Apologies that this is not a pure gaming question, but I’d really like to hear people’s opinion on the Borderlands movie trailer and especially from people who have played the games. That’s why I’m asking here, I hope that’s ok.
The writing doesn’t seem great (forced and unfunny), but it’s just a trailer, so I don’t put a ton of stock in that. Besides, some of Borderlands’ best jokes are slow burns over the course of the game or even the franchise, so that might be why it feels a little off.
But the cast…they’re going to have to win me over.
Lilith as the lead, I’m fine with. But Cate Blanchett as Lilith I’m a little more concerned about. She’s definitely older than Lilith, yes, but that’s not the big problem; for me, I just don’t think that she has the vibe to pull off Lilith (and I don’t think she did even when she was 25). She’s got too much gravitas.
Including Tiny Tina in the main cast, I’m over the moon for. But casting Ariana Greenblatt, I just don’t see. In fairness, I don’t think I can see anybody in particular as that character; she’s so singular and wide-eyed, I don’t know if there’s a young teenager-passing actress who could pull it off. You need the 16-year-old equivalent of Helena Bonham Carter, and she’s a pretty singular person. Tina needs to be absoluely unhinged, but in a gleeful way; maybe this could be a Millie Bobby Brown role, or maybe it could be Jenna Ortega (though she might be a bit too sardonic; Emma Myers perhaps?), but I don’t know that we have any evidence of any actress in the right age range to pull off Tina.
Not including Brick or Mordecai is sad; I think Dwayne Johnson could pull off Brick decently well, and Michael Pena would’ve been a funny Mordecai, though it would be even better to bring people into those roles who we’ve never seen before.
Krieg was kind of a blank slate to begin with, so he’s no problem. Marcus, Hammerlock, Scooter, great. Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis, fine. No major issues with any of that casting. Same with Jack Black as Claptrap; yeah, it would’ve been nicer to have the original voice actor, but I get that you want somebody with a name in that role and Black is as good as any. I would believe he’s played the game, so I trust that he understands the role.
But Kevin Hart…I mean, come on. Idris Elba was right there, and you went with Hart?
After watching the trailer, my opinions shifted slightly. Hart was actually the least of my concerns after watching the trailer; I liked his role in Jumanji, and it seems like he’s channeling that same vibe, so I think he’ll probably do fine here. And Blanchett’s performance as a more grizzled, almost Jane Lynch-ian Lilith kinda works for me.
But Tina still isn’t quite right.
All in all, if this had been the same cast in different roles (Blanchett as Captain Scarlett, retconned as a hero? Greenblatt as Gaige?) or the same roles with a different cast (Saoirse Ronan as Lilith? Kiernan Shipka as Tina?) I’d be totally down. The world feels right and the story sounds interesting, I’m mostly just worried about the dialogue and the cast.
Good grief. THAT WALL OF TEXT HAD TOO MANY SYLLABLES!! APOLOGIZE!!
No I loved it, interesting read.
You’re very kind, thank you.
AND NO F$@#ING EXPLOSIONS!?!?
Edit: those downvotes suggest some people didn’t get the reference
Some people have no class.
Or at least didn’t notice that I (the person who wrote the wall of text) wrote that reply.
I think Ashly Burch would’ve been just fine as Tiny Tina, even though she’s a full grown adult. Because, you know, she’s the actual voice actor who can channel that energy. Just age the film character up.
My issue with Ashly Burch isn’t her age so much as…has she ever done any acting before, beyond voice acting? I don’t know if that’s even a skill she has.
I’ve never seen it before so I can’t personally say how competent she is in the role, but Ashly Burch is a cast member on Mythic Quest, a live action sitcom on Apple
I feel like they just completely missed on this. They tried to capture the cel-shaded style of the games but everything looks low-budget as a result. Pandora is a backwater, if you’re going to do it live action everything needs to look like it’s been sandblasted and sun-bleached for a decade and repurposed at least twice. Everything just seems too clean.
