Doom
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Spazmo
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Philip K. Dick's story was quite interesting, yes--but the movie wasn't. Dick's story was, as I see it, really just a joke, a fun story Dick wrote in between the heavier stuff he usually did. The movie was more about the mutant's FREEDOM! than questions of identity anyways. That and Arnold's eyes bulging. That ruled.
I'm just waiting for Weather Man, The Rum Diary, The New World and Jarhead. Hopefully in the meantime there will be some good new action movies in production that do something new or challenge the genre. It might turn out that Doom does this but from it's reception so far I get the impression that it just does a pretty okay job of achieving the status quo.
my vocabulary skills is above you.
Warning: A few spoilers mentioned.
I don't remember if I posted my "thoughts and opinions" on a Doom movie on this board or not, but basically it is pretty long and drawn out. I've grown up with the game, as I've been playing it since a week or two after the original games came out. I was raised on Doom, so to speak. By far my favorite video game series ever. When I was in 4th and 5th grade I wrote three Doom stories very tightly based on the video game and the various kinds of evil and epic, dangerous, hellish environments and enemies and situations. Needless to say, I was obsessed. This is probably why I was grounded from DOOM for 2 years after my parents read my over-the-top stories. But I digress... back to the topic. I had always wanted to see Doom turned into a movie. When I finally heard about this one being made, and knowing that The Rock was in it, among other things, I was disappointed. But I didn't have much faith in Hollywood, anyway, especially when it comes to bringing an evil, Hell-obsessed gore fest to the big screen.
I was expecting the worst.
I love Doom 3, even though a lot has changed in terms of style and attitude and approach from the original Dooms, rather than just the amazing graphics and gameplay upgrades. Although I loved this game, I was slightly disappointed to see that the movie was going to be based pretty much all on the third game, and not at all on the original series. None of those absurd and fucked up levels filled with hundreds of swarming demons coming out of the walls and teleporting into the room, or springing traps on the characters... but still, this was almost to be expected. The third Doom was far more Movie-ish than the others, making it obviously a lot easier to adapt to film.
But I went in expecting the worst. I saw the movie tonight.
The film, as you could expect from Hollywood, has typical acting of a 'horror/action/scifi' movie nowadays - nothing great, but not too terrible. Some cliche'ed characters and behaviors, some dry humor that doesn't soften things too much, far too many idiotic lines here and there, a particularly ridiculous scene at the end between The Rock and Karl Urban, but otherwise... I'll admit I was actually pleasantly surprised (considering how terrible I was expecting it to be).
Most of what I knew would not be included in this movie I was correct about. Nothing at all from the original Dooms. The plot was even twisted quite a bit, away from the plot of any of the Dooms, unfortunately completely ignoring the entire Hell aspect of the games. This was my biggest complaint, and I feel it is a far bigger deal than some shitty characters and stupid acting. It is almost loosely based on the plot from Doom 3, but with some little changes. Still, not too terrible. But I wish they'd have left in a lot of the enemies such as the lost souls, cyberdemon, cacodemons, zombie soldiers, barons of hell and hell knights, among others. But with the entire Hell aspect being ignored, it would make these enemies harder to justify, I suppose. But fuck - they shouldn't have left that part out to begin with.
What I appreciated the most, though (especially since I feared that the opposite would happen) was that they fed the audience a great deal of violence and guts and gore. At least compared to what you could expect. At least in this aspect they stayed pretty true to the game. No pussyfooting around, no whimpy cut-scenes to avoid the blood - all pure fucking violence. It takes a while for the violence and action to really pick up (much unlike the games), but once it begins, it steadily increases. Impressively, you get to see some downright viciousness from The Rock's character, as he commands the executions of every living thing whether it be an innocent human being, or a vicious demonic genetic mutation. This is something I really was not expecting, as I was expecting his character to be another of his typical "tough, bad-ass, but sensitive and good-hearted guy" characters. You get this impression at first, but as the chaos grows and things become more hopeless, he turns to a primitive and militaristic instinct.... what I feel is an exact underlying theme in Doom's original style.
