My kingdom for a dude with a red beard.
I was so busy rickrolling bitches yesterday that this little gem went completely under my radar. Now, I’m not a GIANT gamer dork, I mean I DID name my daughter Zelda and I DO write for a site named GameLemon, but I’m not a GIANT dork. Huge? Maybe. Still, when I watched the Legend of Zelda Movie Trailer on IGN, I went through the exact same thought processes the rest of you GIANT gamer dorks went through:
“Oh my holy crap Jesus with a crossbow. A Zelda movie. Oh. Presented by IGN? Since when does IGN present anything except ads for crappy Anime games masquerading as legitimate journalism? Never. Oh, but that Scottish dude is awesome! He seems like a real actor. And sort of hot. I’m kind of crushing on bald, Scottish Ren Faire dude!* Oh but the date is April 1st. I’ve been conditioned to mistrust anything connected with that date. Oh shit! Look out, Link. Shoot that spider thingie in the eye. Trust me, I’ve been there, man. Oh are those peahats? Wow! Okay, that date must be a coincidence. Oh joy. A movie based on OoT. I’m going to totally dork out. I might even show up in costume. Or not.** Oh…an upgraded Master Sword. Oh…Ganon has a fake beard. This piece of shit is so FAKE! Fake Trailer! Frailer! Frailer!”
Today the GIANT dork boards and blogs are a buzz with speculation…there are those of us who still think it was too well done to be a fake. Well, 1. IGN already fessed up. And 2. Yes, I agree. For an IGN prank…it was remarkably well-done. But for a balls-to-the-wall all-out bid for a massive amount of publicity for a lil ole movie company called Rainfall films…I think they could’ve looked a little harder for an actor with a red beard.
* Okay. I might have been alone on that particular thought.
** That one too.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
well, I don’t know what size dork I am exactly, but yeah, where the hell does IGN get the resources to put something like this together? I mean that’s definitely NOT all CGI, that’s real actors there, and a piece of SOME kind of movie set, right? Does IGN own a movie studio that I am not aware of where they could do something like this? So, yes, it may be a fake, but I’d be more inclined to believe that:
a) this IS a real trailer, and releasing it on April Fools, and then “fessing up” is all a clever marketing ploy, and it WILL eventually be revealed in earnest or
b) this is a trailer based on the footage from some other unannounced (or possibly canceled) film, cleverly manipulated by IGN to become a Zelda trailer for a day.
But either way, that footage must have come from somewhere other than IGN’s PCs.
Or maybe I am just a GIANT dork.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Oh yeah. This wasn’t from an IGN machine!
Well, one of the points that has been made on the dork boards (oh the power of the dork boards) is that Rainfall Films is a REAL company. (http://www.rainfallfilms.com/)
If that is the case, then my guess is that IGN did little else besides host and possibly come up with the prank. I think this was made to pad Rainfall’s resume.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:38 pm
oh…and fyi vaga, you are an enormous dork.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:51 am
This little bastard caught me for about two seconds–and I doublechecked imdb, and nothing. Boobheads.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:04 pm
In terms of the actors, the Link guy is actually in IMDB, I think (pretty minor roles, though), but not the rest of the cast.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2202251/
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:00 pm
While it certainly is elaborate, I fail to see how IGN or Rainfall Films really benefit from it. I watched that trailer a couple times and didn’t get the rainfall connection til I read this here blog. It doesn’t make me want to check IGN, I can tell you that much.
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Well, it’s more of a brand building thing as opposed to simple advertising. It may not make you want to check IGN but it may (temporarily) elevate the buzz factor of IGN in your mind versus names like Gamespot and Gamespy. Which might mean that next time you are actually looking for a game review to read, where you’d normally just head straight to GameSpot, you might now think, hmm, maybe I should check IGN for a change. It’s a subtle thing. That’s an oversimplification of course, but you get the idea.
As for Rainfall Films, that one is a no brainer. I’ve never heard of them before this, and you probably haven’t either. And if you just saw their name on some uninteresting clip you’d not even notice it. But with this they have attached their name to a much more powerful and well-known brand: Zelda. The two names can now travel together in a certain context, and the Zelda name can open doors where Rainfall Films might have never had a chance to enter. And when some director/producer finally decides to make a Zelda movie (which will definitely happen, and sooner rather than later), they might think, hmm, what was that studio that did that spoof a couple of years back? That actually looked pretty good, maybe I’ll give them a call. And there is their path to big time.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I already knew the trailer was a fake by the time I got around to watching it but I’ll be damned if I didn’t find myself really wishing it were real. Oh sure, it would blow like every other game-based movie, but I had to believe.
2-1 odds this concept gets picked up and we end up hearing about the REAL Zelda movie by summer, if not sooner.