What If?: Planning a Playstation Cinematic Universe, Part 2

What If?: Planning a Playstation Cinematic Universe, Part 2

Last time I put Playstation characters instead of Marvel ones, and used them to poke a bit of fun at Marvel, I covered phases 1 and 2. This time, the imagined Phase 3 and beyond. Of course, the actual Marvel Phase 3 has only one film for me to draw from so far, so I’ll have to make stuff up for the rest of it.

Phase 3

God of War: Olympus Has Fallen

 

Having made literally more money than God with their previous films, Playstation no longer have the playground to themselves, since everyone and their grandmother is racing to make their own cinematic universes. The solution? Get the two biggest Playstation characters in the same movie and make them fight each other, of course!

When Kratos and the others cause a bit too much damage and civilian casualties, Nathan Drake is called in to talk some sense into him. This doesn’t work, as Deimos resurfaces and is linked to another terrorist act. Kratos and Drake come to blows as Drake believes Deimos is too dangerous and wants him apprehended, while Kratos knows Deimos was being controlled by Zeus and is not responsible for his actions, and the other All-Stars take sides. By the end of it, the two are off each other’s Christmas card lists. Meanwhile, Kat and Jak stay out of it and go on not a date instead.

This film is praised for subverting and experimenting with the clichés that the franchise was starting to fall into, and two very popular newcomers in the form of Emmett Graves, a neutral party who gets involved in the argument between Kratos and Drake when Deimos drags him into it, and the long awaited appearance of Crash Bandicoot, making a memorable extended cameo appearance near the end of the second act when he’s recruited by Drake to take Kratos in alive. Jak fans even get a bone thrown to them with the unexpected return of Samos the Sage, meaning that there’s still hope for Keira.

MediEvil

We’ve had science, mythology and space, so next up is the supernatural. Sir Daniel Fortesque was a braggart who schmoozed his way to a cushy position in the court of Gallowmere for his tall tales of slain dragons and rescued princesses, as well as dashing good looks that come from being one of the few people in the kingdom not infected with the plague. Unfortunately for him, King Peregrine believes the stories are real, and when the evil sorcerer Zarok starts raising an undead army, Sir Dan is tasked with leading an opposing army, only to get killed by the very first arrow fired. Nevertheless, Zarok is defeated without Dan’s help. 100 years later, Zarok tries again, but this time he accidentally revives Dan alongside his new undead army, and it’s up to Dan to defeat Zarok and become the true hero history remembers him as.

With most of the major characters used at this point, it’s time to start mining the back catalogues for the cult classics, and MediEvil fits the bill perfectly, not to mention offering yet another new angle to exploit thematically. The only fly in the ointment thus far is Zarok being played by a white woman instead of an old man with green skin. On one hand, a female villain besides Raven is great for diversity. On the other hand, green actors have a hard enough time getting roles as it is without having to deal with whitewashing stealing green roles too. We’ll see what effect, if any, this has on the box office. Actually, we won’t because this is purely fantasy, but you get the idea.

Ratchet and Clank 2

It turns out that retro 70s music was what Ratchet and Clank were missing all along, and the addition of the Groovitron made their previous film into a huge hit. In keeping with the darker and edgier direction of Phase 3, the plot this time is slightly more serious. With this being Ratchet and Clank, the emphasis is on slightly. After being forced to do good deeds in the previous film, Dr Nefarious overcompensates on the evil with the creation of the Biobliterator, a machine to transform organic beings into robots. The slightly more serious part comes from the treatment of racism, as Dr Nefarious is bigoted towards organic life forms and calls them squishies.

