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Oh cool, I had no idea Harold Ramis was involved with Heavy Metal. But ya, +1 on sticking with a normal movie.


Also agree! Disney also has the CPU power to throw at some heavy particle systems, fluid simulations and large army battles too, which is also another must have these days.

Btw, sorry for the long delay, but I didn't really have much else to add to this yet hehe. Although, you might be interested in another thread I started with the start of a 3D piece.

Oh, I know what you mean. I figure this conversation will, eventually, heat up again. When it does, I'll be watching, hehe. By the way, I looked at the hammer you built, and it's amazing... thank you for sharing that.

No doubt. On a plus side, we made it go to page 8!

Thanks, and no problem! I guess we can cool it here for a bit so I can focus on some modelling and stuff. If I get any cool animations or stills or something related to the ideas I mentioned here, I will be sure to continue the thread.

Until then... o/

Tell me what you think about this idea. Bear in mind it is based on two major assumptions: 1) the movie/s will be made, and 2) RIFTS will be made into a trilogy. Here we go.

Start the first movie off by following a normal human, a Chi-Town guy in his late teens. (This will give the general audiences someone to root for and be attached to, before the rug is pulled out from under them.) Through that Chi-Town guy, we'll see the different faces of the city and the Coalition, including Deadboys, Dogboys, and how the society functions on all levels.

Next, take the boy out of Chi-Town. Get him running for his life and looking for any help he can find. (This will draw audiences in even more, getting them to empathize with the kid who feels alone and afraid.) Through his flight from Chi-Town, we'll see the darker and uglier side of the Coalition and their army.

Now the kid runs across a mercenary outfit, who decides to take him in so long as he makes himself useful. Some hard times hit the kid, but he manages to make a name for himself, even gaining an erstwhile mentor in an old Bounty Hunter. (This will give audiences a small glimpse into New West and maybe Vampire Kingdoms, just to get them curious. It also gives audiences a new character to focus on.) The kid grows in skill and ability, earning some grudging respect from some of the mercenary unit members. Through this time, we'll see some different lands and landmarks, like the Mississippi River.

Enter combat. The kid is seriously hurt his first time out, and ends up with a cybernetic limb, which he's taught to use by a partial-conversion borg, another member of the mercenary unit. (The kid's struggle to control and master his new limb will strike a chord with audiences, since he'll seem like someone they might know, or have seen, in real life.) Through the combat, we'll see the horror of battle and its effect on those people who fight for a living, whether they like it or have no other choice to survive.

Enter love interest. The kid meets another merc who knocks him for a loop. He becomes instantly infatuated, and only gets her attention when he saves her friend during another battle. Sparks happen, things start to get serious. (Audiences eat up a romantic angle, especially when they genuinely like the lead.)

Romantic hopeful dies in an ambush. Kid is devastated, and starts to get cold-blooded. Bounty hunter has to put him in his place when the kid crosses a line concerning D-Bees. (Audience sees the human and ugly side of their favorite character, which makes them uncomfortable about their own darker sides.)

The kid learns a hard lesson about how his life in Chi-Town left its mark on him, repents, and proves his new-found outlook. (Audiences love this bit. Their hero is back, and better than ever. He wiped off the mud of his darker side and looks golden again.)

Big finish with a hook: the Bounty Hunter and Partial-Conversion Borg confide in the kid about their concerns with the mercenary company, how it looks more and more like the company is a front for something nasty. Bounty Hunter, Partial-Conversion Borg, and the kid all grab their gear, their stashed creds, enough food and water for a couple weeks, and a small APC, and hotfoot as far away from the mercenary company as they can go.

_-End Movie One-_

The second movie could see the kid growing into a hard, but just, man as he and his two friends travel across the country, then into Europe. The kid's OCC would end up being Headhunter, and he would find a permanent love interest in the second movie, as well as his personal nemesis. Third movie would see the group traveling across Europe, hounded by the kid's nemesis and his little ragtag army, before they are transported back to North America's southwest region by a powerful mage. Of course, the small army follows and the climactic battle ensues, the kid and his love interest live, and they meet this interesting old woman named Erin Tarn who begins telling them a story to pay for her supper...

Of course, there are details I left out, so any good writer could toss in glimpses from other countries or continents, including Atlantis.

Okay, tell me the truth... do you think that might work well as a film representation of RIFTS?

I have to say, it sounds as if you thought of quite a few ways to get the audience directly involved, to bring them along on a great ride. Now, the question is, what would the corners, hills, and valleys of that ride look like?

