Up next in 10
What went wrong with the Borderlands movie?- The Cutting Board
8K views
Aug 28, 2024
The Borderlands movie has come and gone, the fans aren't happy about it one bit. Join us today as we shed more light as to where this train could've gotten derailed on an all new episode of The Cutting Board!! Follow us and let's talk about video games, their stories, and the people that make them! ?Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@game.sandwich.official ✖️Socials: https://twitter.com/TheGameSandwich ?Join our Discord: https://discord.com/invite/6GrQYXYdSf #borderlands #borderlands3 #borderlands2
View Video Transcript
0:00
What's up, guys, this is Kalo, and normally I'm here to give you the lowdown on all things gaming
0:04
but we are back for yet another episode of the cutting board, and today I'm joined by Aiden
0:10
Why don't you say what? I will give the A-O. So. There we go
0:15
We are back in full swing. And what better way to get back into the swing of things than talking about a movie
0:25
I don't know if you've heard about it. I don't know how well it's been doing
0:30
I know exactly how well it's been doing. We're going to talk about the Borderlands movie
0:33
and how bad it's been doing in the box office and amongst fans
0:39
As of right now, we are sitting at a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes
0:44
4.4 on IMBD, and IGN gave it a 3 out of 10
0:48
The IGN score, do with that what you will. But, um... Drop down again? Wow
0:54
It's going straight down. Now, it made $4 million on its first day
1:00
and around $8 million over that first weekend when it came out
1:04
I'll remind you here, $115 million budget, you add in maybe $30 million in marketing
1:11
Clearly this movie is operating at a loss. General statement here, we've talked about the Borderlands movie before here on the channel
1:21
but I just want to get your initial thoughts on this movie
1:24
I mean, I haven't seen it. As a fan of Borderlands, I refuse to say it
1:30
Because, like, my original thoughts were when we talked about before, the casting was absolutely terrible
1:37
They shouldn't have gotten Cape Blanchet. They also should not have brought in Jack Black
1:41
They should not have done Kevin Hart in the slightest. If they cared about this movie, they would have chosen a better cast to begin with
1:50
But ultimately, as everything kept coming out about the movie, I just kept thinking more negatively about it
1:58
Like, everything I saw. And the only shining light for me was the actress who was playing Tiny Tina
2:07
but I've even heard that she's like absolutely terrible. This is my thing
2:13
I've heard rumblings that this movie, the concept of it, the want to make something like this
2:18
started in 2011. At least that's where I kind of got it all the way back to
2:23
Clearly something went wrong between now and then. and from what I've heard the biggest problems about this movie are the lack of gore and when you think about borderlands
2:34
yes it has that cartoony style but what makes it borderlands is the gore all of the over-the-top dark humor now at one point
2:44
apparently I think it was the stunt coordinator said there was an R-rated version of this movie
2:50
like they shot it as an R-rated movie between then and now it was cut down I think it's PG-3
2:57
13, like, it just, it's crazy. Why would you do that? I don't know
3:02
I have no idea why they made, what they dumped it down
3:05
because, like, I mean, you have Krieg in there. Krieg alone, as many people pointed out
3:11
should have made this movie just R-rated, just right off the bat
3:15
Because he is nothing but Gory and Carnive, basically, and he just screams a lot of expletives
3:21
That's all he does in the games. They should have done something that was a lot more than PG-13
3:27
when it comes to Krieg alone. But when you factor in everybody else, there's no question
3:32
It should have been R-rated. But so, like, dumbing it down to a PG-13 feels like
3:36
you're definitely taking away from the movie versus, like, adding anything to it
3:42
And there was even... I was trying to find it while you were saying that stuff
3:47
But Randy Pitchford specifically brought up, like, oh, yeah, I want to see criticisms and everything
3:55
And posted it on Twitter or whatever. whatever the hell you want to call it
3:59
And whenever he did, a lot of people, their main complaint was that the movie was PG-13
4:08
Yeah. And he said specifically in response to that, he said that that is not a valid criticism about the movie at all
4:16
He said a lot of weird stuff that weekend when the movie came out
4:20
I saw one thing, and I'm just paraphrasing here, he compared the Beatles hit rates
4:25
like however many hit songs they made compared to like non-hit songs to the borderlands movie
4:31
he also went on like a blocking spree of people who said anything negative about the movie oh yeah
4:37
so i recently just saw that one he i just saw it too as i was looking for that he said like oh yeah
4:45
blocked a bunch of nasty accounts yesterday and stuff blah blah blah and i'm like it's probably
4:50
just people who had criticism about the movie he did that but then in the process apparently i think
4:55
towards the end of that tweet. He was like, oh, by accident, I blocked a few good accounts or
5:00
