This week, indie film teams Massive State and Moxie Lady Productions announced Metroid: Enemies Within, a live-action short film based on the Metroid series. Directed by Christian Cardona, a VES and Emmy nominated visual effects supervisor who?s also a fan of Metroid.
Here is the plot:
‘Samus Aran, a bounty hunter for the Galactic Federation, wakes up on an unknown ship after being rendered unconscious in a battle with a powerful being named the Gorea. She discovers she is being held hostage on the ship of a rival bounty hunter named Sylux, and learns of his plot to destroy the Federation while implicating her in the process. Samus fights to escape in order to save herself and the Federation before it?s too late.’
Metroid: Enemies Within is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter. They are looking to get $90,000 from donations. The kickstarter page has loads of information of the project. Let get donating!
Looks like it’s going to have gorgeous visual effects and not much else. Since I’m a Metroid fan, I have to shell out some money for it, but I sincerely hope they know what they’re doing past the marvelous decorations. The way they talk about it seems like more of a “wouldn’t it be cool if” approach instead of a serious effort to discover the Metroid universe’s cinematic and story-telling potential.
I don’t think that swapping in Samus for Darth Vader in the opening of Episode IV is a clever decision, especially if we have to explain to the viewer with dialogue (“Holy Shit!”) what their reaction is supposed to be. (See the storyboard excerpt video)
Man, I must’ve been in a bad mood when I wrote that.
The visual effects are some of the best out there and they’re clearly a devoted bunch after spending so many months already forming a team and getting a start on production. It sounds like they want to find ways to work on it even if this kickstarter campaign falls through.
I guess I just reacted to what I saw as some pretty big red flags, the biggest being that they’re not very familiar with the Metroid universe despite claiming to be enormous fans. The director has said in multiple interviews that Sylux’s ship can be seen flying away at the end of “Metroid Hunters”, the game this movie follows. (Yes, I know about the colored dots at the end of MPH, but the scene he’s thinking of is in Metroid Prime 3). The actress describes Samus as a “galactic bounty hunter that’s just saving her planet.” Stuff like that.
But at the same time, I can see a great action short being made even without a strong understanding of the source material. They want to make it because it sounds cool – and maybe that means it’ll turn out cool. Plus as much as I disliked the storyboards, the director had already said that they were meant to be rough concepts and the final result “will be handled with some more creativity” (source). So maybe I was too quick to shoot it down.
Anyone else have thoughts? Grumpy old Troid92’s just talking to himself again.
