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[Lunatic_Gamer]

Recently, Collider's own Steven Weintraub had the chance to talk with Amazon Studios' Head of Television Vernon Sanders, and ask him about the upcoming series, during which Sanders assured fans that the series will stay true to the game.

"We do incredibly well with adaptations, from Invincible to The Boys. I mean, we just covered so many of them, right? And so we know that there's such a passionate fan base for God of War. But the thing that we're always looking for is whether there is a real emotional core, if there's a real narrative story, and I think [that’s] part of what makes God of War so special."

Sanders also talked highly of what the creatives behind the upcoming series are making for the show, once again referencing the emotional core of the father-son story and what will see in the first season (a notable thing to say as we could be seeing multiple seasons for the series) and that it won't get away from what made the original story so special.

"At the center of it all is this story of fathers and sons, and families, set against this giant epic landscape. So what Rafe [Judkins] (showrunner) and Mark [Fergus] and Hawk [Ostby] (writers) have come up with for the first season, and for the series, I think, is both incredibly true to the source material, and also compelling on its own. If you never played the game, you will fall in love with the show and feel very much invited in. So we think it's going to be huge."

‘God of War’ Series Will Be “True to Source Material" Says Amazon Studios' Vernon Sanders [Exclusive]

"At the center of it all is this story of fathers and sons, and families, set against this giant epic landscape."

collider.com

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Nah.

 

[consoul]

Will Kratos be played by a black man in whiteface?

 

[diffusionx]

I dont believe him

 

[01011001]

it's so close to the source material that it will explain to you how to pause and fast forward, and at the end of each episode Atreus will come in to explain how you start the next episode using every major TV manufacturers TV remote.

you will also have to hold down the up button on your remote or the episode will pause

 

[jaysius]

Jesus I sure hope not, the awful soap opera writing will never stand in a TV show where people might expect something better than everyone being angsty and sad.

That little shit Atreus is the worst character in gaming, even worse than crying baby Mario.

 

[Hollowpoint5557]

If we get Jeremy Davies actually playing Baldur I would be extatic.

 

[existensmaximum]

Jesus I sure hope not, the awful soap opera writing will never stand in a TV show where people might expect something better than everyone being angsty and sad.

That little shit Atreus is the worst character in gaming, even worse than crying baby Mario.

You speak the truest words I've read this year. Spot on!

 

[clintar]

Just like rings of power

 

[jaysius]

Just like rings of power

The only thing worse than that shit is the fucking mess of Wheel of Time.

In Wheel of Time every character is unbearable making the show unwatchable.

 

[shiru]

If it's based on nu-GoW, then duh. It already removed all the "problematic" stuff of the actual series and made it soy friendly.

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

Will be terrible translated to TV... theres a reason 1:1 translation from medium to medium rarely works. The pacing, story beats, tone and delivery aren't easily translatable. I hope they make pretty significant changes to how the adventure plays out but you can keep the outcomes the same. But the god of war story is pretty B movie outside of Kratos character development. A 1:1 translation may make it feel like a tele-novella.

 

[FBeeEye]

Watch it will be two female directors and focus grouped by "influencers" who never played the games.

 

[Rendered Tangent]

Jesus I sure hope not, the awful soap opera writing will never stand in a TV show where people might expect something better than everyone being angsty and sad.

That little shit Atreus is the worst character in gaming, even worse than crying baby Mario.

Well, he is a very young child in the first game and barely in his teens in Ragnarok - so he will be petulant and irrational at times.

 

[jaysius]

Well, he is a very young child in the first game and barely in his teens in Ragnarok - so he will be petulant and irrational at times.

Okish theory, but he's an annoying fuckface in Ragnarök too.

He's just a shitty character that's annoying.

Ragnarök even fucked up the character of Kratos though, he's not much better than a Drax from Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy, being excluded from many conversations and only lending grunts to them when he's queried for an opinion. Then characters talking about his actions like he's a fucking dog "OH HE MUST HAVE FOUND A CHEST" just shit that doesn't need to be there.

Ragnarök is through and through written like shit.

 

[linkent]

Sex minigames?

 

[Pasta la Vista]

All these Video Game TV series should be animation.

 

[jaysius]

All these Video Game TV series should be animation.

Yes, that medium has gotten significantly better over the years and does allow some leeway on cringey writing, then if the writing is actually a little better than expected it's like it's done something fantastic.

