Doom (2005)

[Inyarear]

Apparently they went through like 15 different scripts using the Hell idea and they just couldn't get it to work - and it makes sense that it wouldn't. I'd rather they changed the idea and came out with a great movie like this than kept it and ended up with something which turned out bad.

I'd like to see some of those scripts, though I don't doubt the folks in Hollywood had major trouble coming up with any coherent picture of Hell. I mean, this is Hollywood where there's plenty of vague "spirituality" to go around, but not much actual belief.

The critics are right, though: the game's unique appeal lay in its having a lone marine take on Hell itself with a shotgun. Take that part out, and the movie is just another lame Aliens/Predator ripoff. It didn't help, either, that the guys in charge apparently couldn't make up their minds which Doom game they were doing here, as much of it looks like Doom 3 in spite of the plot being (badly) adapted from the first Doom.

As for metaphors... don't we all get sick of seeing stuff reduced to metaphors once in a while? How about having the good guy face some real demons, or at least (as I must concede a shotgun couldn't actually put a dent in a real demon) some real honest-to-Satan demon-possessed creatures? There have been movies about demon possession, and there have been movies about vicious extraterrestrials, but I've never seen a movie about demon-possessed extraterrestrials before. For now, alas, all we get is some Hollywood garbage about mutants standing as metaphors for demonic possession. Yech!

[dean]

I don't mind the movie: it's not completely horrible, since most of my complaints about it are the Doom-game related annoyances, but still can't help feeling that it is just a generic action movie set in space, and as such I'd prefer to treat it as such.  Take away the Doom and I'd have no problem with it other than the other obvious bad points.

[DistantJ]

Apparently they went through like 15 different scripts using the Hell idea and they just couldn't get it to work - and it makes sense that it wouldn't. I'd rather they changed the idea and came out with a great movie like this than kept it and ended up with something which turned out bad.

I'd like to see some of those scripts, though I don't doubt the folks in Hollywood had major trouble coming up with any coherent picture of Hell. I mean, this is Hollywood where there's plenty of vague "spirituality" to go around, but not much actual belief.

The critics are right, though: the game's unique appeal lay in its having a lone marine take on Hell itself with a shotgun. Take that part out, and the movie is just another lame Aliens/Predator ripoff. It didn't help, either, that the guys in charge apparently couldn't make up their minds which Doom game they were doing here, as much of it looks like Doom 3 in spite of the plot being (badly) adapted from the first Doom.

As for metaphors... don't we all get sick of seeing stuff reduced to metaphors once in a while? How about having the good guy face some real demons, or at least (as I must concede a shotgun couldn't actually put a dent in a real demon) some real honest-to-Satan demon-possessed creatures? There have been movies about demon possession, and there have been movies about vicious extraterrestrials, but I've never seen a movie about demon-possessed extraterrestrials before. For now, alas, all we get is some Hollywood garbage about mutants standing as metaphors for demonic possession. Yech!

Actually I always interpreted it that the gene was making them into actual demons... I mean, like, did you ever see Doctor Who when there was "the beast" - the beast which was either Satan himself, or the beast which the legends of Satan was based on. I always thought of DOOM as being similiar, like, the gene being what determines if you're an angel or a demon, the previous beings being the angels and demons and whatnot, hence they calling it "the genetic blueprint for the soul"...

but still can't help feeling that it is just a generic action movie set in space, and as such I'd prefer to treat it as such.

I wouldn't say generic... It has some of the best monster designs and effects in a long time, which actively goes out of it's way to create true monster effects as opposed to CG, it has the whole first person sequence which is really fun and different, and it has all the great 'boyz movie' stuff like the huge Japaneseish superhuman punchup at the end, and the themes of teleportation and the like.

I'm stoked that DOOM was turned into a great movie rather than being a really cheesy flick which is more accurate to the game. For Hell in Space, check out Event Horizon, but really if that had been done in DOOM, I think the whole "hellspawn vs. bullets" thing would have just been too silly. The only thing I miss is the satanic imagery, but the actual satanic plot would have probably really sucked in a 90 minute action flick.

Besides, wasn't the story for DOOM (and most id Software games at the time) just something made up quickly to give a reason for the bloody monster massacre gameplay? In a way it reminds me of the people who complain that the Final Fantasy movie was too different, when every game has nothing to do with the previous anyway, aside from a few magic spells and creatures, which again would probably be kinda weird in a movie.

Hell, when I used to play DOOM 1 and 2 back in the day, I always thought the whole hell thing was talking figuratively and that the monsters were Aliens. It wasn't until DOOM 3 when I realised it was entirely literal.