The highlight of the movie for me was the surprising FPS scene, where a few minutes of the movie run exactly like the video game as you see things from the recently awoken soldier played by Karl Urban. This scene lasts for maybe 5 minutes, and is excellently executed and violent and entertaining as fuck. I wish half of the movie had been done like this, and if it had I'd have fucking loved it. This part was probably the coolest scene I have seen in any sci-fi/action movie, maybe ever. Pure AWESOME. This is when the intensity and violence and action that is DOOM really shines and lets you know what this was based on.
The very last scene (AFTER the ridiculous fight scene) where Karl Urban's character Grim is going up the elevator with blood all over his face and clothes and is carrying his sister.. this is a very nice ending scene regardless of the fact that he is with his sister and was not the only survivor. But the look on his face and the blood all over him is strictly symbolic of the ravaging chaos that is Doom, and what he has just been through. There could hardly have been a better ending scene (unless of course the whole Hell aspect was included... that would have left room for a much cooler scene. But with the way it was done, that was the best possible ending.)
So, in summary, here are the positives and negatives of the movie in my opinion:
NEGATIVES:
*The entire HELL story/plot was left out, making it impossible to make this a fully credible DOOM movie
*Way too much in-depth plot development and attempts at a backstory and some drama
*Too much character development - and it's not even very well done
*Too much dialogue
*Many of the enemies from the original Doom games (and even some from the new game) are left out, most of which are the best enemies in the games
*Based too much on the environments and style of the third game, and not enough on the originality and evil and epic, sinister diabolical themes from the originals
*Plot twist away even from the third game, into some kind of foreign territory that is not at all "Doom"
*Mostly ridiculous fight scene between the last two characters
POSITIVES:
*The blood, and gore and guts and violence is very much intact
*The monsters look great and are quite reminiscent of the models used in Doom 3. Even the ones that look like nothing in the games look very good
*Lots and lots of death and dying, even innocent people
*"Surprise" violence that isn't even needed, but thrown in for good measure, that sort of throws back to how a character in this movie should be expected to act
*The music of the action sequences, although not straightt from the game, is quite similar to the style of music used in the games, and is done quite well and used effectively in exactly the right spots, and never overdone
*The entire FPS scene fucking kills, and surprised me and was the 'truest' part of the movie, showing that no matter how far it drifted from the rest of DOOM, it could still have this one moment of pure badass shoot-run-fight-brutal-killing radness.
I don't remember if I posted my "thoughts and opinions" on a Doom movie on this board or not, but basically it is pretty long and drawn out. I've grown up with the game, as I've been playing it since a week or two after the original games came out. I was raised on Doom, so to speak. By far my favorite video game series ever. When I was in 4th and 5th grade I wrote three Doom stories very tightly based on the video game and the various kinds of evil and epic, dangerous, hellish environments and enemies and situations. Needless to say, I was obsessed. This is probably why I was grounded from DOOM for 2 years after my parents read my over-the-top stories. But I digress... back to the topic. I had always wanted to see Doom turned into a movie. When I finally heard about this one being made, and knowing that The Rock was in it, among other things, I was disappointed. But I didn't have much faith in Hollywood, anyway, especially when it comes to bringing an evil, Hell-obsessed gore fest to the big screen.
I was expecting the worst.
I love Doom 3, even though a lot has changed in terms of style and attitude and approach from the original Dooms, rather than just the amazing graphics and gameplay upgrades. Although I loved this game, I was slightly disappointed to see that the movie was going to be based pretty much all on the third game, and not at all on the original series. None of those absurd and fucked up levels filled with hundreds of swarming demons coming out of the walls and teleporting into the room, or springing traps on the characters... but still, this was almost to be expected. The third Doom was far more Movie-ish than the others, making it obviously a lot easier to adapt to film.
But I went in expecting the worst. I saw the movie tonight.
