Allomancy on the big screen.. What would work? [Spoilers]

[Mikanium]

During my re-listen of the mistborn series I thought about the fight between Vin and the Steel Inquisitors (when Marsh ripped the earring out of Vin's ear and Vin pulled in all the mist)... Everything was being used... How could you 'visualize' so many powers being used at once without overload?

 

I was thinking of how different a screenplay is from a book, and then was thinking how these three systems could be depicted on the screen without a narrative in the background explaining how the system works?   

 

Iron and Steel are of course the easiest.. The blue lines.. Atium and it's alloy are obvious too... But how would you show a thug burning pewter?   How would you show Breeze manipulating people?   The Lord Ruler's compounding...

 

So I thought it would be an interesting discussion (and forgive me if this has been done before) on how a TV Series or Movie would handle Metallic Arts...  I really wanna see Weta (LotR, Avatar Visual Effects Studio) or ILM (Star Wars films, etc) do a Steel Inquisitor.  

[Argent]

All of the Metallic Arts are very... subtle. Brandon has spoken about this on occasion - it's one of the reasons the magic system of Warbreaker is so strongly visual. 

 

To answer your specific questions, I would probably allow for a little creative modification of the magic system. Add a distinct visual effect to anyone burning a metal - perhaps an aura, an outline, to reveal the specific metal they are burning. Oh, and maybe some sound the viewers can quickly learn to associated with burning a metal - a single short note, or maybe a quickly escalating "whoosh"; it sounds a little bit like a sci-fi machine, or Iron Man's suit powering up, except very quickly - at least in my head it does. I am trying to think of movie where a character gains superhuman strength without going all Hulk... Maybe burning pewter could be shown not so much with visual or audio effects, but by how the Allomancer interacts with the environment. Or, rather, how his or her interaction changes the moment (s)he starts burning. If Vin was running, we would see her suddenly blur a little in a burst of speed. If Ham is holding a weapon, maybe we can focus on his fist for a moment and hear the metal creak in his grip. Kelsier could demonstrate pewter-infused strength by casually flipping a large boulder or something.

 

Breeze... I would probably give him hand small gestures, almost like a puppeteer pulling strings, to accompany his already established habit of mumbling as her Soothes his target(s). 

 

I cringe even as I type this, because I know of all the problems with this. Still, it could work.

[Mikanium]

I cringe even as I type this, because I know of all the problems with this. Still, it could work.

 

 

But how would that work for someone who hasn't read the books?   You see the problem?

[Argent]

Of course I see the problem - but it's either bastardizing the magic system a little bit (which is what makes me cringe, I am purist) to make the story more movie-friendly, or keeping the magic as-is, half hidden, and running into the same problem The Hunger Games ran into: 80% of the movie happened inside the characters' heads, and we didn't get to see of what was going on there. 

[name_here]

Well, for one thing, you mostly don't. If the viewpoint character isn't burning bronze, there's explicitly no outward indication of most of the powers. I'd put a colored outline over viewpoint characters and anyone whose Allomancy is being detected, and otherwise the audience has to guess from what they're doing like Vin does.

[Argent]

I left that part out, yea. I'd only color the characters whose burning is known to the current "viewpoint" character. 

[Gamma Fiend]

What about the Mistborn video game being planned? What you guys think of that? It could either be the best game ever. Or the biggest flop. But with sanderson helping it out and doing the writing, I have high hopes.

[name_here]

I'm worried about the interface, personally. It demands having a lot of options and very freeform movement while also being fast-paced. I don't know how you'd implement Pushing and Pulling in a way that would allow players to use them quickly and accurately without seriously altering how they work and strictly limiting the number of interactive objects.

[Kurkistan]

Yeah the game is... troubling. I believe that a tech demo had the character "lifting up and manipulating" objects with Iron/Steel. That induced some cringe.

Edit: Ah, here it is

"Fiddle also lifted and tossed around some metal objects, demonstrating some of the proposed puzzle potential in the game."

http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2012/1564.html

Edited October 29, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Mikanium]

As long as they don't give them wands and make them scream 'Stupify' or 'Leviosa' I wont have to murder anyone.

[name_here]

Yeah the game is... troubling. I believe that a tech demo had the character "lifting up and manipulating" objects with Iron/Steel. That induced some cringe.

Edit: Ah, here it is

"Fiddle also lifted and tossed around some metal objects, demonstrating some of the proposed puzzle potential in the game."

http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2012/1564.html

 

From the sound of that article, it seems like they have implemented the externals properly, and the lifting and tossing involved getting clever with mixing them.

