Ratchet & Clank Series Thread

[terminoob]

Seeing it in a few hours. I'm prepared to absolutely love it and I'm prepared to absolutely hate it.

What I don't get is that the consensus seems to be that the game is superior, which isn't, uh, good to hear, because I thought beyond the gameplay the game was really not that great because the story was too shallow and the character development/relationships were just poorly done.

[Jane]

6 hours ago, terminoob said:

Seeing it in a few hours. I'm prepared to absolutely love it and I'm prepared to absolutely hate it.

What I don't get is that the consensus seems to be that the game is superior, which isn't, uh, good to hear, because I thought beyond the gameplay the game was really not that great because the story was too shallow and the character development/relationships were just poorly done.

From what I've heard TJ Fixman (writer of most of the games) wrote the first draft of the movie and then left due to "difference in opinions" with the director and "schedule conflicts."

It certainly shows as the movie's writing seems rather sloppy and rushed. The Gamespot review I saw said it was a good first draft and felt kind of half-assed.

I think the problem was Rainmaker and Kevin Munroe. Kevin has mostly done low budget shitty animated movies, and while he seems like a great guy, certainly isn't the right guy to direct this or Sly.

I also noticed TJ wrote a blog post explaining the situation and has been rather mum on R&C outside of the game (which he wrote all of). If the negative reviews are to be trusted there must've been some meddling involved with his script.

The movie would've been a lot better if Insomniac themselves just made it. They clearly are capable of making an animated movie.

Edited April 29, 2016 by Teamwork

[Jane]

I got back from seeing it about an hour ago and have been letting it sit in my mind for a bit. Here's my thoughts on it:

1- The art style is very faithful to the games and I like that the character designs aside from Drek are pretty much unchanged from the games.

2- There were so many easter eggs and fan service that I was smiling constantly.

3- The humor for the most part was true to R&C formula. There were however some odd lulls and some scenes that kind of dragged on or felt cringe worthy. For example, when Qwark is texting he starts shouting hashtags and the scene where Zed tries to mimic Drek's laughing is kinda annoying.

4- The characterization was true to the games. No complains there. 

5- Lots of Qwark in the movie. Nearly every line he says is hilarious. 

6- Voice acting for the main cast is great. Celebrities aside from John Goodman and Paul Giamatti are pretty mediocre though.

7- Neffy is awesome and hilarious. He gets a lot of screentime.

8- The ending is very well done. It has some decent pacing. The interaction between Ratchet and Clank is really on point here. The bickering between Qwark and Nefarious is one of the funniest parts of the film.

9- The post credits scene!!!!

10- Some weapons like the frost cannon, RYNO, thunder smack, tornado launcher and combuster get a lot of screentime.

Now we move into the flaws:

1- The pacing was really weird and some scenes either flew by or dragged on for too long. I feel like the series' stories are better suited in games because they're spread out more and have more breathing room.

2- More of a nitpick here, but Dallas and Juanita have completely different voices from Deadlocked (Nika and Daran do NOT voice them, according to the credits)

3- The animation looks underbudget. I know we've known this from the beginning, but it definitely showed in some instances. All of the crowds are just fongoids and tharpods too.

4- The Plumber is not voiced by Jess Harnell, rather some cheapo who has a bad impression of him. You can tell the sequence was done rather late as there is no 3D and the animation is pretty bad.

5- No character development aside from Qwark and Neffy.

6- I feel like they didn't need to involve Nefarious in the movie, except for the post credits scene where he turns into his normal cyborg appearance. 

7- The galactic rangers had no personality whatsoever aside from Elaris, who I liked. Cora was boring (and Bella Thorne is a terrible voice actress) and Brax just liked to shoot things.

8-Mr Zurkon is also not voiced by Merc Graue, his voice sounds very out of place.

And as a side note, certain events and scenarios are much more fleshed out here than in the game.

 

Overall, pretty mediocre as a standalone film, but I had a great time watching it as a fan. Definitely keep a keen eye out for several easter eggs to the games and PlayStation in general.

