to trying to fit all of the Multiverse into one movie.
I've also been wrestling the past few days with a movie version of Drizzt...Homestead, Exile, Sojourn...which I'm finally getting around to readin at this very moment after how many years?? lol How many people would love to see Drizzt in action on the big screen!! Rawr!!
But seriously, if they make a Forgotten Realms movie, they won't make a Planescape movie. It's one or the other, and I know where my loyalties lie.
Get the folks who did LotR to do the movie.
why would a devil even carry his money in stingers (PS term for silver pieces) to begin with? They're called "stingers" for a reason.
But I'm sure the point of it is, no matter how "miniscule" the amount of money stolen, the fiend whom it's stolen from always takes offense. Therefore they'll get their revenge.
Besides we only know the quote. We don't know the rest of the details regarding the setting.
the lady of pain/the woman in 'the ring' (for those lucky ones who have seen the original), see the connection?!
otherwise i agree with ms. persephone...
