Metroid: The Sky calls - Fan short film

I just came across a fantastic Metroid fan film.

Hmm. I think the overall atmosphere and environment setup was great in this. However, the writing for Samus (and the performance of the actress playing her) totally missed the mark - they've gone for a lazy "damsel in peril" mode rather than "bad-ass legendary bounty hunter and explorer", particularly with a lot of the (IMO unnecessary) cuts to her reacting to whatever's happening. The music was mostly a good fit, though I'd have liked to hear more use of variations on themes from the game.

Still, a good example of how to balance game elements with the narrative requirement of a film.

This reminded me of the awful Metroid: Other M, not a good sign.

wilhelm scream said:

This reminded me of the awful Metroid: Other M, not a good sign.

Click to expand...

I didn't actually play more than an hour of that, the truly woeful control scheme saw to that. Having since looked up some complaints about it, I think you're right - but I also suspect that those elements (including all the "Iron Man" shots) could be removed and leave a strengthened film as a result. No 5.1 audio on the video, sadly, but the soundtrack has been released as a free download on bandcamp...

Just discovered this and figured I would comment. All the technical aspects of this are great and definitely go a long way towards proving that Metroid could be one of those video game franchises that's really well suited for the movies if someone ever decided to do it. The look, the sound, the atmosphere, even the editing in general, all that is fantastic. Unfortunately after that it all goes downhill. As is the case with most fan films in my opinion the writing and the acting in this are abysmal. And as someone who's a fan of the old Metroid games, going back to the original Nintendo, I can't stand the fact that the more "complex" people try to make Samus as a character the weaker and more cliche she seems to become. I don't know why writers insist on taking a badass bounty hunter and turning her into some kind of weak, scared damsel barely capable of handling her situation. This is less egregious an example than, say, Other M, but the underlining characterization of that game is still present here. To my mind Samus is basically a  female Boba Fett, not some panicky blue eyed blonde who seems constantly terrified. And I guess if I had my druthers I'd rather an on screen Samus that never takes off her suit, as well, ala Dredd.

I guess at the end of the day in my opinion some things are just better when they're kept very simple.