Movie Allomancy

[Storming Radiant]

I heard that there is going to be a movie adaptation of TFE which is awsome (though personally I would have preferred a TV series), but it got me wondring. How do you think a movie wil let us know what metal the character is burning? How will we see the diffrence betweena normal burn and a flare? Will we see the blue lines when someone will burn iron/steel? etc.

[Alfa]

I guess we will see what the allomancer sees - blue lines for metal, sounds for burning. Emotional allomancy may be difficult.

[matfire1999]

3 hours ago, Alfa said:

I guess we will see what the allomancer sees - blue lines for metal, sounds for burning. Emotional allomancy may be difficult.

I think it'd be nice if for emotional allomancy a character could push or pull on a string coming from the target. It would cause some problems for the discretion of using this kind of allomancy, though.

[The One Who Connects]

Potential Ideas(Allomancy):

• I'm fairly certain that Brandon has told us they (might have been an earlier group before DMC) had considered making the metal glow blue instead of having a mess of blue lines for Iron/Steel.
• Emotional Allomancy has been discussed on here for a while, culminating in the idea that it should be semi-transparent waves washing over people(blues & purples for Soothing, reds/yellows for Rioting)
• Pewter could be shown by physically making the character stronger/faster, and Tin would work in 1st person: making sounds clearer, lights brighter, sounds louder, edges of the screen clearer, etc.. for the character, but it wouldn't work really as well in third person.
• Copper could be a transparent bubble in the same vein as the waves of emotional Allomancy, and having those waves break around the bubble would be a cool visual to add to the executions scene, where Kelsier is shielding the crew from TLR's mega-soothing.
• Bronze is some sort of extra-sensory "hearing" the pulses, as they aren't really a sound. However, the movie can easily make them a sound that the character hears, but bear in mind that unless Brandon canonizes it for them, the movie crew will make up pulse patterns for the metals.
• Atium, Malatium, Gold and Electrum are already very visual, so not much in the way of change is needed.
• Duralumin would just be an enhanced version of the original Metal, which could also be done for Flaring.

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Possible Issues/Complications:

• Iron/Steel could potentially lose the blue coloring in most major action scenes so they don't distract from the action. It could still work, but glowing coins during the nighttime battles will just mess with your immersion.
• Emotional Allomancy would lose the specificity as to what emotions are being effected, but that's more or less unavoidable.
• Pewter would probably end up as an explanation for why the combatants seem superhuman, without much emphasis on when it is used, aside from the Pewter Drag. The lack of a distinctive visual "punch" will probably make both Flaring and Duralumin share the same fate.
• Tin/Bronze would either have to be in 1st-person or have a close-up shot of the character in question that shows them focusing intently as the effect goes on in order to have the impact on the viewers without the effects being drowned out in the hubbub.
• Copper would have to be ignored in most scenes, to keep our hidden Mistborn hidden, and to avoid having a constant bubble effect always moving with Vin and Kelsier.
• The swarm of Atium Shadows in Kelsier vs Inquisitor, Vin vs Zane, Elend vs Marsh, etc.. would have to be scaled back a lot so as not to detract from the action itself. They could show it a bit at the start, and then not have them be visible unless necessary, for two reasons:
  1. The fight is in third person, and the observer doesn't see shadows.
  2. A fight where both sides have Atium is little different from a fight where neither side has Atium.
• Electrum risks being cut, as it's not really that prominent in the original Trilogy.
• Aluminum has no visual cues whatsoever, aside from Vin clutching her stomach in confusion. Short of the "where are my powers!?" cliche, there's nothing they can do.

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The Final Four Metals are about 5 movies away (3 MB, at least 1 SA, maybe WB?), so the movie crew should be experienced enough to not need our ideas at that point. Even so:

• Chromium and Nicrosil are the same as Aluminum/Duralumin. Besides making said Burster/Leecher's hands glow(what's a suitable color for draining?), there isn't too much they can do.
• Cadmium/Bendalloy are literal bubbles, and there are all manner of movies with slow-mo/time-lapse effects out there.
• The real issue with showing powers in Era 2 is gonna be the widespread Feruchemy. Speaking of which,

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Feruchemy:

• The bullet time of F-Steel is a common enough effect to do. The most notable usages of F-Iron is when Sazed literally floats downwards, and Wax. Wax will provide a better explanation to go with a relatively simple, Thor's hammer-esque effect: You impact as though you are much heavier than you are, while not looking that heavy.
• F-Pewter visibly changes the user's physical size, like the Hulk. F-Tin senses could recycle some of the A-Tin effects.
• F-Copper and memory will be sufficiently explained by Sazed, while F-Zinc will absolutely require Sherlock-esque inner thoughts moments.
• F-Gold healing will be blatantly obvious in their application. F-Atium will also be fairly clear(actually, we don't ever see TLR changing his age on-screen..)
• Medallions/Metalminds should glow when they are in use, and in the case of Medallions, there will be at least some explanation as to what power they give before use, which will help for the less visually inclined powers(Determination, Fortune, etc..)