Crash Bandicoot: Respun

 

Everyone’s favourite marsupial, the wonder from down under, the rocket with a pocket finally comes home! The planned Crash Bandicoot cinematic universe didn’t pan out thanks to the underperformance of Crash of the Titans, which was too busy setting up the sequels to tell its own story, but the third go around got off to a good start thanks to the success of Olympus Has Fallen. This one promises not to redo the origin story that’s been done several times already, to include a diverse supporting cast, as opposed to everyone being bandicoots, and use a villain who didn’t appear in any of the previous films. Said villain is heavily rumoured to be Dingodile, until he wasn’t, but then was again.

Gravity Rush: Devastation

Kat and Jak sat out Olympus Has Fallen by going on not a date instead. This is that story.

Jak is never getting a standalone film again, while Kat’s last one wasn’t that great, so they came to a mutually beneficial agreement. Besides, it can get awfully lonely exploring unknown regions sometimes, especially when you want a friend for the end of the world. Raven is involved as always, while Daxter is significantly less likely. Rumours suggest this will be the film where Daedalus finally starts doing things, and that there will be sweeping changes to the Gravity Rush supporting cast. Hint: If their contracts are coming to an end in this film, they’re toast.

Starhawk

As Eric Cartman detailed in his carefully laid out movie franchise scheme, you don’t do the black guy movie until Phase 3. Hence, Starhawk. Some people call Emmet Graves a space cowboy. Some people call him Maureen. We knew this already from Olympus Has Fallen, since he was introduced in that and he was tied with Crash Bandicoot for everyone’s favourite character. What we didn’t know is that when he isn’t being dragged into political arguments between adventurer archaeologists and murderous Spartans, Emmett is the sheriff of a space frontier town who defends his turf from invaders. Not space Red Indians, but another Chimera infestation. Sure, they got their asses handed to them in Phase 1, but that time there was a team of fighters. This time, Emmet is all alone – unless he gets help from Deimos at the end.

Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale

Daedalus finally did stuff in Gravity Rush 3, and he enjoyed doing stuff so much, he’s going to do some more stuff! Unfortunately, his idea of doing stuff is destroying worlds, so the Playstation All-Stars have to put a stop to that. Well, most of them anyway. Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper are being saved for Part 2, and they’ll be needed, as Daedalus has the All-Stars on the ropes in an epic cliffhanger ending!

Sly Cooper and Carmelita Fox

With most of the other All-Stars getting beaten badly by Daedalus, Kratos sends an emergency message to Sly Cooper, who took Kratos’ side in Civil War… I mean, Olympus Has Fallen, but wisely sat out the Battle Royale. Sly is tasked with stealing the Hate Chip, a MacGuffin that, according to Kratos, is Daedalus’ weakness. The catch? The Klaw Gang and Inspector Carmelita Fox are also searching for it, but Sly is able to get Carmelita’s help fairly easily when he tempts her with the promise of arresting both the Klaw Gang and Daedalus, setting her career up for life. Not to mention she’s the Catwoman to his Batman. Come to think of it, that should be the other way around, since Sly’s the one who goes against the law, but he’s doing it for a good cause. Yet both Batman and Catwoman operate outside the law, but Carmelita works in law enforcement? Oh no I have gone cross eyed.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

With most of the older heroes winding down at this point, now’s as good a time as any to start introducing the next generation of All-Stars. The existing heroes have been around for a while, so as a counterpoint, a new character is getting a push here – in fact, Aloy is so new, her game isn’t out yet! She explores her home planet, which has previously been ravaged by Daedalus’ conquest and is now terrorised by robot dinosaurs. Perhaps Aloy’s past experience will come in handy for a rematch with Daedalus? Funny you should say that…

Playstation All-Stars: Overtime

Daedalus is still doing stuff, and this time, he’s going to destroy the entire universe! It’s up to all the All-Stars to save the day. When we say all, we mean it – Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper and Aloy all join in, as do the supporting casts of the various characters (yes, that includes Jak’s supporting cast), and even some villains and dead characters return temporarily. Once all this is over, Daedalus will be deadalus, as will a bunch of old heroes and supporting characters. Now to come up with some new characters to fill the gaps, and a new villain to sit around waiting for Phases 4 and 5, before getting involved again in Phase 6, at which point we’ll all be old and grey, and there’ll be a reboot half way through Phase 5 anyway, rendering the whole thing moot.

