I got to thinking.. wouldn't an Elder Scrolls movie be absolutely amazing?

Delphinia

Who do you think should be in it?
I played around with the idea and inspired by the characters, I came up with this AI generated short. Hope you enjoy and maybe one day, they will grace us with the beauty and splendor of seeing this world on the big screen.
https://youtube.com/shorts/UoxyDavYtv8

aru

I sometimes watch the ESO trailers in a row. It has the length of a movie now anyway

wolfie1.0.

The success rate of.video game to movie adoptions is rather low. There havnt been all that many that have worked. Let's see how fallout does before we start wishing for an elder scrolls one.... we may regret it.

karthrag_inak

Only if the components that separate ESO from all the other Tolkien-ish/wannabe stories are accentuated. (i.e. Khajiit and Argonians). Otherwise, why bother? There have been sword-and-sorcery epics with humans and elves since the early 80s and they all tell nearly the same story.

duagloth

Please no

AcadianPaladin

Nice work, @Delphinia and thanks for sharing! Queen Ayrenn's incredible depiction in game is probably almost impossible to match but you did a fabulous job improving the game's wimpy depiction of Emeric and buffoonish depiction of Jorunn.

Medieval fantasy (without hobbits, thank you) is my genre so I'd be up for an ESO movie.

N3CR01

Would be much better as a series than a movie.

woe

Warcraft didn't turn out too well, I don't think TESO would either. There is WAY WAY WAY too much to cover and jamming it into 2hrs instead of making LOTR style 10 movies would be a big mistake.

XSTRONG

I would probably watch it just because I play Eso, I watched Wow movie but have never played wow that movie was good but not super good.

TaSheen

No thanks. Not my sort of thing at all. Though obviously if they did this I just wouldn't pay any attention to it. I'd hate for them to spend the money on that instead of the game though.

Tommy_The_Gun

I will be honest. If you take away Argonians & Khajiits what you will get is a generic fantasy movie. Even last D&D movie felt generic because one of the most interesting d&d playable races was moved to "background stuff". And that is exactly the problem. In order for those things to have proper screen time it would require either super high budget (practical effects) or exceptionally good CGI - which is not available to do cheaply at the moment.

So... I guess Elder Scrolls movie would not be amazing... because it would not feel like an Elder Scrolls movie due to world building issues.

gariondavey

I would say yes, but the way movies have been the last 3-4 years (and tv shows) in general gives me very little hope that this would be good.

Add on top of that that most shows/movies based on fantasy books or video games in the last few years have been absolutely awful (complete deviation from source material and many other flaws), there is virtually 0 chance that an elder scrolls movie would be good, sadly.

Soarora

There’s been discussions of an elder scrolls movie before. It may be cool to see graphically, but a big part of TES is your character. So… what would the plot be? A retelling of one of the games without the RP aspect? Or the story of one of the in-game book series? A biography on an influential character?
I think watching the story of a game wouldn’t be the correct solution. Maybe a historical event instead, like a movie based on Pelinal (although maybe not him… lots of blood and gore…).

reazea

Would the movie be PvE or PvP based?

(sorry, couldn't help it)

KlauthWarthog

Unless it is a trippy Sermons of Vivec inspired whackfest directed by David Lynch, I am not interested.

DrNukenstein

Movie? no.

Anthology series? yes.

Kallykat

I'd love to visit Tamriel on screen, but these kinds of things seem to be difficult to do well. I think a show would be a better format than a movie. Of course, I'd watch anything TES related just to check it out. I'm not sure how they'd pull off convincing Khajiit and Argonians without going full CGI, which I assume would be expensive.

Elder Scrolls lore is huge, so there's no shortage of material. I'm wondering if there's a way to cleverly nod to the unreliable narrator and the uncertain outcome of events due to player decisions. I think figuring out a protagonist would be tricky too since one of the main appeals to an RPG is customizing your own character. I guess they could do what the DND movie did and have a variety of characters working together--maybe a mage, a warrior, and a thief. Although TES is known for the solo hero (outside of ESO), not an adventuring party. If they made a series instead of a movie, then maybe they could have each episode/season be shown from a different character's viewpoint or something. Maybe there could be a chronicler or storyteller telling the narrative of something that happened in the past and changing it in the present based on their audience's interactions. I don't know. I just don't think it would feel very ES with a normal, straightforward timeline and point of view.

Xandreia_

would lag and disconnects be in this movie?

NotaDaedraWorshipper

An animated series would work a lot better than a movie.

