Err the Opposite they follow the industry so well are pretty nake in their cash grab...remember who invented loot boxes...(blizzard)
Massively Multiplayer: Gaming In The New Millennium
- Thread starter RySenkari
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Yeah you write as they follow the opposite of industry, rather the opposite of fan expectatives/opinion
Thanks a korean for teach me that(what the hangul means?) but again in MMORPG you expect that, not in full fledge 60+ games...Actually, with Nexon on maplestory in 2005.
With this:
Hey now, EA hasn't hit OTL 2017 levels of incompetence yet. They just churned out a great NHL and Madden game, they're still doing well with the Encounter series, they're still making fantastic games and are going to take a mostly hands-off approach with The Boneyard. Basically, their only contribution to The Boneyard will be money. Now, ten years later, will we see Fallout: Lootbox? Maybe, maybe not, but for now I think people are free to get hyped up for The Boneyard.
I just hope that they aren't buying up and killing studios when they don't meet EA's unreasonably high expectations.
Winter 2006 (Part 11) - Suicide Squad, Starring Lyssa Fielding
After eleven films featuring their greatest superheroes, Warner Bros. shifted if focus on the worst of the worst of the DC Universe for 2006. Not only did the announcement that Suicide Squad would release February 17, 2006--traditionally a dead zone for major releases--stun many observers, the announcement that it would be an R-rated feature directed by Robert Rodriguez sent shockwaves through the fandom. However, it was not meant to be tentpole release like Justice League before it (that honour went to the sequel to 2003’s The Flash) Thus Suicide Squad had a much smaller budget than its more “heroic” brethren and more or less gave Rodriguez free reign over the project.
It was clear from early reports that the film version would use the premise of John Ostrander’s 1987-1992 series where the US government would send incarcerated supervillains on black-ops missions in exchange for commuted sentences while failure meant complete disavowal. CCH Pounder reprised the role of Amanda Waller, director of Task Force X whose forceful and manipulative personality not only placed her at odds with the criminals, but also the team’s military handler/field commander, Rick Flag Jr. (played by Thomas Jane.) Similarly, Heath Ledger also returned to play the shifty and less than competent Captain Boomerang.
Suicide Squad would also see several new faces such as Deadshot, the nihilistic and death-seeking hitman, played by Jude Law. Will Smith played Bronze Tiger, a martial artist who had been brainwashed into becoming a pawn of the League of Assassins (with vague references to Ra’s Al Ghul) until Batman defeated him and freed him from the League’s control. Carla Gugino played Plastique, formerly a radical Quebec separatist who had become freelance after she escaped prison in Canada and Tom Hardy played the team dim, but superhumanly strong powerhouse, Blockbuster. The biggest coup of the film was the inclusion of Harley Quinn (played by Lyssa Fielding) as the team wildcard. She wouldn’t be the only Batman adversary as Antonio Banderas would voice Bane, who would become the film’s main antagonist.
True to Rodriguez’s particularities, most of the shooting took place in Corpus Christi as well as other locations throughout Texas. He also strictly eschewed “capes” aesthetic in favour of a more practical approach, which clashed with the original Bruce Timm design of Harley Quinn from Batman: The Animated Series. However, Rodriguez compromised with fans by having Harley wears a red and black tank top until military fatigues. Suicide Squad was also notorious for slightly altering Quinn’s origin so that she willingly bleached her skin white to make herself more like her “puddin.’” While the purists complained, the first publicity shots of Fielding’s Harley Quinn quelled most outrage.
Unlike most of the DC films to that point, the stakes of Suicide Squad were largely human in scope. Pre-Rodriguez drafts of the screenplay detailed a plot including the character known as Enchantress with Waller attempting to use her as a weapon with the Squad having to prevent doomsday. Rodriguez immediately tossed it out and with input from Quentin Tarantino (who never received any credit) wrote a new screenplay from scratch. After some wrangling with the reluctant studio brass, Warner Bros. allowed him to use Bane, who would export the strength-enhancing known as “Venom” from the island nation of Santa Prisca. The spread of it on the streets is pushing law enforcement across the country to its limits, hence the President tasks Waller with shutting down Bane’s operations.