The film, as you could expect from Hollywood, has typical acting of a 'horror/action/scifi' movie nowadays - nothing great, but not too terrible. Some cliche'ed characters and behaviors, some dry humor that doesn't soften things too much, far too many idiotic lines here and there, a particularly ridiculous scene at the end between The Rock and Karl Urban, but otherwise... I'll admit I was actually pleasantly surprised (considering how terrible I was expecting it to be).
Most of what I knew would not be included in this movie I was correct about. Nothing at all from the original Dooms. The plot was even twisted quite a bit, away from the plot of any of the Dooms, unfortunately completely ignoring the entire Hell aspect of the games. This was my biggest complaint, and I feel it is a far bigger deal than some shitty characters and stupid acting. It is almost loosely based on the plot from Doom 3, but with some little changes. Still, not too terrible. But I wish they'd have left in a lot of the enemies such as the lost souls, cyberdemon, cacodemons, zombie soldiers, barons of hell and hell knights, among others. But with the entire Hell aspect being ignored, it would make these enemies harder to justify, I suppose. But fuck - they shouldn't have left that part out to begin with.
What I appreciated the most, though (especially since I feared that the opposite would happen) was that they fed the audience a great deal of violence and guts and gore. At least compared to what you could expect. At least in this aspect they stayed pretty true to the game. No pussyfooting around, no whimpy cut-scenes to avoid the blood - all pure fucking violence. It takes a while for the violence and action to really pick up (much unlike the games), but once it begins, it steadily increases. Impressively, you get to see some downright viciousness from The Rock's character, as he commands the executions of every living thing whether it be an innocent human being, or a vicious demonic genetic mutation. This is something I really was not expecting, as I was expecting his character to be another of his typical "tough, bad-ass, but sensitive and good-hearted guy" characters. You get this impression at first, but as the chaos grows and things become more hopeless, he turns to a primitive and militaristic instinct.... what I feel is an exact underlying theme in Doom's original style.
The highlight of the movie for me was the surprising FPS scene, where a few minutes of the movie run exactly like the video game as you see things from the recently awoken soldier played by Karl Urban. This scene lasts for maybe 5 minutes, and is excellently executed and violent and entertaining as fuck. I wish half of the movie had been done like this, and if it had I'd have fucking loved it. This part was probably the coolest scene I have seen in any sci-fi/action movie, maybe ever. Pure AWESOME. This is when the intensity and violence and action that is DOOM really shines and lets you know what this was based on.
The very last scene (AFTER the ridiculous fight scene) where Karl Urban's character Grim is going up the elevator with blood all over his face and clothes and is carrying his sister.. this is a very nice ending scene regardless of the fact that he is with his sister and was not the only survivor. But the look on his face and the blood all over him is strictly symbolic of the ravaging chaos that is Doom, and what he has just been through. There could hardly have been a better ending scene (unless of course the whole Hell aspect was included... that would have left room for a much cooler scene. But with the way it was done, that was the best possible ending.)
So, in summary, here are the positives and negatives of the movie in my opinion:
NEGATIVES:
*The entire HELL story/plot was left out, making it impossible to make this a fully credible DOOM movie
*Way too much in-depth plot development and attempts at a backstory and some drama
*Too much character development - and it's not even very well done
*Too much dialogue
*Many of the enemies from the original Doom games (and even some from the new game) are left out, most of which are the best enemies in the games
*Based too much on the environments and style of the third game, and not enough on the originality and evil and epic, sinister diabolical themes from the originals
*Plot twist away even from the third game, into some kind of foreign territory that is not at all "Doom"
*Mostly ridiculous fight scene between the last two characters
POSITIVES:
*The blood, and gore and guts and violence is very much intact
*The monsters look great and are quite reminiscent of the models used in Doom 3. Even the ones that look like nothing in the games look very good
*Lots and lots of death and dying, even innocent people
*"Surprise" violence that isn't even needed, but thrown in for good measure, that sort of throws back to how a character in this movie should be expected to act
*The music of the action sequences, although not straightt from the game, is quite similar to the style of music used in the games, and is done quite well and used effectively in exactly the right spots, and never overdone
*The entire FPS scene fucking kills, and surprised me and was the 'truest' part of the movie, showing that no matter how far it drifted from the rest of DOOM, it could still have this one moment of pure badass shoot-run-fight-brutal-killing radness.