like some of his friends So here we are I think what this movie did wrong was try to appeal to a mass audience I look at a thing like the fallout show to kind of give it maybe the closest comparison here as far as violence dark humor all that stuff goes
5:20
That's what I'm looking for in borderlands. And it apparently didn't even remotely hit that mark
5:26
I think what there should be more of here and I guess with Randy Pitchford giving his input on this movie
5:36
Should there be more things where video game developers have more of a final say in what these movies, TV shows, whatever have you
5:47
Should they have more input? Because they know the whole context of the games, the stories, and where this thing goes
5:53
I can't help but think they should just have full rain here. Yeah, I mean, honestly, like, if you had someone writing this movie that was like a writer on the games
6:06
or someone who was either a director of the games or, like, developer of any sort
6:12
it probably would have done 10 times better. I guarantee you. I mean, as much as I can hate Todd Howard, at least he knows Fallout
6:23
He knows Fallout very well, and that's part of the reason why Fallout was so good
6:29
Randy Pitchford, well, yes, he runs Gearbox. He doesn't know Borderlands. Clearly
6:35
He doesn't know what people want with it. The people who made the games
6:40
they know what people want with it. And you can see that
6:46
Like, Borderlands 2 was absolutely an amazing game. You take a jump to Borderlands 3
6:51
and you can see, like, the giant dip in quality of it because they ran wild with the story
6:58
and, like, turned it into different direction, and it became something that the series shouldn't have been to begin with
7:05
it's so weird and i don't need to get so black and white when it comes to these things
7:10
but i think whenever they make a game like borderlands and then they're like hey we're gonna make
7:18
a movie i think at that point you shouldn't take any creative freedoms if you're gonna do that
7:25
then just make a new ip because we need new ipes in the movies i get and i'm saying it out loud
7:32
now and thinking about it. It's like, oh, well, then you're kind of getting rid of creativity
7:38
But at the same time, you get things like this. More often than not, when you get an IP like Halo
7:44
like Borderlands, all that stuff. It goes bad. It just goes south immediately. And it's like
7:51
then you should have just done something different. I can see a movie that exists that's kind of like
7:55
Borderlands and just be like inspired by Gearbox's Borderlands. There you go. Have a fun movie. Go right for it
8:02
And really what they should have done is, so like, they could have taken the fallout approach
8:08
And it's been like, Fallout, they didn't try to stick with the whole idea of, oh, we're going with a lone wanderer and we're doing specifically Boston and we're retelling Fallout 4 or anything
8:21
They didn't go for that at all. They went for, oh, here's a different vault that you've never seen
8:27
We're going to tell a brand new story in an area that is completely unfamiliar to people, yada, yada
8:32
that we're not really unfamiliar because it was set in California but still, you know what I mean
8:39
But for borderlands, they went, oh, this isn't going to be the borderlands
8:44
who are used to, and they came out with that and then said, it'll have all the same characters
8:51
but the story's going to be completely different. It's not going to do anything that the games did and everything
8:57
If they were going to do that, they should have just, like if they were going to have the same characters
9:02
they should have just stuck with the actual story from Borderlands one. Or, like, stuck with the story from, like, the Borderlands comics
9:09
And they, like, origin stories. Yeah. Because, like, you know, because they have origin stories for, like, Lilith and everybody, too
9:18
of how they came to Pandora. They could have done something like that
9:22
Or they could have done the story of, like, the original Vault Hunter
9:27
or whatever, that they talked about in Borderlands 3. They could have done his story
9:32
Or they could have done somebody's story that's not the original characters
9:38
And I feel like it would have done so much better. Because nobody would have these expectations of
9:46
oh, well, it's Lilith. We should expect to be seeing her using her siren powers or looking a certain way or all that
9:53
You know, it's rolling. We should be seeing him as like a badass tall man, not a, you know, whiny little short dude
10:01
Mm-hmm. But I will back on giving part all I want. That being said
10:06
Very consistent in that matter. But I agree. And this is a thing where I look to The Last of Us, where Pedro Pascal's Joel is different from Troy Baker's Joel
10:17
Like yes there are seeds of the original Joel character within both But Pedro takes his one way Troy Baker does another
10:29
At the root, at the stem of this all, this is still the character we know and love
10:35
And it's so, it's so weird. And I'm looking at Fallout because whenever you were talking, I was like, all right, you know
10:43
a movie like that could still exist where Borderlands kind of says
10:47
like, hey, the games are canon. Those are the characters. You might see them down the road, or they might cameo in the movie
10:54
And they're just the characters. As you know and love them. I would have been for, like, an origin story of any of them, or just the first Volt Hunter
11:03