One of the biggest highlights of the film is the emphasis on character with many of the actors putting in memorable performances. Jude Law’s Deadshot is on point with the actor injecting some dry humour and snarky quips in contrast to Ledger’s borderline slapstick antics, especially in the scene where Boomerang shows up to the mission briefing with a hangover. Meanwhile, a repentant Bronze Tiger becomes a pacifist as penance for his horrific acts as a pawn of the League of Assassins, which makes him the target of mockery of his squad mates. Smith was about to pass on the role, but reconsidered after he came to appreciate the character’s arc to regain his lost confidence.
However, Fielding’s performance was the most memorable of the lot with a Harley Quinn that was sexy, unpredictable, and with a the right amount of guile. Fielding’s Quinn was more than a piece of eye candy as the character put her skills as a psychiatrist to good use by needling her squad mates and pressing their buttons for her own amusement. Her most infamous scene is early in the mission where Boomerang attempts to grope her, only to get a mallet to the groin and her boot to his face when he’s down. In an interview with Wizard magazine, Fielding admitted that her main inspiration for the scene came from an incident between a friend of hers and “a very powerful man” though she never named names out of respect for her friend’s privacy.
Most of the first act served as character and team building with the squad as a dysfunctional unit with Flag acting as the long-suffering “babysitter” to keep the criminals in check with a micro-explosive planted in the back of their skulls. Rodriguez borrowed from the comic with a scene where Boomerang convinces Slipknot (Paul Rudd) that the explosives were a ruse, prompting the latter to make a run for it. Flag detonates the explosives, leaving Slipknot’s headless corpse to slump over onto the ground and let the rest of the squad know that Waller wasn’t joking.
Their mission is to infiltrate the prison where Bane is producing Venom and destroy it, but it goes south (no pun intended) when Harley apparently betrays the team. In another homage to the comic books, Bane breaks Blockbuster’s back over his knee ala “Knightfall” and imprisons the rest the Squad and thus the film shifts genre to a prison break while Flag tries to convince the others to assist him. The rest of the Squad is uncooperative believing they had traded one prison for another though, they all share a burning hatred of Harley Quinn as she continues to ingratiate herself to Bane.
Flag manages to secure Deadshot’s cooperation when he reveals to Lawton that he has a daughter that Waller kept secret from him to use as leverage against him later. While the two plan and attempt an escape, Harley Quinn thwarts their plan with Bane planning to make “an example” of them before the other prisoners. He throws them into solitary where Harley surreptitiously reveals to a skeptical Flag and Lawton that this was all part of “the plan.” She also manipulates Squad and other prisoners into a starting a prison riot to serve as a distraction while Plastique plants the explosives to bring down Bane’s drug operation with the intel Harley provided.
More of Rodriguez’s trademarks appear in the film’s third act, particularly in the highly stylized shootout scene where Flag and Lawton fight back-to-back against Bane’s armed guards. Meanwhile, Bronze Tiger (with some prodding from Harley) renounces his pacifism and challenges Bane in hand-to-hand combat to keep the drug lord from personally intervening in the riot, all the while Boomerang does his best to avoid getting into a fight. Pitting his skill against Bane’s Venom-fueled strength, it’s still not enough as Bane watches Plastique’s “demolition” drives the drug lord into a berserker rage worthy of Wolverine from Marvel.
He grabs Bronze Tiger and prepares to break his back as he did with Blockbuster as Captain Boomerang looks on. Boomerang debates whether he intervene or not before he mutters, “oh, bloody hell” and throws his signature weapon. It slices the tube feeding the Venom into Bane’s body, causing the drug lord to lose his strength and gives Bronze Tiger an opening to recover and kick him over the railing. Bane falls three storeys and lands on the prison’s concrete floor where he lay paralyzed, but alive. Boomerang asks Bronze Tiger if he plans to finish Bane off, but the latter declares that he is, “not a killer.”
With their objective completed, the Squad falls back, except for Lawton who still wants to die in a blaze of glory. However, Flag knocks him out and drags him off telling him that, “Zoe needs her father.” Upon returning to the United States, the Squad have five years taken off their sentences as well as certain rewards: Deadshot in particular is allowed a supervised visit with his daughter while Harley gets an espresso machine. Meanwhile, the President congratulates Waller on the mission’s success (more or less) and even floats the idea of using the Squad against the Justice League should they go rogue. Waller dismisses the notion as they are criminals and she wouldn’t entrust them with the safety of the world.
The film ends with Harley in her cell reading when she hears gunfire. Men in tactical gear takes out the guards and appear in front of her cell with the “leader” raising his visor to reveal the chalky visage of the Joker (portrayed Sam Rockwell) who has some to allow her an “early parole.” Harley squeals, “Puddin!’” before the two embrace and the credits roll.