Last edited by Bukkake on Mon Oct 24, 2005 6:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Wolfman Walt
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Ah nice, might be worth renting if for nothing else the FPS scene. Glad to hear the violence was intact though, violence is worthless unless it is "overdone." Although I suppose in movies "overdone" violence is significantly underdone. MPAA can get fucked, I demand realistic gore.
my vocabulary skills is above you.
I won't on princple.
You simply reinforce the idea that hollywood can bastardize interesting movie concepts when you pay them money after they make this sort of claptrap bullshit.
After hearing about all the idiotic amendments to the script and the sort of campy self-parody that the movie takes on. I find myself rather disappointed at what it was versus what it could have been.
Not that Doom could have made an especially deep and compelling film. However I would have much more wanted to see a movie in which you watch as the entire phobos base comes apart as the doom marine essentially fights his way in one huge epic battle against demons in various locales as his compatriots die off around him.
More or less like the game. Just one huge action sequence with sound and music and no fucking choreographed wire stunts or any stupid bullshit.
Just unadulterated gore and guns and tons of monsters trying to rip one man to pieces.
You simply reinforce the idea that hollywood can bastardize interesting movie concepts when you pay them money after they make this sort of claptrap bullshit.
After hearing about all the idiotic amendments to the script and the sort of campy self-parody that the movie takes on. I find myself rather disappointed at what it was versus what it could have been.
Not that Doom could have made an especially deep and compelling film. However I would have much more wanted to see a movie in which you watch as the entire phobos base comes apart as the doom marine essentially fights his way in one huge epic battle against demons in various locales as his compatriots die off around him.
More or less like the game. Just one huge action sequence with sound and music and no fucking choreographed wire stunts or any stupid bullshit.
Just unadulterated gore and guns and tons of monsters trying to rip one man to pieces.
That's exactly how it should have been. I wrote another "thesis" about my thoughts on how the movie should be before it came out. Basically said what you just said, only it took me 15 paragraphs to say it.Burnov wrote: Not that Doom could have made an especially deep and compelling film. However I would have much more wanted to see a movie in which you watch as the entire phobos base comes apart as the doom marine essentially fights his way in one huge epic battle against demons in various locales as his compatriots die off around him.
More or less like the game. Just one huge action sequence with sound and music and no fucking choreographed wire stunts or any stupid bullshit.
Just unadulterated gore and guns and tons of monsters trying to rip one man to pieces.
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Megatron
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I don't think that would have worked really. Action scenes don't make a good action movie, it's more the characters. Even the Doom book has not much fighting, but I still think it's as good a story you're going to get out of Doom. Though why would they even make a doom movie anyway, there's no story or deep philosophical meaning behind it such as the taxi driver having a dildo hand. They should have made a marathon or system shock movie. Or any other game besides doom, shucks.
um...no. Action movies are a bit shit now because of stuff being new and challenging. And you said in the previous page you want another rambo or something? Perhaps you should go back to watching blue collar comedy tour
I'm just waiting for Weather Man, The Rum Diary, The New World and Jarhead. Hopefully in the meantime there will be some good new action movies in production that do something new or challenge the genre.