Phase 4

We’re not stopping there. We need to milk the cash cow for as long as possible, after all. Let the baseless Phase 4 speculation / wishful thinking begin!

Legend of Dragoon? This was supposed to be in Phase 3, but then it got pushed back, and the TV shows did it instead, but since when have the films ever acknowledged the TV shows?

Heavenly Sword? Nariko finally gets her own movie! It’s about time.

More Sequels: Mostly for the newer characters from Phase 3, but there are a couple veterans bringing up the rear. Crash Bandicoot 2? Ratchet and Clank 3? MediEvil 2? Starhawk 2?

Uncharted 4? This one deserves special mention, as no matter how many times we’re told Uncharted 3 was the last one, this rumour refuses to die. If they finally make it, expect this to really be A Thief’s End. See what I did there?

God of War 4? All hail Beard Kratos. The beard mellows him out as he trains his son Kratos Jr to take his place. The kids can call him KraJu.

TV Shows

We’re not stopping there either. For maximum marketing potential, we need to get some TV series going. These are mostly for the older crowd who feel that the films are too 12A for them and are only going because someone had to take the kids and they drew the short straw.

Much like Uncharted and God of War are the centrepieces of the film series, that role is filled for the TV shows by Infamous, the tale of a formerly ordinary man who has superpowers thrust upon him, and must decide whether to do the right thing or give in to the temptation of the dark side. For the TV show, expect a bit of both. This show is hugely popular and ends up helping Primal, The Mark of Kri and Heavy Rain make the jump to the small screen, before they all cross together. Twisted Metal is added following the successful introduction of Sweet Tooth in Infamous season 2.

Finally, for TV shows somewhat closer to the film tone, there’s All-Star Agents, which starts life as a Syphon Filter show in all but name. This gets off to a rocky start, but the events of God of War: The Ghost of Sparta give the perfect opportunity to torpedo the premise and retool the show, as it turns out the entire cast are pawns of Zeus, so Kratos kills them all. After that, the show becomes Legend of Dragoon in all but name. Finally, there’s a God of War spin-off starring Athena, detailing what she gets up to in ancient Greece after Kratos gallivants off to the present day. The show’s fans are fiercely dedicated, but there aren’t nearly enough of them, so it’s cancelled after 2 seasons.

Movie 43 (2013)

Movie 43 (2013)

Date: January 25, 2013

So there I was, on my way home from the shoe factory where my dad works. He said today would be the last time he’d let me go there to hide from the bullies who keep beating me up, and he wouldn’t let me go there again until I’d stood up to the bullies. I was also very worried that I would imminently be going to boarding school and taken away from my family while I was there. I had a lot to think about and took my time going home when I heard it - A drumming noise coming from a nearby construction site. I stopped to listen to the noise, as it didn’t sound like a jackhammer at all, but tribal drums. I snuck onto the site to investigate, following the drumming as it grew louder. I found the source of the drumming to be coming from inside a crumbling wall. I pulled an object out of the wall and examined it. It was a DVD of a film called Movie 43. Curiosity overtook me as I wondered why someone would hide a DVD inside a wall, and so I took it with me to watch. As the grotesque variety show unfolded before me, I cursed to the heavens my inability to ignore my curiosity and leave this accursed artefact where it lay.

The film takes the form of a series of sketches connected with a wraparound storyline involving a search for the eponymous Movie 43, and each sketch taking the form of a film they watch during their search. Each scene features big name actors doing something that is either hugely offensive, nauseating or both. The appeal seems to be in seeing just how far the film can cross the line of good taste with AAA actors in tow.

