• Member Since 25th Jun, 2013
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Lord-Commander


Amateur writer and artist, Commander of the 31st Imperial Legions, and devotee of the Princess of the Night.

More Blog Posts87

Dec
24th
2016

Assassin's Creed: The Movie · 6:10am Dec 24th, 2016

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.

I rather enjoy the Assassin's Creed video games. They were a different style of games that really broke me out of the FPS and TPS genres of video games. A lot of detail is... well, was, put into the games and really immersed you into the time period and the story. My opinion on the video games and their current... path, is a different discussion. I'm a big fan, I have the cosplay costume of Edward Kenway, Pirate/Assassin from Black Flag, the fourth video game, currently under construction. So I consider myself a good fan of the series. But what I want to talk about is the movie. There are some spoilers, but I'll try to keep them minor.

First off, action wise, it was a good action movie. The action was nice, well choreographed, and somewhat entertaining. It also did a decent job for adapting from a video game to a movie. But it seriously could have been better.

My top three complaints; poor character development, massive plot holes, and ignorant of established video game lore.

One. The characters were rushed. When someone died, I really didn't care because I didn't have any sort of connection to them. There was very little time wasted on introductions and those that were introduced were one sided characters that did very little to change the story. It could have been a very easy fix, especially since everyone was on a sort of "free-roam" mode in this prison/hospital thing. Spend some time on these guys, make you audience care about the people they are watching!

Two. Plot holes, biggest was this place where the present day story line took place. You have kidnapped people who have genetic ties to the Assassins and some who are literally part of the modern day Assassin Order. You take them and place them in a giant Animus that allows the exact same movement as the ancestor they are following and basically speeds up what is called the Bleed Effect and basically you train them into lethal assassin's within a few days when it took a life time of training for their ancestors. So once you are done with them, you just take them out back and shoot them, right? No. You keep them locked up in their "free-roam" mode, and ohh yeah, let's keep various artifacts and replicas of previous assassin weapons, which every inmate/patient is very familiar with, around them in glass case. WHY DO THE SMOKE BOMBS LITERALLY WORK? WHY ACTUAL HIDDEN BLADES? USE PLASTIC!

Three. Game Lore. I First off, I have no issue with the Animus that they use. It's rather neat, and in the game, it's just a chair our a recliner you use and sit there. The Bleeding Effect does happen, not that fast, but it's understandable when you have an Animus like that. but come on! Everything else is just... it's like Ubisoft didn't bother to look at their own games with this movie! The entire plot focuses on getting the Apple of Eden, an ancient device that can actually alter the state of man and remove free-will. The Templars have sought this thing for a long time to control humanity. Assassin's have stood against them. But there isn't just one Apple. There are 6 plus Apples, I think more like a dozen but a few were actually destroyed. There are also Swords of Eden, Shrouds of Eden, and Staffs of Eden. All powerful artifacts from a civilization that existed before humanity.

So to phrase this next part, the movie takes place in 2016. The Templars "stopped" their plan for the Apple(s) in 2012, and I think they were actually hunting a very specific Apple because they do/did have a few in their possession before hand. Anyways, in 2014 a new plan came up to actually gain enough genetic samples and knowledge to recreate a body of the original creators of the Pieces of Eden. Also, by 2014, the Animus had become a sort of game console. In the video game fro 2014, Black Flag, you play a game designer who's job is to go into the genetic memories of Pirate/Assassin Edward Kenway and get "footage" for an upcoming video game. You are not genetically related to Edward, but the memories come from a donor and you are just sifting through them. Also, 2014-2015, the Animus has become a sort of video game where people can play certain altered adventures of the collected memories all Sword Art Online style. In the 2015 game, Unity, you are just a normal gamer, who gets contacted by the Assassin's to help them out.

So what the hell are the Templars in Spain in 2016 doing with a four year old dead plan, and still trying to use the genetic ancestors link to get data? Did a memo not get passed to that branch? Is the Abstergo/Templars fractured somehow or different goals assigned to different areas?

I don't know. But I do think if they spent some time on the characters, and linked this movie to the video games by passing names or having the game characters of the modern day side get mentioned or show up, this would have been a better movie. It would have been easy since everyone in this Assassin Prison were reliving memories of different assassin's during different periods of time. One guy could have been Ezio, another Arno from France, etc. You could have Shawn or Rebecca, some of the support staff and lead members of the modern Assassins, make a CGI or voice appearance. Ubisoft was directly involved with the development of this movie, they knew and know what was happening in the games and books, and it wouldn't have been that hard to connect this. Instead this game is a branch from the tree that was ripped off and planted somewhere else.

So yeah, my thoughts on the movie. It has issues, many could have been fixed very easily, but somehow were overlooked.

Comments ( 3 )

It's a movie that could've benefited greatly from some re-shoots.

4353441
Yup. I wonder if they'll be an extended directors cut version. Sometimes those are better than the released version.

I heard it was totes bad.

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