or let's get crazy and just do a whole separate group of people with this same cast and give them their own characters
11:10
Do whatever. Like, it'll be more well suited for them versus these expectations all the fans have of, like, hey, Roland, I know
11:17
know him, quiet, very reserved, blah, blah, blah. There's deeper story there
11:22
But yeah, I just can't believe they seen that R-rated cut and said, yeah, no, we're good
11:31
it's fine. PG-13 will certainly get this across the finish line. Yeah
11:36
I mean, you know, I mean, they're more relaxed with PG-13 stuff nowadays, but like, they're not
11:42
relaxed enough the borderlands could be PG-13. Exactly. I mean, yes, you can get away with saying, like
11:47
I think it's, you can say like twice in PG-13 now
11:52
Ooh. But with the amount of times they should be saying in that movie
11:56
Every other word. Or like the amount of blood that you should be seeing in that movie
12:00
Yeah. Like, you can't get away with that in PG-13. No way in hell
12:07
Not at all. Yeah, like to really bring it home that, like, you said
12:13
even if they had focused on like a different group of alt-hundreds, I would have been happy with that. I would have been excited to see the movie
12:19
I would definitely, like, I would have immediately gone to see it
12:23
Had I seen that it's about a new group of vault hunters that are maybe on a different planet or something
12:29
or maybe there want to be vault hunters that, like, aren't on Pandora
12:35
or maybe just a group of psychos who, like, want to become vault hunters because they're sick of being crazy or something
12:41
I don't know. They could have done something with that. but and like they have so much lore to work with
12:49
that they could have expanded on that lore or they could just hold it in a new way
12:54
but instead they just decided hey this this is going to be in its own separate thing
12:59
that's completely not canon it has nothing to do with the games and everything
13:03
but we're still going to use all the characters from the game and act like they're the characters from the game
13:08
and it's like at that point you're really messing it up and you're playing with a lot of fire
13:14
and they should have realized that from the beginning. And I know this is like away from Borderlands, but it's in the same vein
13:22
Netflix is apparently doing this Pokemon live action show. And one, it's not focusing on Ash
13:30
It's focusing on the original trainer Red. I think that's a prime example of, all right, you're taking this Pokemon IP
13:37
you're making it live action. But at its core, it's still Pokemon, at least we assume
13:44
But it's a different story. different person, we're not associated with them outside the game, and it's like, all right, cool
13:50
And even then in the game, he says like two words. You don't really know them, know them. But that's a prime example of them doing something like, all right, take your creative liberty there
13:59
versus going like, oh, if they did a live action asch catch them, people will have high expectations
14:06
for that. Oh, definitely. You can't just slap the name of a character on there that everybody
14:13
knows and loves and then just be like well now we're just going to
14:17
basically treat them like shit or like we're going to completely trash their story
14:21
you can't do that because the second that you don't do that
14:25
character justice to the fullest extent people will have an absurd problem with it
14:30
people will not let you hear the end of it well that's my
14:35
thing especially moving forward after borderlands correct me if I'm wrong but I know
14:41
we get the Last of Us part two we're going to be getting this live action
14:45
Amazon series of God of War I do not know what to expect from that
14:53
and then who voices wait hold on so who voices like Cretus I can't remember it's like Christian Judge
15:00
Christopher Judge yeah yeah so if they don't have Christopher Judge playing him
15:05
I swear I have the tattoo right here I can't speak on it
15:11
like even the Pokemon one I can't speak on any of this
15:15
But there's a character A lot of emotion A lot of story that we already know about
15:21
Please just Amazon Jeff Bezos if you're listening Please don't mess this up
15:27
But your shield behind you Brings me to my next point A character like Link We going to be getting a live action show or a movie around The Legend of Zelda What do we do here for a character that doesn
15:41
even talk? He talked in the animated series. Okay, fair enough. I saw how well that went, but still
15:49
I don't know if you ever saw that, but... I have seen that
15:53
As long as he's not Tom Holland, whatever, let's just do it
15:58
you know I could see Tom Holland being like I could he doesn't need to be all the game characters I'm just saying
16:04
he doesn't he's literally everyone on PlayStation but who knows where he goes next
16:09
I mean just like Jack Black doesn't need to voice in every single video game
16:14
animated movie yeah or be an animated character yeah it's always the same three people
16:21
Tom Holland Chris Pratt and Jack Black imagine them in one movie we need a more diverse cast here
16:28
There's literally other people out there, and hey, I'm always stuck to this sentiment, the original voice actors for the characters in the game
16:36
They're out there. You know, but that's just... I mean, I don't even remember..