 

Knowing Terminoob however, he probably is a lot more sour about the movie.

Edited April 29, 2016 by Teamwork

[terminoob]

2 hours ago, Teamwork said:

Knowing Terminoob however, he probably is a lot more sour about the movie.

Eh.

I thought the characterization was awful. It was faithful to the new game, but to nothing else. I'm still never going to like this new Ratchet because he's become way too generic, and I felt like his relationship with Clank was super nonexistent. It doesn't feel like the two of them were anywhere close to being total best friends and the end where Clank comes back to stay with Ratchet felt... forced. It was nice to see them together at the end for nostalgic purposes, but story-wise it really didn't make sense because they didn't have any sort of rapport between them and nothing they did together felt like true teamwork and instead felt more like they were together out of the convenience that Clank was smart and Ratchet wasn't a robot.

I don't know why you said some guns got "a lot of screen time". They were used like once or twice, and the RYNO was never used at all. It was a lot of Combuster, probably for budget reasons.

I don't think they needed to involve Nefarious in the movie or the game and I feel like I've been saying that since the beginning. It rewrote the great history between him and Qwark and there's no real reason why he needs to come back as a robot other than to service the games, I was excited to see him as that, but like I said about the games, I just don't know where they're going to go with his character after this. His motivation here was almost non-existent, so is he just gonna keep doing things because the story says he needs to be or is he actually going to have reasons to be evil now?

I thought the ending was... meh. Average, I guess. I really didn't like Qwark and Nefarious arguing over the semantics of idioms, and Ratchet looked and sounded bored when he hit Nefarious in the face. The Ratchet/Qwark fight was cool because we actually got to see some weapons be used, but I didn't get why Ratchet was having a tough time other than there wasn't enough budget for the movie to show more destructive weapons. It's established early in the movie that they can just make weapons appear, and I get that Ratchet had a tough time with using a lot of them, but by the end he was clearly making them work just fine and if he had access to all of those super awesome weapons he shouldn't have stuck to just Buzz Blades and the Combuster. He says Qwark is too good, but he didn't show any kind of battle prowess beyond just using different weapons.

I agree that the pacing was weird, and I don't know what they were thinking when they made this and the game in tandem. They pulled so many scenes from the first act of the movie and used them as cut-scenes in the game and it felt like there was a lot of missing information. The need for the game/movie to mirror each other so much was a real detriment to the actual storytelling because it made the movie feel really restricted in what it could actually do and it made the story in the game lackluster because it had to follow a restricted story.

Really didn't like how telegraphed Qwark's betrayal was. There was no emotional impact to it because we already knew beforehand. I get that that's a type of irony (where we know something that the characters don't), but it just didn't work here for me. It seemed like they needed to show Nefarious controlling Drek but they didn't have any better ideas.

It might not sound like I enjoyed the movie, but I really did. It was nowhere near perfect, to be sure, but it was enjoyable for me as a fan of the franchise. I think next time they either need a bigger budget, a longer running time, or just stick to the games. The best part of the series are the weapons and the planets, and they were pretty much nonexistent here.

[Jane]

6 minutes ago, terminoob said:

*long post*

Yeah, I pretty much share the same thoughts that you had. I also notice that Ratchet and Clank had like no interaction whatsoever and they seemed like acquaintances at best. I really like especially how in the first three games they feel like a buddy cop dynamic.

I really do hope they make a sequel taking the criticism from fans in mind, because they have a good formula so far.

It's just a shame the critics tore it up. So many people are getting turned off. Probably gonna bomb.

BTW, did you catch all the references? The people working on it truly did like the games, even if they didn't put as much effort or budget into it as they could. It's a love letter to the fans at the end of the day.

[Clappy]

22 hours ago, Teamwork said:

I swear there will never be a truly great video game movie.

Wreck-It Ralph says hi.