[Jim H]

The scene with the black marine in the pit was great.  The high point of the entire film.  I wanted him to escape and become the main character and win.








That said...  I also think this this took WAY too much from Doom 3 and not nearly enough from the first two games.

[Inyarear]

Besides, wasn't the story for DOOM (and most id Software games at the time) just something made up quickly to give a reason for the bloody monster massacre gameplay? In a way it reminds me of the people who complain that the Final Fantasy movie was too different, when every game has nothing to do with the previous anyway, aside from a few magic spells and creatures, which again would probably be kinda weird in a movie.

Hell, when I used to play DOOM 1 and 2 back in the day, I always thought the whole hell thing was talking figuratively and that the monsters were Aliens. It wasn't until DOOM 3 when I realised it was entirely literal.

The problem with the Final Fantasy movie wasn't that it was "too different" from the games, but that it wasn't really a video game movie at all; for all its vaguely familiar video game elements, it wasn't based on anything in particular. Without any reference point for comparison, players and non-players alike could only judge it on its own merits, and these were somewhat lacking. (At least watching that movie won't make you want to gouge out your eyes and/or strangle Uwe Boll, though.)

I think both ideas you had of Doom are essentially accurate: these are aliens, but aliens possessed by demons, just as the former human comrades you meet in the game are possessed. The Satanic imagery testifies to which specific malevolent intelligence is at work while the alterations made to human constructions point to the extraterrestrials having some agenda of their own. Yes, the story was kind of a last-minute addition to the game. Abbreviated and tacked-on as it is, though, it manages to raise several very thought-provoking premises that are missing from the movie:

1. Assume Satan and the demons are real.
2. Assume extraterrestrials are real.
3. Assume Hell is real.

One can then draw some further thought-provoking implications:

1. God's enemies are real, so God and Heaven are probably real too.
2. God has also created extraterrestrials.
3. Satan and his minions have gotten control of these extraterrestrials.

These in turn lead to some disturbing conclusions:

1. Satan can enslave an entire sentient species, has done so many times, and is now attempting to do the same to us.
2. Extraterrestrials are not at all morally superior to us as some suppose; quite the contrary, in fact.
3. Hell's flesh-and-blood military has only been one hyperspace jump away from us all this time; we really shouldn't mess with hyperspace.

Now, if you can just figure out what it is that makes the hero immune to the influences to which so many of his fellow space marines succumbed, you have all the makings of a surprisingly philosophical action movie.

The scene with the black marine in the pit was great.  The high point of the entire film.  I wanted him to escape and become the main character and win.

I'd like to see the black guy win in something other than a blaxploitation flick once in a while too.

[DistantJ]

I'm pretty sure the demons in the game were always supposed to just be the monsters which lived in hell, not aliens.

Personally I find a spreading 'virus' and something which can be injected into the blood much more convincing than "the devil".

[Andrew]

Personally I find a spreading 'virus' and something which can be injected into the blood much more convincing than "the devil".

I definitely disagree with you there.  One of the reasons the "Doom" games worked so well for me is that encountering demons and devils in a technologically advanced setting is fascinating to me.  "Event Horizon" tried, but didn't get it right.  I love the idea of Space Marines fighting against demons.  Real, "our master is Satan" demons.

Most of my points I said in an earlier thread:

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,112427.0.html

[DistantJ]

I really don't know if it would have worked in this movie, though. I know that they tried a whole number of scripts and could not get it to work, so I'm glad they chose something which did.

[Inyarear]

One of the reasons the "Doom" games worked so well for me is that encountering demons and devils in a technologically advanced setting is fascinating to me.  "Event Horizon" tried, but didn't get it right.  I love the idea of Space Marines fighting against demons.  Real, "our master is Satan" demons.

Most of my points I said in an earlier thread:

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,112427.0.html

I made a lot of the same points in that thread too.

One other notable plot point in the game, which the novelization also gave some attention and the film did not, was the level in the Inferno known as the Temple of Mysteries, in which you come across two large rooms, one filled with Hell's Barons, and the other with Cacodemons. In the Hell's Barons room are a number of Cacodemon corpses strewn on the ground, and in the Cacodemon room are a number of Barons who've been crucified up on the walls and left there to rot. A scene like that in the film would have given it some further moral depth too: behold the final consequences of a hatred so vindictive that two whole species of extraterrestrials sold their souls just to get even with each other.

[DistantJ]

Well there's always DOOM 2 :P