Scott's Five Fave Films (Action)
These films have been influential in how I think about games, characters and game stories.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
This film blew me away when I first saw it. It started fast and never let up. It had action and humor and intrigue. The ending was climactic, epic and ended with great irony (seeing the box stored in a vast warehouse). This was back when Lucas and Spielberg were at their peak. A flawless movie. My favorite film of all time. After seeing it I was in stunned silence for about an hour trying to process what I'd seen because it truly was unlike anything that had come before.
The key thing about this film was its super likeable hero, and a lot like the hero in Die Hard, Indy was a hero who failed. A lot. And yet always bounced back. Max Payne, anyone?
Alien
Yes, this film is better than Aliens (which is a brilliant film too). Alien was pitched as "Jaws in space," but went far further than this simple premise and introduced so many story devices we now see all the time in films, like the android with a hidden agenda, characters trapped with a creature within a closed environment, a seemingly insurmountable enemy and the double ending where you think the characters have won but they actually haven't. Several of the best scenes in horror film history are in this movie: the egg opening scene, the chest bursting scene, the scene where we discover that Ash is an android and the ending scene where the alien is walking up behind Ripley while she's in her spacesuit. Another flawless film.
We definitely used some of these techniques in Prey (the 2006 original).
Die Hard
Believe it or not, this film was initially panned by many critics. Bruce Willis wasn't seen as someone who could carry a film, but the producer's first choices – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford and many others – turned it down. Die Hard created a new category of action hero: one who took damage and didn't always win. In later years critics have reevaluated Die Hard and now recognize it as the masterpiece it is. The flawed hero is now the prototype for most movie heroes now too. While the hero was flawed, the film was flawless.
Anyone creating a hero for film, games or any media better make sure their hero is anything but perfect.
The Road Warrior
There are only a handful of films I've seen that when I left the theater I was speechless. Road Warrior is one of them. Director George Miller created a new type of action film by taking the viewer along for the ride, keeping pace with the action versus filming from a series of single locations. In this film you were right there with the characters experiencing what they did. It was exhilarating. His sequel, Fury Road, did the same thing but Road Warrior did it 34 years earlier with a better story.
Feeling like you're part of the action is always better than just watching the action.
Jaws
This is the film that kicked off the new era of blockbusters – an era we're still in. It put Spielberg on the map and was the start of a run of films unequaled to this day by any single director: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark (and its two sequels), Jurassic Park, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. It's not the sea monster that made this film great. It's the tension of knowing it's out there, unseen, but lurking – brilliantly revealed by John Williams' suspenseful music (that initially underwhelmed Spielberg).
The cast all had stories that made them likable and sympathetic. One story in particular was horrifying. We all know the story I'm referring to, based on a real life event. A perfect film made better by the fact that the animatronic shark malfunctioned so often that Spielberg had to imply its presence rather than show it for much of the film. What we can't see is often more scary than what we see. A flawless film.
These belong on the list, but there's no room:
The Matrix
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Enter the Dragon
Aliens
Gladiator
John Wick
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