There are times in this life when a “course correction” is needed, but it can’t just be stated, it needs to be acted upon. For example, when a great wrong is thrust upon the people, the people must rise up to say “No more!” and instead do something that is right and true and meaningful. What does this have to do with video games? If you must know, the Borderlands movie came out this past weekend, and it was a huge flop. It’s totally going to lose money; fans and critics alike hated it, and it didn’t resemble what it should’ve been. You know, be like the video games that the film was supposed to replicate?
This is where the “course correction” comes in. You see after the movie came out and people started reacting to how bad it was, they went and did the only thing they could do…they started playing the Borderlands video games instead and telling others to do the same! Sure enough, the series has seen a spike among its three numbered entries. Some of it is small, but it could easily grow over the next few days as people try and see what Pandora and its vault hunters are REALLY like:
The irony here is not lost on us. When Naughty Dog made an adaptation of its beloved video game series, sales for its titles went up, and they even did a remake of the original game to ensure that the “best version” was out there for people to buy and buy it, they did. We also saw a spike for Bethesda titles after Amazon Prime Video dropped its adaptation of a certain classic RPG series.
Yet, here, we’re seeing players go to the titles because those were GOOD things, instead of the garbage the movie turned out to be. Shall we rundown the list of what went wrong with it?
First, the cast was miscast in their roles, with only Kate Blanchett getting praised for her performance. That also led to them not having real chemistry, which was vital for a tale like this. Second, the plot wasn’t anything like the video games, and it didn’t even try to replicate what really happened on Pandora. Third, a high-class writer was attached to the film, and then director Eli Roth apparently decided to go in his own direction, to the point where the writer asked to have their name removed from the credits!
The PG-13 rating didn’t help, and now fans know what to do next…just play the video games. It’s better that way!