This is very well done, at least the first part. I would have to see more about how and why they would go to Europe? Would they have to get a ride through a place near Juarez? Except for numbers, why would they run from the larger mercenary group/front? Are they trying to find evidence, to prove something, to get to an artifact or individual before they can, etc.? Or, are they literally running ONLY because of the numbers? And, why do I see Leonardo DiCaprio getting involved in this? (shakes head, remembers he doesn't even like LdC)

I think the first movie could be very well-written to draw audiences in, because you have some great ideas in there.

I was thinking the "something nasty" would be either an alien intelligence, or some other hugely powerful dark force.
The reason for the escape to Europe is because of that "something nasty" having eyes and assassins everywhere in North America.
Their escape would be financed by their own actions, but felicitated by the Black Market, which is dotted across the eastern coast of the former United States.

Just a few other ideas I came up with recently.

heh, "unlimited ammo", nice one

We could just call it $SomethingNasty. Would make it much easier to add more!

$SomethingNasty++;

Thanks. That D-Bee was retired last year, sadly. He didn't go out with a bang, or a whimper, instead retiring to a small chunk of land somewhere around the medicine wheel in Utah where he founded a walled town meant to provide shelter for all beings. The designing process was real fun.

About filling in the gaps in that first movie idea... I honestly only wrote up enough to inspire a writer with more talent than I to jump on the project. I've suffered from terminal writer's block for the last six years, or so, which leaves me unable to perform the fine details necessary for such an undertaking. I would, however, thoroughly enjoy a collaboration with someone who can handle the fine details of a screenplay.

On another note, if KS or any staff are reading these posts, I would like to officially grant full permission for Palladium Books® to use any of my ideas posted on these forums for any purpose, whether for books, storyboards, or any other use Palladium might see fit.

Just throwing that out there.

Honestly the huge World of rifts would be near impossible to show in a film. How about a tv-series instead? i know many seriea are crap but a few are very good and that will make it possible to have several types of main characters like juicer, mage, psychic, robot pilot etc.

The problem, as I see it, is getting this into the faces of a lot of people. A movie never truly fails, as long as it makes some money, whereas television programs do not really make all that much money and can be cancelled before anyone really has an opportunity to see them. Firefly.

No, it would need to be a movie, or a trilogy, and the potential success of a program could be determined from how well, or poorly, the franchise would do. It would need to show a limited portion of the world, with as wide-ranging powers, abilities, and technology as possible, and it would need to have a fantastic Humano-centric story. Then, the level of quality of programming would need to remain that way.

Earth 2, Firefly, Terra Nova, Hemlock Grove, Merlin, Farscape, Babylon 5, Dracula, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and most all of the shows on CW or Fox, have had limited success with audiences, and most were very short-lived, and all of these have had elements I would consider important to a Rifts television program, all elements mixed into the same world.

I'm going to tell you, right now, that if Peter Jackson attempted to put Middle Earth on television, it would fail within six episodes, despite the amazing marvelous work he's done with the movies. Something like Rifts belongs on the movie screen, and would have zero life for just that reason. It was one of the big-three stations (ABC, NBC, and CBS) here in America that were looking to put a D&D type fantasy television show into production, but I only ever saw one article on Variety.com, I think it was, about it, and have heard nothing since. Once Upon A Time: Wonderland did not complete a full season before it was taken off the air, and the only reason the original Once stays around is because nearly two-dozen million people have been invested in it, including me, from the beginning. However, it's already becoming tiresome, it's obvious now that the writers are desperate to have new material, and I do not presume to believe it will actually last beyond this season.

The term used by J.K. Rowling to describe most people in the world, Muggle, is entirely on the money, though I prefer Mundane. Most people don't have the imagine God gave a rabbit and, thus, can only stand to be taken "someplace else" for short periods of time, at most. So, I'm afraid a television program simply would not work. Heck, a movie might not work, either. Look at Dungeons and Dragons that had a Wayans brother, Jeremy Irons, the little Princess from "Neverending Story", and a few actors who went on to do larger and better projects. The script for that movie wasn't bad, the plot and waypoints relatively easy to follow, the comedy was not horrible, and the settings were not only in-line with D&D, but were understandable to most. The movie didn't even make it into the theater; I watch it from time-to-time on DVD, and think it should have had a fair shot in the theater, but it wasn't even deemed good enough for little theaters. So, whomever would seek to build a Rifts movie, would need a LOT of money, a LOT of clout, an excellent script, at least one A-List actor, not Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson, and would need to be lovingly marketed from the very beginning. It would have to be an all go, no quit, no fail project, period.

I'm not trying to be a party pooper, here, but that's my take on the whole thing, as much as I really would love for it to happen.