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Hemalurgy:

• Inquisitor Spikes will be fairly obvious and imposing, and could even fall more towards the costume designers than the special effects crew.
• Unless they want to make the Spikes glow when the power they grant is in use, there are no real visual differences between A-Steel and H(A-Steel).

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Any thoughts on things that could be improved?

[Alfa]

I don't really know. It's not that I dislike the ideas, it's more like this visualizations take a lot out of the subtile parts of allomancy (especially emotional allomancy), and make it appear more blunt. It's just some kind of a flavor, but it is a good part of the fun to see the Mistborns play their little subtle games with each other (Vin and Shan, for example).

Also, regarding the breaking of soothing on a coppercloud - copper shields only the smoker from emotional allomancy, not the ones around him.

[The One Who Connects]

58 minutes ago, Alfa said:

it's more like the visualizations take a lot out of the subtle parts of Allomancy (especially emotional Allomancy), and make it appear more blunt.

Welcome to show business, where the bluntness is for the audience, not the characters. And due to this, the characters can be as subtle as they want, but the audience has to see something or else they'll end up being confused. The assumption that the majority of the audience is there because of the trailers, not the books/comics is one that showbiz makes a lot. So when the movie comes out, most of the viewers will see "magic" and understand, while the Shard will complain about the inaccuracy compared to the books.

Does that make us wrong? No, but it doesn't necessarily make us right either.

59 minutes ago, Alfa said:

Also, regarding the breaking of soothing on a Coppercloud - copper shields only the smoker from emotional Allomancy, not the ones around him.

Right, sorry. He's shielding himself from the mega-soothing, and shielding the group from being detected during it. Vin is doing the same, as I recall, so seeing it break a bit isn't unwarranted, while letting some through allows for it to keep the "only protects the user" angle and subtly show that TLR is just that powerful(maybe show Soothing get completely blocked by Clubs in an earlier scene.. if there's a spot for that?)

12 hours ago, Alfa said:

I guess we will see what the Allomancer sees - blue lines for metal, sounds for burning. Emotional Allomancy may be difficult.

I don't really like the idea of sounds for burning, mostly because things like that usually end up being either be too annoying and detract from the scene, too similar and not be able to differentiate between metals, or get drowned out by the action/background music and may as well not be there.

Distinctive sound effects are easy to screw up and hard to do well, ones that stay active for a long time(copper, pewter) are even more difficult to do. This isn't to say that they couldn't do one wonderfully, but I'm a little skeptical of them doing sixteen of them without having a few not mesh with the dynamic.

[Andy92]

I feel like you can simplify a lot of this for the screen and the audience will understand what's going on well enough. For example, you don't need to show blue lines when Allomancers are pushing/pulling on metals, all you have to show is the metal being physically pushed or pulled. You don't need blue lines everywhere for the audience to understand that there was a reason a coin just shot across the screen. 

For rioting and soothing, you can play a ton of tricks with the movie's musical score. Fast music displays the anxiety of a crowd whereas more calming music helps the audience understand the soothing situations. And I think a lot of the rioting/soothing moments can be worked into the dialog of the movie. For example, having characters explicitly saying on screen how they're going to use their Allomancy to soothe a chaotic crowd.

Between camera filters and the music score, I think the audience can understand well enough what's going on. Take Star Wars for example. You can use the Force to physically move things (which isn't much different than pushing/pulling), but you can also use it for emotional control (like the interrogation scenes in Episode 7). 

[Tesh]

I had no idea they might make a movie for tFE! I'm seriously just going to finish HoA tomorrow! That's awesome!

[Andy92]

3 minutes ago, Tesh Kholin said:

I had no idea they might make a movie for tFE! I'm seriously just going to finish HoA tomorrow! That's awesome!

It's still in early planning stages. A film company picked up the option to make movies of multiple Cosmere books. They started working on The Way of Kings first, and they're also supposed to be working on The Final Empire now. It's still possible nothing may come of it, but there's at least a bit of a chance that Cosmere movies might start happening in a few years. 

[Vissy]

I agree about the visualization. Look at Dragonball Evolution. Trying to visualize Allomancy in movies is going to look more like the special effects in Dragonball Evolution than anything resembling "good". It only works in anime. I think Allomancy should be treated with more subtlety, with perhaps only the subtlest visual cues - faint hues of wafting colors -  to complement them.

[DeTess]

14 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Right, sorry. He's shielding himself from the mega-soothing, and shielding the group from being detected during it. Vin is doing the same, as I recall, so seeing it break a bit isn't unwarranted, while letting some through allows for it to keep the "only protects the user" angle and subtly show that TLR is just that powerful(maybe show Soothing get completely blocked by Clubs in an earlier scene.. if there's a spot for that?)

Actually, if I remember correctly, Kelsier and Vin where rioting the crowd around them to counteract TLR's soothing. The only role copper played in this was keeping them hidden from him.