Suicide Squad opened to $47 million ($56 million if you count the four-day weekend) with a domestic total gross of $150 million on an estimated budget of $35 million, making it the first big hit of 2006. It came as a surprise to Warner Bros. who expected a more modest profit given the film’s rating and relative obscurity of the property to the general public, but praise from critics and positive word-of-mouth from audiences helped propel its success. While the Rodriguez trademark of using Hispanic actors as not was as present in the film as with his previous work, the film made use of Hispanic musicians from the Corpus Christi area for its soundtrack, including a track from Selina Qunitanilla-Perez.
Though the film boasted several recognizable faces in Hollywood, Lyssa Fielding’s performance as Harley Quinn stood out the most with both audiences and critics. The character had quickly rose in popularity, leading to a new ongoing series from DC Comics and a flood of merchandise. Fielding embraced the role and even returned to voice the character in a couple animated projects (alternating with the original voice actress, Arleen Sorkin.) Perhaps the biggest change Suicide Squad, alongside Sony/Valiant’s Shadowman, brought was the realization that there was a market for more mature superhero films.
It also gave Warner Bros. confidence in taking chances with its non-Justice League properties, and subsequently increased the marketing budget for 2007’s Lobo film by James Gunn to build some early buzz. Similarly, it gave the studio in seeking out and cultivating new talent. The studio had initially approach Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, to direct Legion of Super-Heroes for 2008, however, Jackson declined and instead recommended an unknown director from South Africa called Neill Blomkamp. Despite the studio’s initial apprehension, the success of Suicide Squad convinced Warner Bros. to hire him for the project.
While 2005 had not been kind to Warner Bros. in the Superhero Wars, 2006 begun with new confidence for the studio as it entered the next phase of its “Fourth World” saga.
-Tales From The Superhero Wars, sequentialhistory.net, November 18, 2010
It was clear from early reports that the film version would use the premise of John Ostrander’s 1987-1992 series where the US government would send incarcerated supervillains on black-ops missions in exchange for commuted sentences while failure meant complete disavowal. CCH Pounder reprised the role of Amanda Waller, director of Task Force X whose forceful and manipulative personality not only placed her at odds with the criminals, but also the team’s military handler/field commander, Rick Flag Jr. (played by Thomas Jane.) Similarly, Heath Ledger also returned to play the shifty and less than competent Captain Boomerang.
Suicide Squad would also see several new faces such as Deadshot, the nihilistic and death-seeking hitman, played by Jude Law. Will Smith played Bronze Tiger, a martial artist who had been brainwashed into becoming a pawn of the League of Assassins (with vague references to Ra’s Al Ghul) until Batman defeated him and freed him from the League’s control. Carla Gugino played Plastique, formerly a radical Quebec separatist who had become freelance after she escaped prison in Canada and Tom Hardy played the team dim, but superhumanly strong powerhouse, Blockbuster. The biggest coup of the film was the inclusion of Harley Quinn (played by Lyssa Fielding) as the team wildcard. She wouldn’t be the only Batman adversary as Antonio Banderas would voice Bane, who would become the film’s main antagonist.
True to Rodriguez’s particularities, most of the shooting took place in Corpus Christi as well as other locations throughout Texas. He also strictly eschewed “capes” aesthetic in favour of a more practical approach, which clashed with the original Bruce Timm design of Harley Quinn from Batman: The Animated Series. However, Rodriguez compromised with fans by having Harley wears a red and black tank top until military fatigues. Suicide Squad was also notorious for slightly altering Quinn’s origin so that she willingly bleached her skin white to make herself more like her “puddin.’” While the purists complained, the first publicity shots of Fielding’s Harley Quinn quelled most outrage.
Unlike most of the DC films to that point, the stakes of Suicide Squad were largely human in scope. Pre-Rodriguez drafts of the screenplay detailed a plot including the character known as Enchantress with Waller attempting to use her as a weapon with the Squad having to prevent doomsday. Rodriguez immediately tossed it out and with input from Quentin Tarantino (who never received any credit) wrote a new screenplay from scratch. After some wrangling with the reluctant studio brass, Warner Bros. allowed him to use Bane, who would export the strength-enhancing known as “Venom” from the island nation of Santa Prisca. The spread of it on the streets is pushing law enforcement across the country to its limits, hence the President tasks Waller with shutting down Bane’s operations.
