Flopping "Battleship" to torpedo Hasbro?

Rihanna? Really?

 Probably not, although this Forces article suggests that the venerable toymaker can;t help but be disappointed by the failure of the high-budget Aliens vs. Navy flick to wow critics or audiences.

Hasbro has had high hopes that movie based on classics like Battleship, Clue and Monopoly might boost interest in their sagging board games, much like how the transformers movies have juiced that toy line.

I've wondered since I heard about the projects how this could possibly work, knowing the way Hollywood treats outside intellectual properties like books, plays and short stories. I think, for the most part, Hollywood adaptations of non-original screenplays do violence to the creative vision that's responsible for their success. This is why people were so pleasantly surprised by how well Peter Jackson handled The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I think I can speak for most fans when I say we were very relieved when the first movie came out because he didn't screw it up. Yes, yes, yes, the fans can quibble about decisions here and there, but everybody realized that there was no way to make a literal translation of Tolkien's dense books into movies. But Jackson understood and respected the books, and so was able to make changes that kept true to the good professor's vision, even when he had to depart from the story.

Battleship, however, is much more typical of Hollywood's treatment. They basically just kept the title and created a regular special-effects dominated aliens movie. Now, "battleship" the game, is hardly some high concept product, so there was a lot of room to work with. But it's not an alien themed game.

The key thing, I think, is to recognize that the heart of "Battleship" is the guess and outguess interplay and a movie that captured that dynamic might succeed. I think it would be possible to make a Monopoly movie -- but not  as a  remake of Wall Street.  No, the movie would need to highlight the wheeling and dealing of the game in the context of a cinematic treatment. I think of the way the musical Chess successfully captured the drama surrounding international chess matches during the Cold War to make an entertaining story.

Essentially, however, the classic Hasbro board games don't feature a strong in-game narrative that would translate well into a Hollywood style movie. Among the Hasbro game properties that DO have strong narrative potential would be Dungeons and Dragons, Diplomacy and even Axis & Allies, but none have the kind of wide public name recognition of Battleship or Monopoly and probably can't attract Hollywood interest.Some of the old AH titles like Monster Menace America might work.

I think Hasbro fundamentally misunderstood why the Transformers movies worked. The transformers are cool visual toys and the movies were able to  parlay that into a cool visual movie. Board games are more like books in that the action tends to be in the mind, not the eye.

I think Hasbro is barking up the wrong tree.

A weakness for tin

I have to admit I have a weakness for tin game boxes. Nothing is more likely to get me to shell out money for a game I already own than putting it in a snazzy tin box.

I'm not sure what the economics are of tin boxes. On the one hand, I do see them used to package some decidedly low-end products. It's not uncommon to see a tin box version of chess or dominoes in a retailer like Wal-Mart or Walgreens that doesn't cost a lot. These do tend to be public domain games where nearly all the cost in in materials and not in any creative design.

But Hasbro has put out some nice tin-box editions for games such as Scrabble, Clue and Monopoly as well that also have really nice game play components as well.

Tin boxes stand up well to the test of time, compared to paper boxes, although they still require proper storage. The weak point in game boxes are the seems, which tend to split with age. For tin boxes the biggest threats are dents and rust. Some tin boxes use hinges, which can break, but most tin boxes simply use a snug fit for the top.

It may very well be that tin containers are not an economic decision for low print-run products such as wargames, but I wouldn't mind seeing them used for some euros. Tin boxes may be too associated with U.S. producers, though, to appeal to the Euro crowd. And there may be less incentive for them to go that route because German-style game boxes are very sturdy.

Right now the latest editions of some Hasbro titles have gone low-cost, presumably to attract new players and keep sales up during tough times. But eventually there will be new "deluxe" editions of Acquire and Diplomacy and I wouldn't mind seeing a tinned version of either one.

Getting a Clue

Paste magazine is reporting that a remake of Clue is on the way: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/02/hasbro-gore-verbinski-to-remake-clue.html

Hope they do a better job than last time.

Supposedly there are a bunch of other movie projects based on Hasbro games including Monopoly.

I wonder if they'll do PanzerBlitz, ASL or Axis & Allies movies? ;) THAT would be something remarkable.

Game of the week: Clue

I grew up in a family that played board games, and my best friend's family played, too, so I got a lot of exposure to the limited stable of games available in the 1960s such as Go To The Head Of The Class, Sorry!, The Game of Life, Monopoly, Scrabble, Stratego, Operation, etc.
But somehow I missed out on Clue, which is another real classic, but one I didn't really get to play until fairly recently.
Clue is one of a fairly limited class of deduction games, where players use information gathered during the course of the game to deduce some hidden information. As such, it's a little rigorous compared to many other family games. You do have to think a bit. It's therefore a little hard for younger players to get into. Even some real "underagers" can play games like Monopoly with a little help because there's some luck involved and scope for advice and guidance because most information is open. Like Scrabble, Clue is really for a little older part oft he family.
For the ones old enough to get it, though, Clue is a good game and a lot of fun. It's a little clunky compared to newer games designs. The movement rules and spaces between the rooms are inelegant and inefficient, introducing a luck element that feels out of place.
I picked up the 50th anniversary edition, which comes in a tin and has deluxe pieces, including miniatures for the six suspects. This edition also has an extra weapon (poison) adding a little bit of challenge compared to the standard game, which has just six weapons.
All-in-all, it's a well-deserved classic game, still going very strong after more than five decades.