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Tomb Raider Series Adaptation Hires The Marvels Writer

RickSanchez

Member
i agree with what you say. i was just making the point that, afa something like the john wick movies, writing & character development (in other than maybe the first one) are not only not of paramount importance, they're of little if any importance, in much the same way as you feel is true of the recent tomb raider trilogy...

yes, you're right. The John Wick movies have gone for spectacle over narrative, which is completely fine.

I am not sure if this Tomb Raider series can pull it off the same way. And Amazon is apparently making a Fallout and a God of War series too. It just makes me sad to see. Many of these games being adapted can actually make for good series/movies if done properly. But god damn, apart from HBO's Last of Us, i struggle to think of a video game adaptation that did even a half-decent job.
 
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You say why but I say why not? I'd like nothing more then to have an adventure game discovering lost ruins and finding secret treasures. I find these sorts of things fun I guess.
There's no inherent problem with it, but it seems that this kind of genre has moved away from the mainstream. The 2018 live action reboot Tomb Raider film only barely broke even. Now we are getting another reboot film and a companion TV series for it, and from what we can see so far of the people driving it, the chances of success are not high.

Consider the risk to the Tomb Raider IP this puts out there, because if these projects fail, the only lesson that executives will take from it is "people are sick of Tomb Raider we should shelve this IP". They won't consider that no one wants the version of it that they made, or that they should focus on making quality games, they'll just decide the IP is dead and shut it down. We've seen this story play out may times before.
 
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MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Consider the risk to the Tomb Raider IP this puts out there, because if these projects fail, the only lesson that executives will take from it is "people are sick of Tomb Raider we should shelve this IP". They won't consider that no one wants the version of it that they made, or that they should focus on making quality games, they'll just decide the IP is dead and shut it down. We've seen this story play out may times before.
It's probably all by design to kill off the IP. Given what the reboot trilogy has done to completely rewrite Lara Croft's personality. Last good Tomb Raider game is still Underworld.

Only thing to look forward to is the TR 1-3 remaster.
 
There's no inherent problem with it, but it seems that this kind of genre has moved away from the mainstream. The 2018 live action reboot Tomb Raider film only barely broke even. Now we are getting another reboot film and a companion TV series for it, and from what we can see so far of the people driving it, the chances of success are not high.

Consider the risk to the Tomb Raider IP this puts out there, because if these projects fail, the only lesson that executives will take from it is "people are sick of Tomb Raider we should shelve this IP". They won't consider that no one wants the version of it that they made, or that they should focus on making quality games, they'll just decide the IP is dead and shut it down. We've seen this story play out may times before.
It'll be tragic if that happens. It would be a direct consequence of ownership falling into the lap of people who have no understanding nor passion for the IP coupled with little to none idea as to why it was cherished in the first place. Its going to be a mistake if they take a surface-level glance at engagement numbers or some shit like that and draw this asinine fallacy. These business people should be held in check by actual fans and creators. Their creative control/decision making often leads to more damage than maintenance of their IPs.

It's probably all by design to kill off the IP. Given what the reboot trilogy has done to completely rewrite Lara Croft's personality. Last good Tomb Raider game is still Underworld.

Only thing to look forward to is the TR 1-3 remaster.
Its sad, but true. Modern Lara is the antithesis of classic iconic Lara. Its disheartening to watch what some people did to the image of the series.
 
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It's probably all by design to kill off the IP. Given what the reboot trilogy has done to completely rewrite Lara Croft's personality. Last good Tomb Raider game is still Underworld.

Only thing to look forward to is the TR 1-3 remaster.

It'll be tragic if that happens. It would be a direct consequence of ownership falling into the lap of people who have no understanding nor passion for the IP coupled with little to none idea as to why it was cherished in the first place. Its going to be a mistake if they take a surface-level glance at engagement numbers or some shit like that and draw this asinine fallacy. These business people should be held in check by actual fans and creators. Their creative control/decision making often leads to more damage than maintenance of their IPs.


Its sad, but true. Modern Lara is the antithesis of classic iconic Lara. Its disheartening to watch what some people did to the image of the series.

I actually really liked the gameplay of 2013 and Rise, but I think Shadow was a major comedown on both writing and gameplay, a massive disappointment after the preceiding two. Eidos Montreal just could not recreate the magic of Crystal Dynamics.

The idea of Lara starting out kind of naive and innocent and basically "getting hard" through her confrontations with Trinity, that part of the story was fine. But I don't feel she really had much character in these games. Mostly she's just a walking collection of daddy issues, and once she gets over that, and manages to put an end to Trinity, what's left is just an empty suit that I don't have any real affinity for. I felt zero urgency to learn what happens to Lara after Shadow. I didn't even feel a dislike, like "oh man do I hate this." I simply flat out really don't care what happens going forward because there's nothing there. It feels like all they committed to was making Lara an asexual heroine with a savior complex. I'd say the best characterization of Lara in this trilogy actually happened in the SotTR tie-in novel Path Of The Apocalypse which takes place after the prologue in Cozumel but before the main game starts in Peru. This was a Lara I actually enjoyed following and the story was a tense pageturner where the stakes felt high and the novel really takes place "in the moment" and worries far more about where Lara is in that moment and what she's doing and doesn't overly burden itself with the big picture apocalyptic storyline of the core game. It was definitely what I liked best about SotTR as a whole, because the game was so underwhelming.