One of the biggest highlights of the film is the emphasis on character with many of the actors putting in memorable performances. Jude Law’s Deadshot is on point with the actor injecting some dry humour and snarky quips in contrast to Ledger’s borderline slapstick antics, especially in the scene where Boomerang shows up to the mission briefing with a hangover. Meanwhile, a repentant Bronze Tiger becomes a pacifist as penance for his horrific acts as a pawn of the League of Assassins, which makes him the target of mockery of his squad mates. Smith was about to pass on the role, but reconsidered after he came to appreciate the character’s arc to regain his lost confidence.
However, Fielding’s performance was the most memorable of the lot with a Harley Quinn that was sexy, unpredictable, and with a the right amount of guile. Fielding’s Quinn was more than a piece of eye candy as the character put her skills as a psychiatrist to good use by needling her squad mates and pressing their buttons for her own amusement. Her most infamous scene is early in the mission where Boomerang attempts to grope her, only to get a mallet to the groin and her boot to his face when he’s down. In an interview with Wizard magazine, Fielding admitted that her main inspiration for the scene came from an incident between a friend of hers and “a very powerful man” though she never named names out of respect for her friend’s privacy.
Most of the first act served as character and team building with the squad as a dysfunctional unit with Flag acting as the long-suffering “babysitter” to keep the criminals in check with a micro-explosive planted in the back of their skulls. Rodriguez borrowed from the comic with a scene where Boomerang convinces Slipknot (Paul Rudd) that the explosives were a ruse, prompting the latter to make a run for it. Flag detonates the explosives, leaving Slipknot’s headless corpse to slump over onto the ground and let the rest of the squad know that Waller wasn’t joking.
Their mission is to infiltrate the prison where Bane is producing Venom and destroy it, but it goes south (no pun intended) when Harley apparently betrays the team. In another homage to the comic books, Bane breaks Blockbuster’s back over his knee ala “Knightfall” and imprisons the rest the Squad and thus the film shifts genre to a prison break while Flag tries to convince the others to assist him. The rest of the Squad is uncooperative believing they had traded one prison for another though, they all share a burning hatred of Harley Quinn as she continues to ingratiate herself to Bane.
Flag manages to secure Deadshot’s cooperation when he reveals to Lawton that he has a daughter that Waller kept secret from him to use as leverage against him later. While the two plan and attempt an escape, Harley Quinn thwarts their plan with Bane planning to make “an example” of them before the other prisoners. He throws them into solitary where Harley surreptitiously reveals to a skeptical Flag and Lawton that this was all part of “the plan.” She also manipulates Squad and other prisoners into a starting a prison riot to serve as a distraction while Plastique plants the explosives to bring down Bane’s drug operation with the intel Harley provided.
More of Rodriguez’s trademarks appear in the film’s third act, particularly in the highly stylized shootout scene where Flag and Lawton fight back-to-back against Bane’s armed guards. Meanwhile, Bronze Tiger (with some prodding from Harley) renounces his pacifism and challenges Bane in hand-to-hand combat to keep the drug lord from personally intervening in the riot, all the while Boomerang does his best to avoid getting into a fight. Pitting his skill against Bane’s Venom-fueled strength, it’s still not enough as Bane watches Plastique’s “demolition” drives the drug lord into a berserker rage worthy of Wolverine from Marvel.
He grabs Bronze Tiger and prepares to break his back as he did with Blockbuster as Captain Boomerang looks on. Boomerang debates whether he intervene or not before he mutters, “oh, bloody hell” and throws his signature weapon. It slices the tube feeding the Venom into Bane’s body, causing the drug lord to lose his strength and gives Bronze Tiger an opening to recover and kick him over the railing. Bane falls three storeys and lands on the prison’s concrete floor where he lay paralyzed, but alive. Boomerang asks Bronze Tiger if he plans to finish Bane off, but the latter declares that he is, “not a killer.”
With their objective completed, the Squad falls back, except for Lawton who still wants to die in a blaze of glory. However, Flag knocks him out and drags him off telling him that, “Zoe needs her father.” Upon returning to the United States, the Squad have five years taken off their sentences as well as certain rewards: Deadshot in particular is allowed a supervised visit with his daughter while Harley gets an espresso machine. Meanwhile, the President congratulates Waller on the mission’s success (more or less) and even floats the idea of using the Squad against the Justice League should they go rogue. Waller dismisses the notion as they are criminals and she wouldn’t entrust them with the safety of the world.