The main body of the film is based around two brothers convincing their younger brother to search for the fictitious Movie 43 on their computer while they upload viruses to his computer as a prank. The prank takes a turn for the worse when Movie 43 turns out to be real, the Russian Mafia and the Triads both want it, and the whole thing escalates to a nuclear holocaust. In the meantime, one of the brothers is driven oedipally insane from the revelation that he masturbated to his own mother while visiting a porn site to infect the younger brother’s computer. The Oedipus Rex allusion isn’t in the film, I added that for the sake of having some shred of culture here.

Now for the sketches, which I’ll run through in order:

·         Ball Chin Man: Remember that alien from Men in Black 2 who had testicles on his chin? Replace the alien with Hugh Jackman and you’ve got this sketch. Every piece of testicle related humour you could care to come up with is present and correct, and although it’s got the gross-out part down pat, the humour is lacking. This sketch is like watching an entire series worth of one character’s Little Britain sketches one after the other, as opposed to one in each episode. It gets old fast, and this one wasn’t funny to begin with.

·         Home Schooling: A husband and wife sing the virtues of home schooling to their friends, while also ensuring that their son is given an authentic high school experience. They go above and beyond the call of duty in this regard. This sketch has the potential to be funny, but it runs into the same problem of exhausting a series worth of sketches in one scene, which ends up running too long and killing the joke. The punchline is also rather weak and doesn’t connect to the theme of the sketch prior. The son goes on a date with his girlfriend, a mop with a crudely drawn face on it, the joke being that the son has been psychologically messed up his abusive parents. I came up with an alternative  punchline which ties in to the school theme, and sees the son coming downstairs wearing a black trenchcoat and saying something ominous as he reaches inside. Admittedly, implying a school shooting is extremely dark humour, and it’s for the best the film didn’t go with something like this, as I doubt it would have the restraint to stop before showing the deed. There’s also the fact to consider that even if the act isn’t shown like in my idea here, a school shooting joke would be in poor taste following recent events, and possibly in general.     LAUGH COUNT – 1 (The father opening the shower curtain while the son’s there, then telling his wife to come in and laugh.)

·         Bathroom in the Bedroom: The requisite toilet humour sketch. If you’ve ever wanted to see Chris Pratt tell his girlfriend to hurry up and let him go to the toilet over her, today is your lucky day! That says everything you need to know about this one. All I can I add is a warning not to watch it while eating. In fact, I’ll go one further and say don’t watch it at all, because I’m considerate like that.

·         Dirty Laundry: A supermarket cashier has an increasingly sexual argument with his ex-girlfriend that gets broadcast over the shop’s tannoy system. A funny idea that doesn’t quite hit the mark due to being dragged out too long. At least this one feels like one sketch and not several sketches strung out one after the other, and the ending is rather nice, if abrupt.

·         Total Recall: A technology company’s board of directors hold an emergency meeting about safety concerns posed by their newest product, the iBabe – an MP3 player shaped like a life-size naked woman. I’m sure you can see where this is going.    LAUGH COUNT – 2 (Kate Bosworth as the only sane employee protesting the madness going on around her.)

·         BatDate: Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman sabotage Robin’s speed dates, before letting him get together with Supergirl after he saves her from the Penguin, but only because she’s actually the Riddler in disguise, and he and Penguin were in on the joke. LAUGH COUNT – 3 (“His jizz was like a shotgun blast!” A disgusting line, but I laughed at it despite myself for how sudden it is.)

While we’re on the subject, maybe you’d like to hear about my superhero slash fic, 

Batman X Superman: Dawn of Just-Us. No? Okay then.

·         Ghost in the Machine: Little known fact: Photocopiers are operated by little children living inside, and if you shout at the machines, you make the children cry. There’s an absurd idea here, but no joke to go with it, which is a shame, as this is another sketch with wasted potential.

·         You’re Becoming a Woman: A teenage girl has her first period, while her friend, her friend’s brother, and both their fathers panic like headless chickens about what to do. Like the Chris Pratt sketch, this succeeds in being gross, but not at being funny.