[The One Who Connects]

13 hours ago, Andy92 said:

For example, you don't need to show blue lines when Allomancers are pushing/pulling on metals, all you have to show is the metal being physically pushed or pulled.

I thought much the same, but figured that they should keep it true to the original in showing the blue from Vin's perspective in the training scene, and when she can finally pull TLR's bracers. Something, something, Wax and a bullet later on, but you know.

13 hours ago, Andy92 said:

For rioting and soothing, you can play a ton of tricks with the movie's musical score.

Ok, now I, and the other people who participated in those old conversations, all feel foolish for not thinking of this. Then again, that discussion was when we were trying to use the training scene as a base for a movie trailer. Gosh, was that only a year ago?

13 hours ago, Andy92 said:

For example, having characters explicitly saying on screen how they're going to use their Allomancy to soothe a chaotic crowd.

I'm gonna have to side with Alfa here in that that seems a little too blunt.

1 hour ago, randuir said:

Actually, if I remember correctly, Kelsier and Vin where rioting the crowd around them to counteract TLR's soothing. The only role copper played in this was keeping them hidden from him.

Vin mentally commented that she could still feel his soothing through her Copper, so it definitely played that role too. I didn't remember the rioting, but that could add an interesting audible/visual dynamic to the scene

8 hours ago, Rob Lucci said:

I think Allomancy should be treated with more subtlety, with perhaps only the subtlest visual cues - faint hues of wafting colors -  to complement them.

I think that the semi-transparent effect could work with that idea, where it is faint most of the time, with TLR, Elend, and Mistburning Vin having a more visible effect on account of their sheer power. Think that could work, or is that still too blunt?

[Andy92]

@The One Who Connects Yeah, I'll give you that it's probably a little too blunt/spoon-fed to do it that way. I was more or less thinking that you could introduce rioting/soothing early in the movie with a scene like that. That way, when it appears later on, the audience has that "oh I get what they're doing" mindset.

Most of my favorite movies have musical scores that connect well with the story the movie is trying to tell, so it's something I tend to think about when I see these threads. I think music is the best way to really make Allomancy work on the big screen. 

[Thrand_Antharo]

This is only slightly related but I think that the Elantris magic system would be one of the most easily transferred to film.

[The One Who Connects]

28 minutes ago, Thrand_Antharo said:

This is only slightly related but I think that the Elantris magic system would be one of the most easily transferred to film.

I could argue for Awakening, but you aren't really wrong. The more flashy powers always translate better to the screen, which is why Superman got popular but some of the heroes who have more subtle powers haven't left the comics yet.

[Alfa]

10 hours ago, Thrand_Antharo said:

This is only slightly related but I think that the Elantris magic system would be one of the most easily transferred to film.

Might be, if you explain good enough what the Aons (especially Rao) mean. Else the turning point will be...well, difficult to understand. 

[ErikModi]

Emotional allomancy wouldn't be a visual, handle it through the music, since that's what a film score does anyway (enhance the emotion of the scene).  Get a really good composer, and have them write pieces of score to bring out the emotions being Soothed/Rioted.  Especially in, for instance, the scene with Vin and Breeze at the recruitment meeting, with Breeze narrating exactly what he's doing with people's emotions, and the score reinforcing it with the right music.  Breeze as a character would have either a very simple or very complicated theme tune, able to be tailored to a wide variety of emotional responses by varying key, pitch, time, etc.

[The One Who Connects]

16 minutes ago, ErikModi said:

the scene with Vin and Breeze at the recruitment meeting, with Breeze narrating exactly what he's doing with people's emotions, and the score reinforcing it with the right music.

You are absolutely right that the recruitment scene is a very good opportunity for that, as Kelsier doesn't use much Rioting/Soothing before this scene happens. Vin does, but in a controlled setting with Kelsier, so it can be introduced and then explained not long after.

I'm no musical expert, but can an effect be "mirrored?" Some sort of change to the pitch/intonation to differentiate between Rioting and Soothing the same emotion, where you can still tell it's the same, but different. It probably won't be necessary, but if you want to have a blanket theme for the sides of emotional Allomancy that they can use in Vin's early scenes(since she isn't hitting any particular emotions, I think)

Quote

Kelsier: "Vin, try to use your "luck" on me."

A focused expression appears on Vin's face. ["Emotional Allomancy(Soothe)" plays^[1]]  A smile appears on Kelsier's face.

^[1] The Soothe variant of the Emotional Allomancy audiotrack has a slower tempo and a smoother rhythm than the base track.

Kelsier: "Very good."

Vin: "I can sense another power within me. Similar, but different."

Kelsier: "Reach out and touch that power. Try to use it."

[Emotional Allomancy(Riot) plays^[2]]

^[1] The Riot variant .....

Something like this

[ErikModi]

Well, at the most basic, you could just make the Riot music louder, but you could experiment with faster beat and tempo, more brass instead of woodwind, more dominant percussion, etc.  This is really stretching my knowledge of music, so I couldn't elaborate more than that, which is why I say get a really talented composer.