The film ends with Harley in her cell reading when she hears gunfire. Men in tactical gear takes out the guards and appear in front of her cell with the “leader” raising his visor to reveal the chalky visage of the Joker (portrayed Sam Rockwell) who has some to allow her an “early parole.” Harley squeals, “Puddin!’” before the two embrace and the credits roll.
Suicide Squad opened to $47 million ($56 million if you count the four-day weekend) with a domestic total gross of $150 million on an estimated budget of $35 million, making it the first big hit of 2006. It came as a surprise to Warner Bros. who expected a more modest profit given the film’s rating and relative obscurity of the property to the general public, but praise from critics and positive word-of-mouth from audiences helped propel its success. While the Rodriguez trademark of using Hispanic actors as not was as present in the film as with his previous work, the film made use of Hispanic musicians from the Corpus Christi area for its soundtrack, including a track from Selina Qunitanilla-Perez.
Though the film boasted several recognizable faces in Hollywood, Lyssa Fielding’s performance as Harley Quinn stood out the most with both audiences and critics. The character had quickly rose in popularity, leading to a new ongoing series from DC Comics and a flood of merchandise. Fielding embraced the role and even returned to voice the character in a couple animated projects (alternating with the original voice actress, Arleen Sorkin.) Perhaps the biggest change Suicide Squad, alongside Sony/Valiant’s Shadowman, brought was the realization that there was a market for more mature superhero films.
It also gave Warner Bros. confidence in taking chances with its non-Justice League properties, and subsequently increased the marketing budget for 2007’s Lobo film by James Gunn to build some early buzz. Similarly, it gave the studio in seeking out and cultivating new talent. The studio had initially approach Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, to direct Legion of Super-Heroes for 2008, however, Jackson declined and instead recommended an unknown director from South Africa called Neill Blomkamp. Despite the studio’s initial apprehension, the success of Suicide Squad convinced Warner Bros. to hire him for the project.
While 2005 had not been kind to Warner Bros. in the Superhero Wars, 2006 begun with new confidence for the studio as it entered the next phase of its “Fourth World” saga.
-Tales From The Superhero Wars, sequentialhistory.net, November 18, 2010
So what if EA buys Fallout, this isn't supposed to be a utopia, just different from our reality. There are things that we may not like (Fable 2 not being made due to Molyneux leaving the industry, RWBY butterflied away, 9/11 and Afghanistan still happening, etc...), but there are also many things that people like (Six Flags New Orleans being saved, SEGA still existing as a console developer (under Apple), Gore being President instead of Bush 2: electric boogaloo, etc...), and that is to be expected in literature. It adds balance and makes a nice story, especially when paired with good writing.
@Pyro @RySenkari I keep forgetting to ask, on the soundtrack to Batman Triumphant did Madonna do a parody of her version of Santa Baby called Joker Puddin'? Or does that sound more like something Lyssa would do as an internet video?
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Madonna didn't do any sort of parody like that, though I could definitely see Lyssa doing one.
I will confirm that down the road, Brittany Saldita co-stars with Lyssa in an animated Harley Quinn film. Brittany voices Renee Montoya and the two start out as cat-and-mouse style rivals before being forced to reluctantly team up against a more dangerous villain.
Um, as someone with a detailed knowledge of both Renee and Harley...There's gonna be so much femslash fanfiction written after that. Add Brittany and Lyssa's respective legendary statuses to the mix and,...Well, let's just say I have a feeling a lot of early-2000s adolescents, both guys and a significant portion of girls, will remember it fondly. Also, please tell me the villain is Poison Ivy, just to cap this whole brouhaha off.
In my head, the Lobo film will be an adaptation of the 1990 mini-series where he must capture his second-grade teacher, Ms. Tribb (played by Betty White) bring her back to Vril Dox II of L.E.G.I.O.N.
As for Legion of Super-Heroes, I'm still hashing out a line-up as the team has a large roster but I want to snip it down to a more manageable seven so there will be the founders (Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad) and Brainiac 5 for sure. Any expectations now that I reveal that Neill Blomkamp will be directing it?
As for Legion of Super-Heroes, I'm still hashing out a line-up as the team has a large roster but I want to snip it down to a more manageable seven so there will be the founders (Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad) and Brainiac 5 for sure. Any expectations now that I reveal that Neill Blomkamp will be directing it?
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