I've never been a proponent of live action adaptations of video games--I think the only time it truly works well is for something like FMV games where there was already a live action component to it. I'm not sure if we'll ever top the original Silent Hill film from 2006 in terms of quality, that seems to be the high water mark of video game film adaptations. I can't say that Tomb Raider has ever done something good on this front yet, and why they keep making more, I don't know. The films were never major blockbusters. The first one with Angelina Jolie did make a decent profit, but it wasn't exactly cheap to make. The sequel performed significantly worse and the reboot only barely broke even. I'd think by this point, they'd stop trying to make live action Lara a thing and just focus on making good games that sell well, but apparently everything has to be a massive multi-media franchise these days and be as sprawling as the MCU in order to be considered a success. Apparently having a series of successful games just isn't good enough to justify an IP's existence anymore.
 
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yes, you're right. The John Wick movies have gone for spectacle over narrative, which is completely fine.
meh
John Wick should have ended with Part 1 even more so than Matrix and their questionable sequels.
Matrix 2-4 had at least some interesting aspects that added to the lore and action also dialed up, but JW's sequels added just utterly insane stuff, with certainly cool action and brain melting cinematography, but still ruins the legacy of the first movie. For all I care remaking/reediting and expanding the first one several times with the new action sequences would have been more entertaining than the dreadful wtf writing and comical characters of all sequels.


Don't know any of the peoples' work, and don't much care about Lara in general. Haven't seen Jolie, have only played the PS3 Tomb Raider reboot, which was a pretty fine Uncharted copy. So almost anything can be a positive surprise to me. Female loaded crew is not thrilling though. Modern women hardly know shit about romance and love these days, beside cheesy unrealistic BS, so them helming adventure and action is just weird.
 

Tsaki

Member
Next $100M loss trainwreck in the making

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Filben

Member
Why do they want TR so hard to fail? Can someone give the original Lara finally a break? Wtf is happening to this franchise.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
The idea of Lara starting out kind of naive and innocent and basically "getting hard" through her confrontations with Trinity, that part of the story was fine. But I don't feel she really had much character in these games. Mostly she's just a walking collection of daddy issues, and once she gets over that, and manages to put an end to Trinity, what's left is just an empty suit that I don't have any real affinity for. I felt zero urgency to learn what happens to Lara after Shadow. I didn't even feel a dislike, like "oh man do I hate this." I simply flat out really don't care what happens going forward because there's nothing there. It feels like all they committed to was making Lara an asexual heroine with a savior complex. I'd say the best characterization of Lara in this trilogy actually happened in the SotTR tie-in novel Path Of The Apocalypse which takes place after the prologue in Cozumel but before the main game starts in Peru. This was a Lara I actually enjoyed following and the story was a tense pageturner where the stakes felt high and the novel really takes place "in the moment" and worries far more about where Lara is in that moment and what she's doing and doesn't overly burden itself with the big picture apocalyptic storyline of the core game. It was definitely what I liked best about SotTR as a whole, because the game was so underwhelming.
I liked 2013 as say the beginning of a character arc for Survivor Croft. But it never really went anywhere in Rise or Survivor. I agree with you 100% that you just feel empty afterward. You really only have a insecure unhinged girl following in her father's footsteps but never really branching out on her own.

The difference between Survivor Croft and Legends/OG Croft is night and day. OG Croft and Legends Croft had rather similar yet different backgrounds but the underlying focus for both was Adventure and the pursuit of knowledge.

Survivor is narrowly focused on the whole I do this for Dad schtick. Not to mention most of the stuff Lara is involved in she indirectly causes herself.

Hard to say which Croft I prefer between OG/Legends but I can't say I care much for Survivor Croft. Survivor Croft mostly comes off as a klutz and a buffoon as opposed to someone who is smart/clever/intelligent.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
I think it's important to point out that Tomb Raider is going to be VERY hard to adapt because the story and characters have almost always been absolutely terrible. I've been a fan of the series since day one. Bought it for Saturn, if you can believe it. It has always sucked. Gameplay is where the series shines. The only ones that ever got it right IMO were Crystal Dynamics w/ Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld. Every other iteration has bottom of the barrel story telling.
But that’s exactly why it’s very easy to adapt.

You just need a paperthin treasure hunting plot and the rest is stunts among collapsing CG temples and roaring CG creatures.

Seriously, just adapt the first game with a selection of its best setpieces and the movie would write itself. No need for any flashback, dialogue or “message” beyond the bare minimum of words to explain the who, the where and the why. The fact that they are revealing who is writing the movie before any clue about the movie itself is all you need to know to be very, very wary about the whole thing.
 
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