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.
AND NO F$@#ING EXPLOSIONS!?!?
Edit: those downvotes suggest some people didn’t get the reference
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.
She got started making her own shorts, which isn’t the same as getting cast in films but it’s not nothing either
Shamelessly stolen from elsewhere, the best way to summarize my thoughts on the trailer is: “It looks like a Borderlands porn parody, but without the porn.”
I don’t watch very many movies and I’m by no means a movie critic; I think it looks terrible.
Its a trend chaser, imo.
✅️4-5 wacky characters
✅️action montage with fun music
✅️colorful explosions.
✅️rebellious teenager
✅️starring 4 names everyone knows
All tropes of previous movies that did well, but only the writing will save a movie this late to the game.
The original writer left and demanded his name be taken off the credits after they changed things. Avi Arad involved.
Not looking good.
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.
Randy Pitchford is a piece of shit and forced out the original Claptrap VA. Jack Black is great and I really respect him because he likes games, seems to treat fans well, and seems to care about the communities he participates in. He should not be voicing Claptrap just like Chris Pratt shouldn’t have been the voice of Mario (aside from Chris Pratt also being a piece of shit which I don’t think Jack Black is).
It just felt weird and off the whole time. Maybe I’m conditioned to be sick of the quips we saw in the preview because of the flood of super hero movies we’ve had. Maybe if I went back and replayed Borderlands I’d respond the same way. It wasn’t violent enough, it didn’t have enough explosions and bullets, the characters weren’t the models and that was jarring. It’s not cell-shaded. I got so fucking annoyed at the trite “it’s in my mouth” scene that I just don’t have a good feeling.
I’m hoping it will be a fun, mindless action movie. I’m reserving judgement other than Randy Pitchford being a piece of shit until it actually comes out.
His commentary about why they had to nuke all the fun shit in BL3 is equally piece of shit of material. I don’t want to dig through his Twitter to find stuff. Shit was wild. I dislike a bunch of folks in the gaming industry for poor decisions. Randy’s one of very few I will always go out of my way to highlight how much of a piece of shit he is.