Very few of these video game live action shows will have anything close to "great tv" so instead of trying so hard they could just skip the ruse and make it animated.

Also bad CGI really ruins some of the more budgeted shows, where animation the things would look perfect.

 

[Yoboman]

Rafe Judkins (showrunner) - Uncharted, Wheel of Time
Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (writers) - the Expanse, Ironman, Children of Men

Putrid showrunner but good writers

Not sure what to think but the showrunner choice has my hopes very very low

 

[Cyberpunkd]

the upcoming series are making for the show, once again referencing the emotional core of the father-son story and what will see in the first season (a notable thing to say as we could be seeing multiple seasons for the series) and that it won't get away from what made the original story so special.

I thought GoW was about huge buff dude killing gods and having sex with beautiful women, maybe I missed the memo.

 

[jakinov]

All these Video Game TV series should be animation.

The people funding them don't want to do this necessairly kist for game fans. They want to take established concepts and extend them into shows for everyone. Like what's done in Hollywood with books and comics. There's a lot of people who don't enjoy watching animation. Though I do agree animation is a better medium for these games. You can be a lot cheesier with animation and you don't have to be as grounded as you can draw anything instead of being limited by the budget.

 

[bitbydeath]

Will Kratos be played by a black man in whiteface?

White people can do the voice if that’s what you’re worried about. Dave Bautista is probably too old now but his voice would have worked otherwise.

 

[bitbydeath]

The show really needs to start from the beginning. They’ll be out of material in two years if they start from the Norse mythology.

 

[Shakka43]

So this show is gonna throw Kratos into Norse myth from the get-go? call me unimpressed.

 

[Slothbeing1209]

True to the source material?
So every episode is one shot then? Credit will be Kratos open menu to change armor and upgrade shit lol.

 

[Pimpbaa]

So this show is gonna throw Kratos into Norse myth from the get-go? call me unimpressed.

Yeah, if they ain’t starting from the beginning than this really sucks. I like the new games, but it has to show him fighting the Greek gods and titans first.

 

[Ar¢tos]

Sorry, I entered this thread just to fart. Considering what is being discussed here I'm sure nobody even notices the smell.

 

[RickSanchez]

We do incredibly well with adaptations, from Invincible to The Boys.

LOL, conveniently not mentioning the piles of poop that is 'Rings of Power' and 'Wheel of Time'.

The charm of God of War (at least the two new games) comes from the player being immersed into the narrative (to whatever extent a third person character-driven game can immerse you). You are exploring, solving puzzles and fighting monsters while Kratos, Atreus and Mimir exchange stories and banter; this being steadily punctuated by cutscenes which move the story forward. All of this coming together to create something more than the sum of its parts, is what makes God of War great.

Take away the interactivity, world exploration and idle banter from this and any TV show, no matter how well written and directed, cannot come close to replicating the feel of the games.

I quote this piece from Yahtzee every chance i get, it is from one of the Extra Punctuation episodes:

Immersive narrative is something utterly unique to interactive media. The complex subtleties of Tunic or Obra Dinn would be completely impossible in a movie, tv show or book. That's why it irks me whenever the media outlets talk about a video game getting a tv/movie adaptation in a way that implies it is an elevation of the material. It's not. It's a reduction and you should never expect much out of it. Trying to adapt a great game to a movie/tv show is like trying to appreciate a renaissance painting through a microscope.

 

[Ar¢tos]

LOL, conveniently not mentioning the piles of poop that is 'Rings of Power' and 'Wheel of Time'.

The charm of God of War (at least the two new games) comes from the player being immersed into the narrative (to whatever extent a third person character-driven game can immerse you). You are exploring, solving puzzles and fighting monsters while Kratos, Atreus and Mimir exchange stories and banter; this being steadily punctuated by cutscenes which move the story forward. All of this coming together to create something more than the sum of its parts, is what makes God of War great.

Take away the interactivity, world exploration and idle banter from this and any TV show, no matter how well written and directed, cannot come close to replicating the feel of the games.

I quote this piece from Yahtzee every chance i get, it is from one of the Extra Punctuation episodes:

Considering how the Wheel of Time books end, I can understand the series writers doing whatever they wanted because they know the end is shit anyway (How can the last book of a series of 13 or 14 be so SO rushed? Literally killing characters just to get rid of them...)
But the Lord of the Rings, yeah, that was annoying as hell, I just wanted the Elf and the Dwarf to bang each other as quickly as possible so the story could finally move faster.
We all know GoW adaptation will be shit, it's inevitable, Amazon knows it too, but as long as it gives them some profit, they don't care.

