Thinking of a fantasy adventure trilogy

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Fukunaga73
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Thinking of a fantasy adventure trilogy

Postby Fukunaga73 » May 04, 2016 11:06 am

Hey guys, so for the past few months I've been working on a sort of epic fantasy movie saga, just as a pastime. I've got a bunch of ideas pulled together, but overall my vision isn't very cohesive. Right now I'm just trying to think of a basic story, or at least a premise that I could develop. Most of my ideas are just locations, characters, themes, and a couple of scenes. I'll put down a bunch of them here, and I'd love it if you guys could help me develop them and think of a full-fledged plot.
-I've noticed that there are surprisingly few fantasy movies set in jungle/rainforest biomes. A lot of video games are, so I'd like to try to bridge the gap between those two media in that respect. My series won't be exclusive to that type of location, but it will make really good use of it, utilizing scenery and props like palm trees and other vegetation, stone heads, torches, waterfalls, temples, bizarre wildlife, and good stuff like that. After all, the rainforest is up there with coral reefs as the most magical type of environment in all the world.
-I think before I continue talking about the aesthetic of this series, I'll talk about some of the characters I've thought of. I'm trying to avoid the formula of the simple farmboy/Chosen One, the wise old sage who guides him and then dies, the Big Bad Totally Inhuman and Unsympathetic villain, the girl who serves no purpose other than for the bland hero to try to obtain her, the cynical and/or comic relief sidekick, and so on. Not really sure what to do with the protagonist, but I definitely would like to make him more charismatic and interesting than all the Luke/Frodo/Harry Potter knockoffs there have been. Maybe even pull a TFA and make him/her someone other than a straight white cisgender teenage male.
-This guy will have a tutor like in a lot of fantasy stories, but I've thought of a perfect way to subvert the tutor prototype: he's going to be a very stoic, practical man in his 30s or 40s. Kind of like if Han Solo were forced to be someone's mentor but he decided to grow up a little and take this kid seriously. He's just a guy who knows how to calmly and logically handle a crisis, who is stern but doesn't get angry easily, who is all about just going through life with a clear head and rolling with the changes in whatever way is for the greater good.
-There will be at least a few female characters, and one of them will be this super-tough, imposing, assertive girl in her late teens or early 20s (possibly starting as young as 14 and obviously getting older throughout the series). She will have certain vulnerabilities---I've already figured that she probably lacks a good emotional core and is always angry and grim, lacking patience and compassion. There'll be some kind of backstory for that. And she won't be in perfect shape---she will be slightly overweight, not even "chubby" per se, but still probably a good warrior in spite of that.
-Another character I've conceived is pretty much directly modeled after Lord Asriel from The Golden Compass. He's this tall, slim, middle-aged guy with a beard and a deep commanding voice who is basically the most formidable person you could possibly think of. I actually don't think he'll be a villain, but he may go down a dark path throughout the story arc. Think Lord Saruman meets Emperor Palpatine, but technically a good guy.
-I really know nothing about the villain, but I'd like him to be pretty vulnerable and sympathetic. Maybe he'll be like Le Chiffre from Casino Royale, a guy who's in really desperate trouble and is only putting the protagonists in danger because he's at the end of his rope.
-A minor character I thought of: a seedy gatekeeper-type character who's kind of outwardly sinister, but seems trustworthy. Someone tries to enter an area that he's guarding, and he warns them that they might not want to go there (or to some other place); it might be dangerous. Maybe he'll turn out to be a villain, I dunno, but he's probably a cameo role. I've imagined him having a Scottish accent, for some reason or another.
-I think the underlying theme of this saga will be truth, and how people's knowledge of it or lack thereof affects their actions. I'm someone who believes if everyone had access to all the truth in the world, it could guide them to how to make the world a better place. Usually the reason people have disagreements over things that have concrete answers or solutions is that one or both parties are mistaken about some objective aspect of reality that led them to their current stance on the topic, isn't it? If both of these people could look in some treasure trove of reality for everything there is to know about said topic, they could examine all those facts and come to the same (true) conclusion. Or maybe that couldn't really happen because truth and reality may not be entirely objective. So I'm thinking the first movie will involve a treasure that the characters are trying to find that somehow represents all truth, but maybe it's inaccessible to humankind, or maybe it doesn't even exist. Deep thoughts, eh, guys?
-These movies will also have allegories for all sorts of things related to social justice---kind of the Zootopia route, you could say. Racism, sexism, gun control, economic inequality, war, education, the general rift between baby boomers and millennials. I want this trilogy to address all of these matters, not directly from a conservative or liberal bias, but once again from the perspective of finding out what's really true. Plenty of people from both of those sides of the political spectrum don't really value truth that much. I'd like to explore the fallacies of how conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between argues about the state of society and politics today, and I think that could be done very effectively in the guise of a fantasy story, as the Harry Potter saga has done with all kinds of social issues.
-You know how when you're on Facebook and you look at the comments on a picture making a political statement, you see a debate between some baby boomers and some millennials about the issue, and there's a dichotomy between the way one side sees themselves and the other, and the way the other side does the same? There are many situations that can be parallel to this. In the example I mentioned, there are a two different ways you can view the baby boomers and the millennials, making a total of four:
a) the baby boomers are hardworking, logical, see things as they are;
b) the millennials are entitled, whiny, know nothing about economics;
c) the baby boomers are privileged, behind the times, destroyed the economy, have no idea what millennials actually go through;
d) the millennials are disenfranchised, progressive, the most important generation currently, "woke", have the tools to fix the state of things
How can you tell whether it's A and B, or C and D? To be honest, both sides could be right or wrong, depending. All four of these descriptions are partially true, and different people from each demographic represent different aspects of it. You can apply this to a whole lot of debates, and this fantasy trilogy will explore this phenomenon of argument culture, engorging it to fit a picture of the larger battle between two groups of people like the aforementioned baby boomers and millennials. There might be a setting with a name like The Four Quadrants of Humanity, but preferably subtler than that, haha.
-There will be a large emphasis on protecting the environment, dealt with as subtly as possible.
-I'm trying to figure out exactly what kind of world these films will take place in. Like I said, it will take place largely in jungles, taking after things like Indiana Jones, El Dorado, Uncharted, a lot of pirate stories. I'd like there to be a steampunk style, but I also want a lot of the weaponry and architecture to be medieval, a la the castles, swords, military styles of LOTR and suchlike. I'm wondering if those two styles would be jarring in the same universe, or if there's a way to mesh them. I just want to have a whole bunch of different aesthetics in these movies, and I'm not sure how to incorporate them all.
-The jungle will be on an island, and the beach surrounding it will include some docks and assorted buildings, including a tavern which has a piano and stage in the cellar. These ideas I got from the MMPOG Pirate101, which I've played before. A game from the same publisher, Wizard101, will also inspire a lot of the aesthetics in this series.
-There will be some epic battle scenes very much in the league of Return of the King as well as the Chronicles of Narnia movies. I'm planning for the location of one of these battles to be more like the latter, a vast grassland that reminds one of Africa.
-There will also be a desert, a really grand and starkly beautiful one. I've decided that, in an effort of pure cinema, the third film will begin with a brief montage of this desert (where the second film would have left off). There most likely will be a battle in this area, probably a shorter and more subdued one, perhaps with no music.
-There will be a lot of secret areas and passageways. Harry Potter, especially the PC games, have spurred my fascination with these things.
-If you've ever seen the stop-motion film Mouse Soup, remember the Toe Monster from that book the titular character was reading? There will be a race of beasts that look a lot like that freaky son of a beach, but probably more of a brown color instead of green. That's just how I've imagined them.
-There will be several creatures that resemble antelopes and African buffalo.
-There will be a lot of turtles and tortoises, for no particular reason other than I really love them.
-Oh yeah, and of course there will be dragons. Speaking of which, a lot of the scenery will be inspired by the How to Train Your Dragon movies.
-One of the prominent modes of transportation in at least one of the films will be by steamer, on the rivers of the jungle. A lot of steampunk transportation, inspired largely by Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Mad Max: Fury Road.

