r/EldenRingMovie

Source: https://www.independenttalent.com/actors/john-hodgkinson/

Simple enough question. Have we seen any horned horses about yet?

I'm no Jacob Geller so I can't lay this out there all poetically right now, but I think it was a mistake to have the first (and possibly only) FromSoft movie be Elden Ring instead of Dark Souls. I think a Dark Souls movie has a higher chance of being made right (to put it stupidly) than Elden Ring does, and it is a story that will be received well as movies and the American empire take their last gasps.

Something both games (in fact, most FromSoft games) have in common is that they are not about the player character. The player is a vehicle for unearthing the stories of other characters. A movie where the protagonist is the least important character is unheard of in movies and a big challenge on its own. I do think that fact is important to the FromSoft experience, but I do not think it will be attempted for this adaptation. The bigger missed opportunity, I think, is that Dark Souls has a very strong message and Elden Ring does not.

I'll start (unwisely) with Elden Ring. In Elden Ring, you are a nameless Tarnished (a ressurected and burdened undead) who is guided by the grace of the goddess Marika to free her from her alien shackles and (possibly) break the link between The Lands Between and the Outer Gods.

To back up a bit: There is a pantheon of gods and goddesses from The Lands Between who received their power from the Outer Gods (lovecraftian alien gods). This is understood to be a blessing and a curse. Marika, as the highest diety in The Lands Between, has the greatest burden. Prior to your arrival, several great battles between the gods of TLB were waged over (as I barely recall) who would have either the privilege or the curse of receiving the powers of the Outer Gods. Rani, who was selected to be Marika's successor, plots against her fate and murders Godwin the Golden, who (for some reason) sustains "Destined Death", or simply the fact of death. So nobody in TLB can truly die and that's a big part of how you, the player, figures into Marika's and, separately, Rani's plans to escape their eternal curses.

There are some broad themes here: the tragic consequences of unchecked ambition, the cyclical nature of life and death, and the corruption inherent in absolute power. What is the message though? I understand that Pac-Man, Tetris, and most games out there don't have a message, but games that make good movies do. I don't think the message is that humanity must unshackle ourselves from our manipulative gods, even though I do approve of it. Elden Ring doesn't even make as strong a point with how you interact with NPCs as Dark Souls (or even moreso, Bloodborne) does.

So what is Dark Souls about? It begins with very Greek-inspired Genesis story: The world was dark, primeval, and shrouded in fog. Then "The First Flame" spontaneously appeared. Four beings appeared from the dark and claimed four great souls: light, life, death, and dark. Lord Gwin, who claimed the Soul of Light, became leader of the gods, waged war against the ancient dragons, and established the world order; The Furtive Pygmy, ancestor of humanity, claimed the Dark Soul.

Thousands of years later, the first flame began to fade. Gwin conspires with the Witch of Izalith to attempt to reignite it, but it backfires and creates demons. Fearful that mankind will take his place and usher in an Age of Dark, he casts a cursed seal on humanity called the darksign that binds them to the first flame (i.e. the bonfires in the game). People who bear the darksign cannot die and eventually go insane. Humans are indoctrinated to believe that people with the darksign must be coralled and sent out on a pilgrimage to save mankind by re-linking the First Flame...without understanding that it perpetuates the curse or that it requires throwing themselves into it. By the time the game ends, it is not even clear if their sacrifice would be the first reignition of the flame or the billionth. Infrastructure is crumbling and every township is full of undead, mutated monsters.

Throughout the player's journey, they meet several despondent, manipulative, nihilistic, and occasionally friendly NPCs going through their own journeys and experiencing their own hardships. They can choose to help them, but they cannot save everyone, try as they might. As the fabric of the world unravels, Chosen Undead from other universes can invade your own seeking the souls from your death to fuel their own pilgrimages.

Throughout the game, the player can learn about gods and tragic heroes who fought to preserve--for better or worse, rightly or wrongly--their way of life. They can even put some of them out of their misery themselves.

The themes of Dark Souls overlap with Elden Ring: The abuse of absolute power, cycles of destruction, mankind thwarting the tyranny of their false gods. But far better than Elden Ring, Dark Souls has a clear message: "Humanity will endure the end of the world." Civilizations will rise and fall. The universe is indifferent to our suffering, but we can be kind to each other and we can overcome--if not literally in our own lifetime, then the generations that succeed us. That is the cathartic message that FromSoft movie-goers deserve and need right now.

Elden Ring has an interesting story but it's the most convoluted plot FromSoft has written and I dont think a movie adaptation can tell it in a more compelling way than the game does. Inevitably, to tell any of these stories, the audience has to receive these twisting back stories. Will that be done by having the protagonist creeping around ruins interpreting artifacts out-loud, or will they have some companion who is nonstop dumping lore about the gods and their servants at us? How much of that lore can be pared back and still make Marika's predicament and Rani's treachery interesting and coherent? Not much and not easily. I think the false pilgrimage of Dark Souls could be done compellingly and with fewer storytelling logistical hardships than what needs to be revealed in Elden Ring.

TL;DR - I 🦆ed your mom.