It's been discussed a ton of times, so would a Zelda movie ever possibly work?
I don't think it would. Here's why:
1. The Zelda series is quite cliched storyline wise. Admit it, the Legend of Zelda series (and heck, about 99% of video game series in general) has one of the most cliched,somewhat generic fantasy plots ever written, and what generally saves it is the fact it's a video game, how you can interact with the world and characters and how the experience feels. And the combat, obviously. I don't think you can translate that well to a movie, since to non fans it'd just seem like your average fantasy movie.
2. The games have a very specific structure that wouldn't work as a movie, with the general pattern being collect three treasures to reach Master Sword, then collect another seven or so to reach Ganon/villain of the week, then defeat him. And the dungeons generally come down to puzzle solving, key hunting, finding an item, using it to solve puzzles and fight enemies, then defeating a boss with it. But dungeons aren't exactly the most interesting thing to watch for hours on end, and given how much your average Zelda game depends on them, removing them from the story would take about half the content out.
Imagine say, Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess with only one dungeon max. That's a much shorter game.
And the parts outside the dungeon, well I'm not sure most of those would be particularly interesting in a movie either. Getting to places/exploring them? Maybe. Fighting enemies? Perhaps. But the interactions with some NPCs, the constant sailing in Wind Waker, flying and knight academy stuff in Skyward Sword? Not sure that's great movie material.
Oh, and we all know how much fans LOVE the basic structure of their favourite series getting altered beyond recognisability...
3. No one can really be trusted to write a decent Zelda movie. Nintendo? They'd know about the series, but their own quality of storytelling is debatable at best... Plus, Square Enix tried that with the Spirits Within and Final Fantasy, and nearly went bankrupt.
As for proper film makers, not many of them really know about/respect video games much. Heck, they don't tend to respect a lot of works much, there's a reason only about 50% of comic book movies are great, and why the attempts at bringing Dragonball and Avatar the Last Airbender to the big screen were such a massive failure. With the Mario movie already a massive laughing stock of both the film and video game world, we don't really need the same thing to happen with a Zelda movie.
4. It'd potentially be too expensive because of special effects and such like (if live action/computer generated)
5. Or end up not being successful due to people's common attitude towards animation (if cel shaded/animated) 'Epic' cartoon movies haven't been doing so well recently.
There's also the question of who the market would be for a Zelda movie, since the games appeal to an awful lot of different types of people, while other mediums tend to be focused on just one or two different age groups. Who's the type of person who'd make a Zelda movie into a blockbuster? Kids? Teens? Adults? Families? Special interest type groups (aka a cult classic/indie movie)? Would you really want to let a bunch of executives try to make a Zelda movie that panders to just one or two of those, given how the story/characters/setting/other things would have to be changed dramatically?
Is this why a Zelda movie wouldn't work?
I don't think it would. Here's why:
1. The Zelda series is quite cliched storyline wise. Admit it, the Legend of Zelda series (and heck, about 99% of video game series in general) has one of the most cliched,somewhat generic fantasy plots ever written, and what generally saves it is the fact it's a video game, how you can interact with the world and characters and how the experience feels. And the combat, obviously. I don't think you can translate that well to a movie, since to non fans it'd just seem like your average fantasy movie.
2. The games have a very specific structure that wouldn't work as a movie, with the general pattern being collect three treasures to reach Master Sword, then collect another seven or so to reach Ganon/villain of the week, then defeat him. And the dungeons generally come down to puzzle solving, key hunting, finding an item, using it to solve puzzles and fight enemies, then defeating a boss with it. But dungeons aren't exactly the most interesting thing to watch for hours on end, and given how much your average Zelda game depends on them, removing them from the story would take about half the content out.
Imagine say, Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess with only one dungeon max. That's a much shorter game.
And the parts outside the dungeon, well I'm not sure most of those would be particularly interesting in a movie either. Getting to places/exploring them? Maybe. Fighting enemies? Perhaps. But the interactions with some NPCs, the constant sailing in Wind Waker, flying and knight academy stuff in Skyward Sword? Not sure that's great movie material.
Oh, and we all know how much fans LOVE the basic structure of their favourite series getting altered beyond recognisability...
3. No one can really be trusted to write a decent Zelda movie. Nintendo? They'd know about the series, but their own quality of storytelling is debatable at best... Plus, Square Enix tried that with the Spirits Within and Final Fantasy, and nearly went bankrupt.
As for proper film makers, not many of them really know about/respect video games much. Heck, they don't tend to respect a lot of works much, there's a reason only about 50% of comic book movies are great, and why the attempts at bringing Dragonball and Avatar the Last Airbender to the big screen were such a massive failure. With the Mario movie already a massive laughing stock of both the film and video game world, we don't really need the same thing to happen with a Zelda movie.
4. It'd potentially be too expensive because of special effects and such like (if live action/computer generated)
5. Or end up not being successful due to people's common attitude towards animation (if cel shaded/animated) 'Epic' cartoon movies haven't been doing so well recently.
There's also the question of who the market would be for a Zelda movie, since the games appeal to an awful lot of different types of people, while other mediums tend to be focused on just one or two different age groups. Who's the type of person who'd make a Zelda movie into a blockbuster? Kids? Teens? Adults? Families? Special interest type groups (aka a cult classic/indie movie)? Would you really want to let a bunch of executives try to make a Zelda movie that panders to just one or two of those, given how the story/characters/setting/other things would have to be changed dramatically?
Is this why a Zelda movie wouldn't work?