So those are my thoughts as of now, or at least all I can think of! New ideas are welcome, and if anyone wants me to fine-tune anything I've come up with so far, please tell me how!

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adambein
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Make it a game fantasy adventure trilogy

Postby adambein » Jan 07, 2017 4:25 pm

Hi, nice to meet you.
1. The first thought that comes to my mind is from now on number your thoughts.
2. Do you have Dramatica or Writer's DreamKit? If not, get at least Writer's DreamKit. You've got a lot of good ideas-put 'em all into Writer's Dream Kit & run the reports. That way you'll know what you're missing, what doesn't fit this story or at the moment, and you'll be able to jot down new ideas in pen on the go.
3. Keep playing games & learn to make them. If you download some Steam games they come with SourceSDK as a free download. Learn THAT & you can make your story an actual interactive game. You can load in mp3s of your story & then as the individual plays the game they can hear & experience the story. Or, as they hear & read the story, they experience the story. That's way cool.
4. I haven't started learning 'Lumberyard' yet but it's a free world making software from Amazon. This is where things are going I think-being IN the story. I don't know how good the tutorials are and worse, I don't think there's been enough time for a world-wide community of users to build up & thus, no world-wide super active community making wiki posts. One awesome thing about SourceSDK is if you've got a question you post it you get your damn answer FAST. And boy do ppl split hairs & are thorough!
5. If you don't know art rendering software (like Photoshop & etc.) you can go onto SourceSDK forums & find ppl who can draw & paint the creatures you like. Then you can load those into your game in lieu of whatever comes with the game creature-wise. For example, in Left4Dead2, everyone's being attacked by zombies. It's possible to remake the skin of the zombies so they don't look like zombies & instead they all look like Hillary Clinton or antelopes. If you don't want to be attacked by them, simply go into the navigation mesh and deny them access to areas chosen by you. You can also put up invisible walls.
6. You can make the adventure stop and start in different areas/worlds/environments by having your team go from point A to point B. Once in point B the software triggers a world change, the game pauses, the game unpauses, and upon leaving thru the other exit, voila, they're in the new world/environment, then you just have to rationalize the world change.
7. You can also have it so your character dies & that'll force the reader/player to restart at the beginning of the chapter.
8. It can be narrated at the speed at which you desire. U can build invisible boxes in the path the characters are traveling and as they step into the invisible box the narration continues. You can re-trigger the narrative by re-stepping into the box or NOT re-trigger the narration. Put in a delay on the mp3 and a new narration can occur.
9. Turtles are union and they only speak French. You have to leave out all shelled reptiles. Sorry.


https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SDK_Installation

Nice to meet you!
Adam in Lost Angeles
: )


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