Great Missed Game Opportunities
My friend Francis has just posted a very entertaining piece about two truly wretched movie tie-in boardgames: Pirates of the Caribbean Scrabble, and Shrek Othello. You can enjoy the snark here.
What struck me upon reflection, however, is that there are a host of potentially wonderful tie-ins that never appeared in the first place. For example, there is no Charlie and the Chocolate Factory version of Candy Land! If ever a simple game demanded interesting new market-tested twists, that baby's it! And yet the world will have to wait another thirty years or so for the next director's sally. Sigh. Here are some other misses I thought of. If any Hollywood marketers are out there, I'd like to point out the following lapses as a caution to the inattentive:
Atlantic City Monopoly
Frankenstein's The Game of Life
Pulp Fiction Connect Four (also works with any multi-strand movie it seems to have inspired, from Go to Two Days in the Valley to Magnolia to Babel)
An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge Hangman
Twister Twister
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Operation (be very, very careful!)
Atonement Sorry!
and of course,
The Seventh Seal Chess Set
I'm sure there are others, of course. Fire away.
P.S.: When I did some quick web research to make sure there was, in fact, no Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Candy Land, I got this surprising page on the search term "chocolate factory." Which of these things doesn't belong, and yet is cooler than all the others?
P.P.S. I was tempted to add "The 300 Bunch of Plastic Swords for Homophobic Dumbfucks to Jump Around and Hit Each Other With for Two Mindless Hours." But I guess you could just as easily call it "300 Aggravation."
What struck me upon reflection, however, is that there are a host of potentially wonderful tie-ins that never appeared in the first place. For example, there is no Charlie and the Chocolate Factory version of Candy Land! If ever a simple game demanded interesting new market-tested twists, that baby's it! And yet the world will have to wait another thirty years or so for the next director's sally. Sigh. Here are some other misses I thought of. If any Hollywood marketers are out there, I'd like to point out the following lapses as a caution to the inattentive:
Atlantic City Monopoly
Frankenstein's The Game of Life
Pulp Fiction Connect Four (also works with any multi-strand movie it seems to have inspired, from Go to Two Days in the Valley to Magnolia to Babel)
An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge Hangman
Twister Twister
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Operation (be very, very careful!)
Atonement Sorry!
and of course,
The Seventh Seal Chess Set
I'm sure there are others, of course. Fire away.
P.S.: When I did some quick web research to make sure there was, in fact, no Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Candy Land, I got this surprising page on the search term "chocolate factory." Which of these things doesn't belong, and yet is cooler than all the others?
P.P.S. I was tempted to add "The 300 Bunch of Plastic Swords for Homophobic Dumbfucks to Jump Around and Hit Each Other With for Two Mindless Hours." But I guess you could just as easily call it "300 Aggravation."
Labels: games, humor and whimsy
posted by Cowboy Dave Dickerson | 3:32 PM
2 Comments:
"The 300 Bunch of Plastic Swords for Homophobic Dumbfucks to Jump Around and Hit Each Other With for Two Mindless Hours." But I guess you could just as easily call it "300 Aggravation."
That's a good one. I didn't see what everyone else saw in 300, I guess. It was lacking a few things, like it felt as though it had no internal geography. The pass didn't look like a pass, just a gap between some stones. And the villains were disappointing. Each one looked so menacing, promising great travails to come, but they each (including the weakest rhino in cinema history) fell at a swordstroke. So all that was left was beefcake and swagger and testosterone.
oh man, you really got me with the Atonement version of Sorry! I'm still laughing. --Derek
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