But going by how ESO does trailers I'm sure I would be disappointed no matter what, because they can't even make mer look like mer in their own trailers.

Azphira

Zos would probably hire Uwe Boll.

DinoZavr

"Warcraft: The Beginning" movie was financially profitable (brought 440 mil versus 160 mil invested in), but it's general acceptance by critics is very low. As for me (with 4 years of WoW experience during Burning Crusade and Lich King times) the film was good.
The catch is - it is a niche product. For the fans who know The game lore. For random viewer many things lay beyond theirs comprehension, and, thus, not captivating.
ESO Lore is significantly bigger. And there are zero chances to explain it in short 90 minutes.
So, from lore point of view, i doubt, it can be done. Disregard lore and we get just another action film in a fantasy world. Not Lord of the Rings, not even Warcraft. So, i am rather skeptical about any MMO-based movie perspectives. imho, apparently.

TheImperfect

I'd love it if they really committed and went all in and made a several series (at least 10) long epic story. It could showcase a lot of the lore and history for all the races and have epic actors.

Delphinia

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Nice work, @Delphinia and thanks for sharing! Queen Ayrenn's incredible depiction in game is probably almost impossible to match but you did a fabulous job improving the game's wimpy depiction of Emeric and buffoonish depiction of Jorunn.

Medieval fantasy (without hobbits, thank you) is my genre so I'd be up for an ESO movie.

Thank you so much @AcadianPaladin, very kind of you. I envision characters like that if there was ever a film. I agree with your description

reazea wrote: »

Would the movie be PvE or PvP based?

(sorry, couldn't help it)

@reazea , lol actually that's a good question. There are players who soley play pve, those who pvp, and those who do a little of both. There seems to be such a wealth of content.

I guess I just like to see characters I like come to life. I did not think I would enjoy the LoTR movies, but my husband convinced me to see them. I have to admit that I loved them. I was not familiar with Elder Scrolls, nor did I play mmo's much prior. However, when this came out in 2014, I was immediately hooked. I mostly pvp (if you can call it that lol), but I've grown to like and dislike certain characters over the years. I am not a huge fan of the cartoonish appearances, I'd rather see real life versions. I just find it reaches a person on a different level when a character is portrayed on film.

thanks everyone for your insightful and thoughtful comments!

spartaxoxo

TaSheen wrote: »

No thanks. Not my sort of thing at all. Though obviously if they did this I just wouldn't pay any attention to it. I'd hate for them to spend the money on that instead of the game though.

Such a thing would probably be considered additional funds for advertising/merch and not take from the game development. If anything, if it was successful, might see some cool tie in stuff added to the game.

spartaxoxo

I think this could be cool but it would need to tell an eleven-mer story and include Khajiit and Argonians, otherwise it would be too generic I think. Or Redguard could also work. Something to show that Tamriel is fantasy but also different to other fantasy genres.

Paramedicus

They could do animation.These type of adaptations turn out to be ok (compared to movies - for some reason)

Sakiri

Azphira wrote: »

Zos would probably hire Uwe Boll.

Dear sweet Jesus, no.

Also, no, if they did a series it'd be done by netflix and they'd taint it something awful.

Just leave it to the games.

Narvuntien

The only way it would work is if they used one of the in-game books as a starting point instead of trying to write a wholly new story.

And they always try to write a wholly new story that is strange and unconnected to anything players actually like about the game. See Mortal Kombat and Assassins Creed and all the other video game movies.They invent some character with no personality as a player stand in and it never works the way having a blank slate does in a video game, where the player brings themselves, or they personally create a backstory. The backstory for this player stand in character is always extremely generic and uninteresting seen a 100 times before and done better in another movie.

LalMirchi

I like the Witcher series and it's on my rewatch list. The focus there is on the story not the game-play and honestly Elder Scrolls has amazing amounts of potential storylines (perhaps too many?). The lore is too vast to compress in a single film but a film could be the pilot episode or the vehicle to launch a series. I think there is a very large audience for similar fantasy and that ES games would benefit from additional exposure.

I would prefer a live action series to an animated one. As ES lacks a single defining character so perhaps the initial focus could be on persona like Alessia and Pelinal Whitestrake. I love the lore and reading articles like https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Alessia still stir me and encourage me to delve into further reading.

I would not like a game-based series to focus on actual gameplay but would very much appreciate an approach where the story is the primary driver.

ArchMikem

World of Warcraft had a pretty well made movie.

But then look at the Halo TV show.....which SOMEHOW, is getting another season.

Hapexamendios

I don't think they could get even one game's main story quest line in a movie without cutting too much stuff out.