The first D&D movie was released in theaters, and it bombed, badly. It cost an estimated $45 million to make, and only grossed $15,185,241 at the box office in the U.S. Even with a $30 million dollar loss, they still made a sequel, but it was released straight to TV/DVD.


-Chris

Thank you for the statistics, I appreciate them. I didn't know it actually did that well, nor that it was in theaters at all. I'm happy to be corrected.

Yeah, if the original budget hadn't been so outrageous, we may have seen the sequels make it to the theater. I personally liked the first movie, as I found it to be similar to more of our slapstick game sessions. Most of my friends hate it, but they like the second movie. The acting in the second movie was so atrocious, though, that I just couldn't enjoy it at all. Maybe if they would have had the better actors from the first movie, with the story of the second movie, then I might have been able to enjoy the second movie.

Doubtful, but possible.

-Chris

I thought of the D&D movies as having been made by Uwe Boll. That way, the real movie makers are spared the ignominy of being associated with a pair of cinematic diaper bombs. Everybody deserves a second chance, but Uwe Boll has shown no talent for movie making in any movie he's been attached to since he began. That's why, for me, he's going to take the blame for every non-Michael Bay smoking rear admiral on the silver screen.

Looking at all the Marvel movies out there, I could see RIFTS movies going the same route. Start off with one to grab attention, such as Nightbane or BTS, then go through HU and AU (Galaxy guide and original together), then Palladium Fantasy, and then Chaos Earth to culminate in the RIFTS series of movies, wherein you see a bunch of your favorite characters from the other movies, all trying to survive in this madhouse of a world where magic, psionics, super powers, ultratech, and aliens all exist. I figure about ten or twelve RIFTS movies should suffice, just to touch base on all the world books.

Dimension books would be a whole other can of worms.

I have to disagree, Silas. Going with ANY of Palladium's "lesser" brands to start out with would end badly. Perhaps, instead, the movies could be formulaic... each movie begins with an opening from Rifts, then switches to another game for the better portion of the movie, to help tell the story from the first and last portions, why they got the way they are. However, though you and I might go see each and every movie done in Palladium's Megaverse, none of them would make enough money to count. Unfortunately, the further we get away from 1993, the less likely it is we'll see anything that could be seen AND admired by enough people to make it work well for further movies.

RIFTS movie plot idea: re-do the classic Magnificent Seven movie with RIFTS O.C.C.'s. A troubled village/small kingdom plagued by bandits (Simvan?) and need to 'hire' heroes (Merctown maybe) to help to protect the small city. Leading the heroes is a Cyber-Knight (obvious), and a last stage Juicer (looking for redemption). A young eager mystic (looking to make a name for himself) wants to join the heroes but is initially turned away do to inexperience. A grizzled headhunter agrees to help if they can help rescue his partner (Vanguard brawler, Grackle tooth, or other DB merc soldier) from a CS detention center. During the rescue, they also release a tortured Burster. All five running from CS troops when rescued by the young mystic, who is then begrudgingly accepted into the group. To stealthily enter the city, Cyber-Knight recruits a wilderness scout. All seven heroes fight off bandits is a glorious battle. I like the idea of the original ending, three survivors, two ride off into sunset (Cyber-knight and Scout more than likely), one fell in love and stays behind after the battle and helps rebuild the city (maybe the mystic found a new life path/calling).

I could go with that.

One of the biggest secrets of Hollywood is that most of the greatest films "of all time" are either retelling real life heroics, or carefully repackaged Masterpieces of the past.

Star Wars is essentially stolen entirely from Japanese storytelling and a few Japanese films. Lucas only got away with it because Americans werent familiar at the time. Now, we can see the shameless plagiarism.
Most of Shakespeare's works, modernized with Rifts gear and language, would easily work. Look up a short summary of Midsummer Nights Eve, Taming of the Shrew, or Othello.
Several of the Greek and Norse legends naturally lend themselves, even if we dont include the gods compendium. Perseus- "kill the monster, save the girl" is just another Tuesday in Rifts.
"Sneak into the homeland of the Giants, steal their source of power, take it to the only place it can be destroyed and do so, fight your way through more bad guys, get home and party." An actual mission of Thor and Loki in the Finnish (iirc) Sagas

We dont need a story, really. Hollywood can steal any of the top 25, just as it has done for decades. Just plug "glitter boy" in for hero, and "boom gun" instead of sword, and you're half way there.

what someone needs to do, is write a Rifts screenplay and name it something else, dont even tell the movie companies it's based on a RPG, let them think it's just the latest sci-fi movie, let it be the inside joke for all of us know about.

A sequel can involve the mystic grown up (8 or 9 level) as a leader of the small kingdom and selected others fighting against the CS trying to takeover the kingdom