um...no. Action movies are a bit shit now because of stuff being new and challenging. And you said in the previous page you want another rambo or something? Perhaps you should go back to watching blue collar comedy tour
No that is not what I said, I said John Rambo was a good antihero. In my humble opinion First Blood is the only good Rambo movie as it is the only Rambo movie that is more than just an action movie. The latter two films went the way of the current action movie, exactly what I am preaching against. And the thought that if everything stays exactly the same and never evolves or changes it will all be okay is absurd. The action movie is stagnating, it needs to evolve or die (and at the current stage it is dying). Also while on the subject of the way of the dinosaur comedy needs to do the same, Jeff and crew's "MAN AND WOMAN IS DIFFERENT" style or "OLD PEOPLE AND YOUNGSTERS AIN'T THE SAME" humor is deader than dead. It's a dead horse thats taken about as much of a beating as Comicview's "WHITE FOLK AND BLACK FOLK ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT, WHITE FOLK BE ALL LIKE THIS..." humor. Saw a Chapelle special last night, it has plenty of jerk off humor but it also had some good socially aware shit that made it worth watching and actually got some good laughs out of me. It's cool he saw that some of the more provocative stuff be was doing was being overlooked in favor of "RICK JAMES BITCH" and it's constant aping so he just said fuck that shit and split. Better that than be an unwilling participant in the further trivialization of your culture, don't think he wanted to be reduced to a catch phrase. Have alot more respect for him because of that.Megatron wrote:And you said in the previous page you want another rambo or something? Perhaps you should go back to watching blue collar comedy tour
my vocabulary skills is above you.
Doom never should have been anything like a typical action movie, and there should never, under any circumstances, be anything philisophical, intellectual, thought-provoking, or feeding of anything other than the desire for unmitigated brutality, over-the-top intensity and violence and gore, and much darkness and evil. And unlike other action movies, there doesn't even have to be a method or reason the madness. Chaos and murder and animalistic survival instinct is reason enough.
Doom (if done the right way) should also not serve as a 'kick' to the action movie genre, or as an evolution to anything. Some things in life are best left primitive and raw without sophistication and progression, and such is the case with Doom. Much of what ruined the movie (other than the obvious) was the character development, the dialogue, the weakness in every aspect that makes most movies good. This is something many action movies suffer, obviously. But Doom, were it to stay true to the spirit of the games, shouldn't even have had some of these components. Much like First Blood, the Doom movie would have been more appropriate with little dialogue, one surviving 'hero', and a shit load of things happening rather than things being said or discussed or explained.
I will be blunt, as I feel I haven't yet been blunt enough about this:
The movie needed everyone to shut the fuck up, everyone to fucking die, and lots of pentagrams, fire, inverted crosses with mutilated corpses/dying bodies hanging from them, streams of unholy blood, ghastly floating skulls in fire inflicting the fate of damnation upon all they came in contact with, and a total Martian Holocaust, where the demons and monsters and zombies are the Nazis, and all forms of human life are the Jews, Catholics, Gypsies, etc...
It would have been quite fitting if there were some scenes of total destruction, showing all human life on Mars being obliterated by total hateful and sinful methods of violent termination. Then the marines come in to find out what is going wrong, and they, too, get fucking wiped out, all except for one.
Then from this point you have the potential to make a good Doom movie.
But I'll say it again. I still think that of any movie to be adapted from a video game, this is the best one. That's not saying a lot, and maybe I'm biased. But it also has to do with the fact that Doom is far superior to every other video game that has ever been turned into a movie.
Doom (if done the right way) should also not serve as a 'kick' to the action movie genre, or as an evolution to anything. Some things in life are best left primitive and raw without sophistication and progression, and such is the case with Doom. Much of what ruined the movie (other than the obvious) was the character development, the dialogue, the weakness in every aspect that makes most movies good. This is something many action movies suffer, obviously. But Doom, were it to stay true to the spirit of the games, shouldn't even have had some of these components. Much like First Blood, the Doom movie would have been more appropriate with little dialogue, one surviving 'hero', and a shit load of things happening rather than things being said or discussed or explained.
I will be blunt, as I feel I haven't yet been blunt enough about this:
The movie needed everyone to shut the fuck up, everyone to fucking die, and lots of pentagrams, fire, inverted crosses with mutilated corpses/dying bodies hanging from them, streams of unholy blood, ghastly floating skulls in fire inflicting the fate of damnation upon all they came in contact with, and a total Martian Holocaust, where the demons and monsters and zombies are the Nazis, and all forms of human life are the Jews, Catholics, Gypsies, etc...
