I saw the movie Battleship today (It will be out in the states on May 18). Besides being a movie extremely short on plot, character development, meaning, or substance, it was just downright awful. But more than anything else, it was a description of the movie from the cinema’s website that really got to me:
“The movie Battleship is inspired by the classic board game from Hasbro.”
Really?
This movie pulled its inspiration from the board game?
Let’s play this out in our minds a little bit.
A movie producer is sitting down playing Battleship with his son Johnny.
Johnny: “C5”
Hollywood Producer: “Hit”
Johnny: “C6”
Hollywood Producer: “Miss. B3.”
Johnny: “Miss. C5.”
Hollywood Producer who is starting to get an idea: “Hit.”
Johnny: “C4”
Hollywood Producer who not has a ‘Hit’ on his hands: “Hit. You just sunk my battleship. And you know what else Johnny?”
Johnny: “What daddy?”
Hollywood Producer: “This will make a really exciting movie. We’ll be able to buy that house on Cape Cod once people line up to see this action packed movie.”
No, I’m sorry. First of all, there was no classic Battleship game from Hasbro. It was Milton Bradley back in my day which Hasbro has long bought out. I don’t think the scene above correctly portrays how this all happened. It’s that Madison and Vine connection – the perfect match of advertising and movie making that’s been going on for a long time. Hmmm, wasn’t Hasbro behind another big action flick series? (think Transformers). It’s a way to make a quick buck by milking a childhood game that we have played at some point.
Is it wrong? No.
But are we collectively scraping the bottom of the creative barrel when we are using games like “Battleship” as a jumping off point for action movies?
What are your thoughts?
Author Mark W Sasse 
2 responses to “Battleship: You just sunk my brain”
Pirates of the Caribbean is based off of a ride… though I’d argue that brilliant ideas can come from small inspiration (after all, ideas have room to grow,) certainly a movie that is so barren of creativity as you have painted this one can have no excuses. It IS an interesting question. It won’t be long before we’ll be watching the same movies over again, re-packaged. (Oh wait…)
I totally concede that some of the best ideas can come from the unlikeliest of places. However, I too would question how much the ride “Pirates of the Caribbean” actually inspired the movie. My guess it was more like an equation: Pirates (everyone likes them) + Disney (magic) + top talent (Depp) = Huge hit on our hands. It seems more marketing than anything else. But, hey, you never know. I’ve been wrong before 🙂