16:40
I don't remember who voice is Claptrap, but, like, they got Jack Black to play Claptrap, and then they could have just gotten the original voice actor
16:47
Oh, man. That will piss me off to no end every time
16:52
I'm right there with you. Especially because Jack Black does not sound good as Claptrap, and so many people have said it
16:57
And that's my thing too. I look at the Sonic movie, as big of a Sonic fan I am
17:03
I thought the cast there did okay. The original voice actor for Tales came back
17:09
Idris Elba did a great job as Knuckles. But I also think in a vacuum of video game movie TV show content
17:17
that is a very rare instance where that works out and where that kind of goes off in a different direction and a pleasant one
17:24
But yeah, no, the more I talk about this. movie, the more upset I am, and I don't know, I'm going to cleanse my palate tonight. I'm going to
17:32
see Deadpool and Wolverine, so hopefully that brings me... Oh, you'll love it. That brings me joy. I need
17:38
to bring more joy into my life after talking about this movie. I saw that movie before we moved
17:42
and it was absolutely amazing. All right. I love the little fact after it, too, is that the word
17:50
has now officially been said, like, 119 times in Marvel movies. Once in Guardians of the Galaxy 3
17:56
118 times in Deadpool Wolverine. Oh, all right. Now my expectations are set
18:02
I'm in, I'm in, but as for the Borderlands movie, I don't think I'm ever going to watch it
18:08
I mean, at some point in life, I mean, are you going to watch it
18:13
I will. I will inevitably watch it just out of pure curiosity for it
18:17
because I want to know like how bad it truly is. But where it currently stands on, I'm not willing to go
18:24
like, I'm not willing to go all the way out to the movie. theater pay like $20 per
18:28
for a ticket, get some popcorn, and sit down and watch it on screen
18:32
That's not worth my time. I'm going to wait until it's on DVD and it's like $2
18:36
to rent it or something. Oh yeah. And then be like, there you go
18:40
Paramount or whatever service owns borderlands or whatever they're going with. That is where I'm
18:46
watching it. Yeah. I mean, I have Paramount, I have Peacock, and I have HBO
18:50
So like if it's on one of those, I'm just going to watch it for free. There you go
18:55
It's always these things with like video game movies. I always wait for them to get on the streaming service
19:00
And then exactly to the T at like 10 o'clock at night
19:04
I'm like, oh, I didn't watch this video game movie. I'm going to throw it on and watch it
19:09
So there we go. Borderlands is in my future. I don't think within the next year
19:13
When it hits a streaming service, sure. But I have no interest right now
19:19
But do you have any final remarks to bury the Borderlands movie
19:24
I wanted to. I was trying to find. it. I was trying to find it, but I can't
19:29
So there was, there was one review that I absolutely loved that it was very short, but one sentence that really stuck out
19:39
like stuck out for me was that this is the one instance
19:43
where they should have just hired cosplayers to play all of the actors
19:49
to play all of the characters. Oh, no. Because that's how bad every character looks
19:54
It's so bad. It breaks my heart. I love borderlands. I love video games, and it's like, you're going to do this to borderlands
20:03
Like, what they do wrong? I guess it's Randy Pitchford doing something wrong
20:07
Yeah, blame Randy Pitchford. It just all goes back to him. But in case you don't know, to kind of transition out of some bad talk
20:17
we got a Discord channel where we're talking about video games. We're probably talking about this movie
20:22
So why don't you join? Links to all that is in the video description down below
20:26
Keep it locked to Game Sandwich for all your gaming news, rumors, and reviews
20:30
And as of right now, I've been Kalo, joined by Aiden, and we'll see you guys next time
20:35
If you enjoyed today's video and want more content just like this, consider subscribing to Game Sandwich for all your news, rumors, and reviews
20:43
And we'll see you guys next time
#Games
#Movies