Unless you were talking about video game franchises?  Which in that case, I think the Resident Evil movies get WAY too much hate.  I like them despite how stupid they are.  Also, I think the word "never" will get proven wrong eventually.  The Assassin's Creed movie sounds like it has a ton of potential.

As for this movie?  Still waiting for this to come to Redbox since I enjoyed the original games for the PS2 to try this out.  Reviews withstanding, I don't give a shit about reviews to let that affect me from watching something.  But that's besides the point since this topic has gotten bumped too many times for me not to say something.

The phrase "probably going to bomb" gets overused not specifically on here, but just in general anymore.  That would require the Ratchet & Clank movie to have real expectations to begin with.

I said in this thread seven months or so ago that it looked like it was aimed directly at its built in fanbase.  It did absolutely nothing to try and diversify itself to gain crossover appeal from more than just being fan service.  For a movie like this to be successful, it needs to try harder at commercializing itself.  Sure Focus is not that major of a studio, but when I don't see any commercials for this to even remind viewers that this is coming out and you give this an abnormally larger than it deserves theater count, you know your movie is going to not be financially successful.  Hell, the only reason I remembered this existed was because of Stan bumping this thread ridiculously often for like the last seven months lol.

[Jane]

5 minutes ago, Clappy said:

The phrase "probably going to bomb" gets overused not specifically on here, but just in general anymore.  That would require the Ratchet & Clank movie to have real expectations to begin with.

I was honestly expecting a bit more. Not that I didn't like the movie and it wasn't faithful to the games but the writing was pretty half-assed and it feels like they tried to slap it together in a really short deadline.

[Jane]

On 4/30/2016 at 9:51 PM, Clappy said:

Wreck-It Ralph says hi.

Unless you were talking about video game franchises?  Which in that case, I think the Resident Evil movies get WAY too much hate.  I like them despite how stupid they are.  Also, I think the word "never" will get proven wrong eventually.  The Assassin's Creed movie sounds like it has a ton of potential.

As for this movie?  Still waiting for this to come to Redbox since I enjoyed the original games for the PS2 to try this out.  Reviews withstanding, I don't give a shit about reviews to let that affect me from watching something.  But that's besides the point since this topic has gotten bumped too many times for me not to say something.

The phrase "probably going to bomb" gets overused not specifically on here, but just in general anymore.  That would require the Ratchet & Clank movie to have real expectations to begin with.

I said in this thread seven months or so ago that it looked like it was aimed directly at its built in fanbase.  It did absolutely nothing to try and diversify itself to gain crossover appeal from more than just being fan service.  For a movie like this to be successful, it needs to try harder at commercializing itself.  Sure Focus is not that major of a studio, but when I don't see any commercials for this to even remind viewers that this is coming out and you give this an abnormally larger than it deserves theater count, you know your movie is going to not be financially successful.  Hell, the only reason I remembered this existed was because of Stan bumping this thread ridiculously often for like the last seven months lol.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2016/05/01/weekend-box-office-keanu-tops-newbies-ratchet-clank-flops-mothers-day-stumbles/#6dd52f7832ba

You were right about it bombing.

Dammit. I should've seen the signs coming. TJ Fixman leaving after the first draft, a third rate animation studio handling the movie, the rushed production schedule, Kevin Munroe being director, lack of advertising outside of the core fanbase...

I hope this doesn't kill the franchise. Hopefully it doesn't because the recent PS4 game (also a tie-in to the movie) has been selling quite solidly: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/04/29/the-ratchet-clank-movie-hits-theaters-today/

[G4RY SMELLY]

I saw this movie earlier in the weekend, and I must say I was severely disappointed. I was an enjoyable movie, but it didn't feel like Ratchet and Clank which had me disappointed. 

[Hayden]

As someone with no strong opinion or fandom of Ratchet and Clank, who still had enough general knowledge from a single title of the game, I found this movie entirely passable. Certainly worthy of a decent box office performance, considering what it's up next to.

