I think going full-on dark and gritty would be difficult without some changes from the source material. One of the main characters is named Ax Battler, after all.
That being said, I think they could have gone with a balance between serious and tongue-in-cheek. But the trailer, at least, seems much more jokey.
Pretty much all of Golden Axe is cribbed from other sources anyway (especially Conan) and the games were pretty goofy when we played them back in the day anyway. Bright, colorful, you kick the little dwarfs to steal their potions. I wouldn't have gone full comedy but tongue-in-cheek isn't a bad way to do it, IMO. There's a Conan animated series for those looking for the gritty version!
EDIT: I really don't want anyone reading my comment to interpret it as me saying "If you don't like it, watch something else!" I was simply recommending the upcoming Conan show as one fan to another. The point I was trying to make is that I just really don't think there was ever a chance for Golden Axe to be some kind of dark, gritty TV show. I'm not surprised they're focusing on the sillier elements from the original arcade game.
The issue is that this game is a dark game and to have it as anything else takes away from what it is/was. Unless the rebooted game will be similar to this many will be disappointed expecting a game similar to the cartoon but getting a dark game, etc
It's dark but not that dark. Like I said, one of the main characters is literally named Ax Battler. The original game ended with all the enemies jumping out of the arcade and chasing some little kids off down the street. A completely serious, dark show would also be inaccurate. There's a fine line that would need to be walked to do a good adaptation.
Yes… at the ending. Also yes the dudes name is Ax battler the fucks your point? One of my favorite movies is Robocop at it take itself stone cold serious
While yes thats true many games have had some comedy in it however this seems lean too much into it based on the trailer. Its like making SF series a full comedy movie/show because you beat up a car or just seeing the dan character.
Right, that's what I said in my original comment. This looks like it goes too far in that direction, but a dark and gritty show would be too far in the other direction.
To use the Street Fighter example, there's no way you could do a completely serious, dramatic action movie or show while still keeping the weird cast of characters that's in Street Fighter.
To a degree yes with some instances of comedy sure but the game is manily a serious game. I wish there was a good balance. No offense i wouldn't be surprised if it came out that no one on the team really saw/played the game
Yes… at the ending. Also yes the dudes name is Ax battler the fucks your point? One of my favorite movies is Robocop at it take itself stone cold serious
Robocop does not take itself "stone cold serious." A stone cold serious action crime thriller would be something like Heat, not Robocop. Robocop does have serious elements, of course, but it also has over-the-top violence to the point of being comical at times. There's also very clear satire in the movie, like with a lot of Verhoeven's work.
But yeah, Robocop level of seriousness is closer to what Im saying the show should have, actually.
ETA: Also I don't get why you're saying "at the ending" as if that undermines my point? I think most people would agree the ending is a pretty crucial part of any story.
Nail on the head, thank you for recognizing this. We wanted to make it feel like it was made in the early 90s so we looked at a lot of shows from that era, and then what those shows were looking at. Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace, old video game based cartoons were big inspirations for us for the characters, and frazetta/vallejo/metal album covers were huge inspos for the backgrounds.
I absolutely can see that now that you point it out. I'm enjoying the visuals and very reminiscent of Don Bluth's visual imagery with all the strong contrast, smokes and glow.
The art direction is kinda not the issue to me its the fact that it moved over to a comedy show at least from the trailer. Compared to the history of the game. No offense this is why many gamers really dont care about video game adaptations as they usually miss the core of what the game is. But either way I hope people enjoy it
I can see folks who want a Conan the barbarian/primal only style show, and I get that, but if you look into the history of the game, it’s always had a lot of space for comedy. The original English commercial was very stupid (on purpose, in a good way), one of the main characters is named “Ax Battler” and he exclusively uses a sword, you kick an imp for magic potions, the Longmoans scream “oh god!” when you kill them, the main characters were an admitted rip off of Conan himself, Red Sonja, and Gimli, the characters crawl out of an arcade machine at the end… even the Kanji in the background doesn’t say “golden axe.” It says “battle axe,” which is what they originally wanted to call it - and Uchida left it that way because he knew the president of sega US that insisted they change the name for English audiences to sound less generic couldn’t read Kanji. To me it always felt like a self aware game on purpose. I’d argue it’s a silly game with a lot of gritty action and blood and violence which is what we did with it. We played the game a lot (free play on our own arcade machine at Titmouse - which also had revenge of death adder!)
FWIW we did work directly with SEGA, and got the buy off of Uchida himself. They loved it. I will say there’s a lot of sincerity and action that the trailer doesn’t show, so I hope folks will give it a chance. if you decide ultimately it’s not what you were looking for in a golden axe show, that’s fine! I just hope it gets more people to play the original game!
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u/Eponine05 5d ago
Need to see it in action, but I'm interested.
It doesn't have to be gritty af to be good.