[Oudeis]

Yeah the game is... troubling. I believe that a tech demo had the character "lifting up and manipulating" objects with Iron/Steel. That induced some cringe.

Edit: Ah, here it is

"Fiddle also lifted and tossed around some metal objects, demonstrating some of the proposed puzzle potential in the game."

http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2012/1564.html

 

Total reach here, flagrant attempt on my part to hope that it isn't what it looks like... maybe they meant that you pick up the metal with your hands? The way Vin would manually move a coin until it was directly between herself and a target, and then fire it? So you have to hit a switch, or something, so you actually pick up a lantern, orient until you're facing the switch, and then push?

[Argent]

I keep thinking God of War when I think about how they will do Allomancy. Or maybe Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, the Dark Prince gameplay. Both had chains they used to move around, pulling (themselves towards) things, throwing other things, scaling walls, etc - I kind of imagine iron/steel playing out in a similar fashion. Zinc and brass could probably be left out of the general gameplay, making an appearance during certain missions / minigames. Pewter - and maybe atium, if it's available - sounds like it will be more of a "buff" type of skill: you hit a button and your pewter reserves start draining, give you extra physical damage, health, speed, things like that. 

[Jaaaaaade]

Wanna-be scriptwriter coming through

The Lord Ruler's compounding doesn't need to be explained visually, he doesn't need any part of him glowing like a super-saiyan. Remember, while he's alive, no one has any clue how he's so powerful. He'll be scarier if he just does what he does, without the explanations of 'He's flaring pewter right now to make himself stronger'. What would need a visual signifier is his emotional Allomancy. It's most apparent the day of the executions, if memory serves. Think the Dementors in the Prizoner of Azkaban film.

 

Say we're looking from Vin's spot on the rooftop. As TLR's black carriage draws nearer, the screen begins shifting to monochrome, the edges become distorted. The sound of the crowd fades, until all you can hear is Vin's pounding heart and some deep, ominous thrumming. Then zoom in on Vin's (I want to say brown) eye, beginning to tear up. Then Kelsier in b+w taps her on the shoulder, tells her to put up a coppercloud. The view goes back to normal all at once, accompanied by a stock force-field raising sound effect (You know what putting up a force-field in movies looks like). If you want to play it for drama, keep a slightly grey tint on the edge of the frame, and have Vin say 'I can still feel it.'

The rest of the movie? Honestly beats me, Maybe the scenes involving Kelsier teaching Vin will be enough to explain the system. I know someone's going to groan, but I have to propose video-game vision. Not by putting actual health bars over the screen (blood and bruises and screams show health better in movies), but by putting metal-reserves in the corner of the screen during fight scenes.

Say instead of beefing up Vin like a CGI Hulk, you just show a Pewter bar going down as she kicks someone, sending them flying across the room. That way it increases the tension when someone's running low, the equivalent of the screen always cutting to the ticking timer when someone's in a race against a time-bomb.

Also, anyone played Kirby Squeak Squad on DS? Kirby gains his powers by eating his enemies. The powers went into his stomach, depicted on the bottom screen while the action keeps going as normal on the top. They could try showing the metals actually burning in their stomachs, if they wanted to.

[king of nowhere]

well, they have a movie script, so i guess they worked on that. If i remember correctly, they changed pushing and pulling to the pieces of metal glowing (instead of seeing lines connected to the metal) and used auras in some other places.

as for "video game vision", i think bars showing metals running out copuld be fine, but not all the time. say during the fight at some point time stops, and we zoom on vin until we see the world through her eys, and here we see metal bars and we see she's running out.

Not sure, I'm not a movie director

[Oudeis]

For the movie, I don't think we need to specifically "show" each metal the way it seems is being proposed here. If Vin is burning pewter, you don't have to write "pewter" on the screen. You can show an 85-pound scrawny person grab a cart, brace, and throw it fifty feet. That's the visual effect. When The Lord Ruler enters the square and Soothes everyone, you show a crowd of people murmuring and jostling, maybe even a few shouts, and as he appears the crowd falls silent, heads bow, and everyone turns to face him. Iron and steel, if it's PoV you show the blue lines, and if it's not PoV you just show metal flying around the room. For bronze, if it's PoV, I guess here's the most blatant one. You could just have people narrate (Vin closes her eyes, then opens them, pointing. "Someone is burning tin over there, guys!) or you show a PoV, Vin staring at someone, and thrum some rythmic bass in the speakers. Copper, prolly don't bother.