Could they have toned down how full of themselves Ratchet and Qwark acted? Yeah (Especially Ratchet since Qwark seemed in character) Were a lot of the jokes pretty easy and cutesy? Also yes, but that felt like the game's cut scenes to me. Stan says the hashtag thing was cringy but it could have been far worse.

Plot is pretty by the book, neglected villain wants revenge by blowing up planets (and building a perfect planet wasn't a dumb motivation I suppose. You have Dominator in Wander wanting to watch things die, and the Diamonds in Steven Universe just drain planets of their resources.) I got to the movie a little late so I'm not sure who the head honcho guy was, but he was ultimately pointless and existed to turn into a sheep and then be obliterated. I also missed a little bit of Ratchet's introductory, but at least I saw him and Clank meet for the first time and Clank's slightly rushed backstory.

Clank was cool, I did find it pretty dumb that the main conflict was the Rangers just not listening to Clank and the scientist girl. The moral was something about not having to do big things to be a hero, just the right things. Which didn't emotionally resonate, but was enough of a good lesson for the demographic.

Finally, I liked how when Clank was scanning Ratchet to figure out his species, they included a quick Sly Cooper cameo. At least that shows Sly is still on their minds. Hopefully they don't worry about movies if they're under-budgeted, and just focus on the games. I'm sure a Sly movie would turn out as fine as this was, but I just want Sly's main story games to have a resolution.

[Jane]

49 minutes ago, Dug the Dog said:

I saw this movie earlier in the weekend, and I must say I was severely disappointed. I was an enjoyable movie, but it didn't feel like Ratchet and Clank which had me disappointed. 

Yeah, there were a lot of scenes that felt really weird and out of place in Ratchet & Clank and the direction in general was very sloppy. 

 

31 minutes ago, Hayden said:

Plot is pretty by the book, neglected villain wants revenge by blowing up planets (and building a perfect planet wasn't a dumb motivation I suppose. You have Dominator in Wander wanting to watch things die, and the Diamonds in Steven Universe just drain planets of their resources.) I got to the movie a little late so I'm not sure who the head honcho guy was, but he was ultimately pointless and existed to turn into a sheep and then be obliterated. I also missed a little bit of Ratchet's introductory, but at least I saw him and Clank meet for the first time and Clank's slightly rushed backstory.

That was Dr. Nefarious. I honestly feel like he's funnier as a cyborg then a squishy, mostly because of Lance and Janice and him bickering with Lawrence. The only funny bits he had were him writing in his journal and him arguing with Qwark towards the end. The post-credits scene with him turning into a robot was awesome though.

I feel like Lawrence should've taken the place of Zed because he's much funnier and a lot more likable.

[Hayden]

No I was talking about the orange guy with the ugly design.

I got the gist of Nefarious.

[Jane]

16 minutes ago, Hayden said:

No I was talking about the orange guy with the ugly design.

I got the gist of Nefarious.

Oh, Drek.

[Jane]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=202687135&postcount=3756

Wow, this explains so much. Kevin sounds like an asshole too for fucking with TJ's script simply for being "unconventional," and this is probably why he made that blog post basically saying "if this movie sucks, don't blame me. Blame Kevin and Swallow." I'm also shocked that they didn't use the two years they had to make the movie better. Unbelievable.

[Jane]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/272694/Ratchet__Clank_2016_postmortem.php

Interesting development postmortem and this explains a lot about the game, specifically how it reused a lot of weapons, the lack of arenas or new ideas aside from holocards and the poorly animated NPC cutscenes.

Also the game is #2 on the global game sales for April so we're definitely getting a sequel. The movie, on the other hand, not a chance in hell.... Termi, you were right about the game doing well and the movie tanking.

[Jane]

I know I made a megathread on the PS4 game/movie, but I thought a thread about the series as a whole would be a lot more concise and better for discussion.

Discuss every game in the series, the comics and the film.

Edited July 2, 2016 by Teamwork

[Jane]

https://t.co/f9GQtWAuXz

(Almost) every game in the series is on sale right now on PSN. They're dirt cheap too.