·         Luck of the Irish: Johnny Knoxville gets his friend a special birthday present – A foul-mouthed leprechaun played by Gerard Butler. Again, the concept is there, but nothing is done with it. LAUGH COUNT – 4 (Leprechaun Leonidas is worth a chuckle for the image alone. Leprechaunidas, if you will.)

·         IT’S A PRANK BRO!: Stephen Merchant and Halle Berry challenge each other to an escalating prank war in lieu of a traditional date. LAUGH COUNT – 5 (Halle Berry blowing out the candles on a blind boy’s birthday cake crosses the line of good taste to the point that it goes back around and becomes the funniest part of the film. That’s not saying much admittedly, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.)

·         You’re the Best Around: A parody of inspirational speeches in sports films that let the plucky underdogs overcome the odds and win the championship. This one falls flat because there are only so many ways that a basketball coach can rephrase “You’re black, they’re white. We’ve got this.”

·         Cat Scratch Fever: Incest. Child abuse. Racism. Scatology. You may be wondering if there are any taboos left that Movie 43 hasn’t covered. It is now that you realise, horror dawning upon your countenance that there hasn’t been a bestiality sketch yet. Thus you breathe a sigh of relief as the credits start to roll, accompanied by outtakes from each sketch. Maybe it’ll be OK after all. However, the alarm bells start to ring when one of these outtakes includes Elizabeth Banks, who did not appear in any of the previous sketches, and you would notice Elizabeth Banks (I would anyway, she’s a celebrity crush of mine.) We’re in for a surprise akin to Big Boss being credited in Metal Gear Solid 4 just before his appearance, but significantly less pleasant than that, as you scream to the heavens when the sketch begins. We were so close!

Elizabeth Banks is tormented by her boyfriend’s pet cat, who wants her gone when she threatens to come between them. As the extent of the cat’s obsession for his owner becomes clear, this final sketch makes itself the most tasteless of the film, which is a high bar to clear after Chris Pratt’s sketch.

You may have noticed a theme in this run down. Movie 43 aims to be as offensive as possible, but most of the time, that comes at the expense of humour. The lack of humour comes about due to a few reasons. In some cases, the joke is dragged out for too long and any humour that could have been there is exhausted as you wait for the sketch to end. In some cases, the idea is there, but the film doesn’t go far enough with it. There’s no meat on the bones, so to speak. For a detestable few, they’re simply too appalling to be funny, mistaken in the belief that shock value is funny in and of itself. What little potential there is to be found here is stuck in a film that’s simply far too awful to persevere with.

After the unfortunate demise of Elizabeth Banks at the hands of a group of children wielding plastic forks, the credits began again. I whispered a short phrase, audible to nobody but myself.

“Movie 43” I said.

The credits continued with no sign of another sketch beginning.

“Movie 43!” I shouted with relief as the credits came to an end. The film rewound itself, putting everything back to the way it was, and upon reaching the beginning once more, the DVD ejected itself. The nightmare was over, but I could not bear the idea of anyone else suffering the way I had done for the last 90 minutes. I could not take the DVD back to the construction site where I found it, as if I could find it, someone else could do the same. No, a more permanent solution was required. Therefore, on a cold winter’s night, I wrapped up warm and headed outside, Movie 43 in tow. I found a bridge overlooking a river and crossed it, only to stop halfway across. I moved to the edge of the bridge and without a moment’s hesitation, I threw the DVD into the water, watching as the current swept it away. I waited until the drums could be heard no more, at which point I returned home, content that this film would not find its way into my life again, and wondering if this meant I would grow up to marry Elizabeth Banks.

If you ever find yourself near a body of water when you start to hear a tribal drumbeat, I urge you not to investigate. Keep your curiosity under control and move on with your day. For as long as the drums ring in your ears, run!

2/10