It would have been quite fitting if there were some scenes of total destruction, showing all human life on Mars being obliterated by total hateful and sinful methods of violent termination. Then the marines come in to find out what is going wrong, and they, too, get fucking wiped out, all except for one.
Then from this point you have the potential to make a good Doom movie.
But I'll say it again. I still think that of any movie to be adapted from a video game, this is the best one. That's not saying a lot, and maybe I'm biased. But it also has to do with the fact that Doom is far superior to every other video game that has ever been turned into a movie.
As an artist you have to make money to fund the projects you have passion for. One for you one for them as they say. Unfortunately Showgirls didn't do good box office despite having many of the trappings of a surefire box office smash. TITS AND ASS BROTHER, WOO! But yeah, you will find very few Directors Actors etc etc that don't do a few shitty projects, they can't all be good. If you feel this discredits my entire arguement then more power too you but it's really rather irrelevant (alliteration bitches!)S4ur0n27 wrote:Yeah, Showgirls was very deep.
It would certainly be different and MOST CERTAINLY challenge the genre. I think movies like that try and add in what you expect from a movie so it can qualify as one (love interest, arbitary plot and character development as well as diolog that serve as nothing more than tired cliche and filler so the film can make it's hour and a half mark), but at best it is going to be a medeocre. I say why have any false notions about what you are making and just fucking make it what it is. It might not be a great "movie" but it could still be a great experience. I think what he is saying anyhow is that the only way a Doom "movie" could be good is if it did what he was describing, so perhaps there is no way to make a good Doom movie? Probrably not, definitely not within Hollywood. But from what I've read it seems they made a decent go of it given the limitations, still it just sounds too limited for me to enjoy it or see past some of the major omissions.S4ur0n27 wrote:How the fuck would anyone make a good movie out of that?Bukkake wrote: fucked up levels filled with hundreds of swarming demons coming out of the walls and teleporting into the room,
Oh, and what made some of the action sequences ridiculous? I wouldn't ask if it didn't seem to be the consensus that a few of them were pretty bad.
my vocabulary skills is above you.
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Megatron
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Well if it would make a better experience than a movie, why don't you just play the game 
I don't see the point in some 90 minutes of CONSTANT ACTION AND FUCKING BLOOD OH HOLY SHIT, it'd just be really boring and never get made anyway. And a video-game movie won't give the action genre a kick in the butthole. Action movies are meant to be a bit shit and corny, if you don't like it just watch foreign movies or something else. Or play a game since you seem to want heroin injected into your brain while you experience just a bunch of shooting and no story or whatasfasjklgjkl;jfdjasbkgjklasdhfdjgj
I don't see the point in some 90 minutes of CONSTANT ACTION AND FUCKING BLOOD OH HOLY SHIT, it'd just be really boring and never get made anyway. And a video-game movie won't give the action genre a kick in the butthole. Action movies are meant to be a bit shit and corny, if you don't like it just watch foreign movies or something else. Or play a game since you seem to want heroin injected into your brain while you experience just a bunch of shooting and no story or whatasfasjklgjkl;jfdjasbkgjklasdhfdjgj
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Janus Matchell
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Alright so had I never played the Doom series or Doom 3. I would have called DOOM a resident evil in space. It was mildly entertaining but a let down and a waste of $5. The only thing good about was when stereotypical dumbass people died.
Ignore my warnings and pay no heed then your live will be ended shortly indeed!
I woudln't know. I haven't seen his 19 odd foreign (to me) language films he did before Robocop, but since you have you are in a far superior position to dictate to me their sucesses or failures as films.S4ur0n27 wrote:By looking at his filmography, it took Verhoeven 19 movies to fund a good one. I predict a good movie in 25 years.
my vocabulary skills is above you.