 

[struggler_guts]

Yeah, if they ain’t starting from the beginning than this really sucks. I like the new games, but it has to show him fighting the Greek gods and titans first.

The first 5 minutes better be a jumpcut of all of Kratos's finishers on the gods

 

[RickSanchez]

The first 5 minutes better be a jumpcut of all of Kratos's finishers on the gods

Every day we stray further from gods

 

[DevilHunterX0]

Yeah but will it have Square, Square and Triangle?

 

[Salmon]

Amazon

 

[j0hnnix]

"We do incredibly well with adaptations, from Invincible to The Boys."
First Season of the Boys and Second I'll give them that after those it's a dumbster fire.
Invincible is great.. no doubt.

"At the center of it all is this story of fathers and sons, and families, set against this giant epic landscape.

How wonderfully convenient to avoid the real lore of Kratos and how he came to be, now it'll just be these crap flash backs if any.

I do not trust Amazon to actually do justice for GoW and it's lore. Mostly when they cherry picked how to start.

 

[GymWolf]

Amazon being true to the source material after the rings of power and the wheel of time.

Spoiler

 

[chromhound]

So this show is gonna throw Kratos into Norse myth from the get-go? call me unimpressed.

Will probably have some throwback episodes

 

[xrnzaaas]

Sex minigames?

That would've been present in the series if it was made 20 years ago. In the current climate there will be no attractive women (only hot and possibly gay men), I fully expect the creators of the show to pick some fugly actress to play Freya.

 

[cireza]

This will be the first series to be a movie.

 

[Banjo64]

Checks out audience score for The Wheel of Time. Laughs.

 

[Cyborg]

Rings of Powers says ''hi''

 

[deriks]

"father and son"?! I hope this was a marketing thing, or at least don't start by the new soy games

 

[old-parts]

Rafe Judkins [the show runner] is the guy behind The Wheel of Time on Amazon which made a lot of changes to the source material.

Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby are actually good writers they wrote The Expanse and Children of Men.

So some hope and some concern.

 

[xClout]

Will Kratos be played by a black man in whiteface?

 

[Raonak]

Curious to see how they do it. The old games would be really weird because it's kratos on solo adventures being angry and killing gods. Not sure that'd work in a tv series.

I imagine they're just gonna start off with the Norse games and use flashbacks to show what kratos was like.

In any case, the performances in Ragnarok were so good (Christopher judge especially) it's gonna be hard for the show to match that.

 

[Soodanim]

Let me know when Kratos tears the head off someone with his bare hands

 

[Lunarorbit]

Starting with the new gow? Yikes.

That seems like you're setting your story up to fail. It's going to divide the game fans and make the narrative confusing for new comers. There's so much story in the first trilogy that's going to be glossed over or omitted.

So basically the viewer will be like atreus, not knowing or seeing most of what makes Kratos interesting.

Plus, the first season all Kratos will fight is trolls unless they bring in monsters from other games

 

[ToTTenTranz]

The show really needs to start from the beginning. They’ll be out of material in two years if they start from the Norse mythology.

They already announced it would be based on the 2018 game, so it'll start on the Norse mythology saga.

Though it could be interesting if they keep Kratos' identity a "secret" until the moment he needs to fight some monsters or Baldur.
They could also hire a different, younger actor to play young Kratos and throw in a bunch of flashbacks set in the Greek mythology, eventually paving the way for a spin-off.

I also think they'll have a problem with giving context to Kratos within the Norse Pantheon. But to be honest I think the original series' story had much less depth and the characters were generally a lot more uni- or bidimensional. That's fine enough for a fast-paced 2005 game originally meant as a westernized version of Capcom's hack&slash games Onimusha and Devil May Cry. But they'd need to make drastic changes to the story and characters if they were to bring the first games to a decent live-action adaptation.

 

[bitbydeath]

But they'd need to make drastic changes to the story and characters if they were to bring the first games to a decent live-action adaptation.

What sort of changes?
I think it’s perfect as is.

 

[SSfox]

Not starting with Greek Saga is a big Mistake. I already lost all interest.

 

[NoLootBoxDev]

Won't believe it until I see it. I mean this could be the easiest adaptation, there are not so many characters to screw up, but for sure they will add their "new generation woke characters" making this the