The dialogue is bad. Can’t really blame the actors for that, but I also struggle with all of them in their roles except Jack Black (I actually don’t mind that casting).
Also, unless this is set between 1 and 2, I’m not sure how Krieg and Tiny Tina ended up on an adventure with Roland and Lilith.
Casting is dogshit, jokes aren’t funny, trying way too hard to be guardians of the galaxy 2, and where’s mordy/brick?
I read the cast and decided that’s all I needed to know that the movie would be bad. Why use the characters if you’re not even going to get actors that fit the roles? They could have just used news characters set in the same universe.
Which would have fit just fine based on every game having new characters in addition to old ones showing up as cameos. Heck they could have named the movie borderlands 4 and have it be part of the main game continuity. It would have been right in line with how insane borderlands is. Kinda like how the nightmare before Christmas game and matrix game are part of the movie continuity.
It looks fun enough, but I’m keeping expectations low. It has a “This is what a successful, funny movie is like, right? Right?” vibe, imo.
The specific casting bugs me:
- Budget Deadshot
- Old Nami
- Hit Bunny-Girl
- Box Wheatley
- Extra #1216 from the Mad Max set
It’s just… I dunno. Doesn’t quite fit the tone from the games. But hey maybe it comes out and is surprisingly funny in it’s braindeadness.
I’ve got hundreds of hours across all of the games. Played every single one to almost 100%.
Honestly, I think I might enjoy watching this movie. I’m definitely not going to pay money to watch it in theaters, but I only watch maybe 3-6 movies a year that way. I’ll easily be entertained for a couple hours watching this when I can inevitably stream it for free or pay like $3 off redbox.
This movie seems like it’s getting an absolute ton of hate, but doesn’t really look that terrible. It’s a silly movie based on a silly game series that sets itself apart by being extremely silly. The fuck do people expect?
You know what I expect?
MOTHER#$@&ING EXPLOSIOOOOOONS!!!
This looks like a Netflix movie in a Cowboy Bebop live action way. Me no like.
I had the same thought, “this looks like Netflix live action cowboy bebop.”
Looks pretty awful to me. Wild casting choices. I like Jack Black but he doesn’t read right as Claptrap to me at all. Roland is a gruff tough guy, not whatever Hart is going to do here. And Tina here comes off as a scared child instead of the absolute firebrand she ought to be.
They had some weird moments where Tina reverted back to a flanderized version of herself depicted from the POV of someone who doesn’t understand nuance in character, then she was just the typical pissed off modern Hollywood teen archetype.
Claptrap should just be the BL2 VA if possible, no need to keep casting screen actors in VA roles.
I put weeks of time into these games so I really want the movie to not suck
54 year old Lilith is wild. I’ll watch it but it needs to be really over the top to work
Oh, It’s Kevin heart. That will make the humor mediocre at best. I’ll just avoid any material and watch it long after release.
I want to die
It looks too be a lot of ‘meh’ to me. I honestly don’t think the game’s story will translate well into any other medium and certainly the humor that makes the original BL games isn’t what I would call mainstream so that will just get watered down to nothing. Plus the casting looks off.
Looks bad. None of it seemed even a little interesting.
Honestly? I really don’t get the hate that all these comments are generating. I don’t think we’ve seen enough of the dialogue from the characters to know what the casted actors are going to do with them.
I personally think it might be a bit refreshing, like a reboot. All of us lost faith in the Borderlands story at the Presequel I think. I think this plays into the wacky and wild elements of BL2 (indisputably the favourite in the whole series, wouldn’t you agree?), rather than the unfunny stuff of 3, don’t you think?
I’m not saying that off the bat it’s going to be amazing. I’m saying that I think it’s worth a shot, it’s worth waiting until we see it before we shit on it- I don’t think this trailer makes it look like trash. It has potential. Don’t you think, guys?
