OBT Forum

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Overall, if done well it would be good for the franchise.

However, there are some major issues.

1.  Who knows where the film rights reside.

2. Aliens are not BattleTech, so any movie with them would not be BattleTech.  BattleTech's strength lies in not having aliens, relying on the diversity of human experience for its flavor.

3. A movie would most likely have to focus away from the main plot line, much like the MechWarrior novels, as there is so much there that finding a thread for a movie within the major events would be difficult,in my opinion, unless set somewhere like Tukayyid.

4. A series would work better, for something like the Jade Phoenix, Blood of Kerensky or Warrior Trilogies.  More time to develop the depth of the series in keeping with the setting.

5. Massive danger of canon wars between what is on screen and what is already written, unless those making a film//series do not understand the depth and detail of the universe.  No need to ruin the IP with a Star Wars or Star Trek imbalance between the various canon.  Hell, its taken 10 years to sort out the kinks left by a few computer games and in book inconsistencies.

Overall, I'd love to see it done well, but feel it would be incredibly hard to do so without compromising much of what makes it such a great universe.

Good points red, but I would disagree on the Periphery front.  I think it would need to be based in the Inner Sphere, as that has always been the heart of the setting.

I think most would agree avoid the big characters focus on a small unit fighting a personal fight draw in the audience to as Blacknova said the human story

If that's done the story will flow

So bringing in thousands of new players to swarm the hard core idiots under does not appeal to you?

Please don't think my comment was snarky, though it may have come off that way, it was not my intention.

I'd LOVE to see a movie - short or long - based in the BT universe, especially the 3SW era. However, I'm not all that optimistic with it becoming a reality. Based on what I've read in various places, here included, there appears to be a lot of challenges to getting one made.

I wish you the best of luck in your journey!

That said, it could be easier to use the overall BT universe as a backdrop, rather than a front-runner for story development. Think Mercenary unit on a mission: the greater politics of the Inner Sphere is largely irrelevant.

As a result, the setting would benefit from from a Third Succession War story.

I'm not sure I agree that the former requires the latter. Or even benefits it. On the screen (big or small), where all those tech variations and back story will fade into the background (as you mentioned, larger politics being irrelevant), you could do a merc unit (ideally, a smaller one) on a mission in a large majority of the existing eras. To be perfectly honest, I'd put even money that a writer would find the Dark Age an even easier starting point than the morass of tied up and bundled history that is the Third Succession War. We're talking about a war spanning decades, versus a period of time that can largely be summed up as "Apocalyptic war. Enforced peace from new faction. Humans are idiots. Here we go again."

Okay, to be fair, more than a few eras can be summed up that way. But the 3rd SW has a whole lot of relevant back story and side stories tied into as near integral. I don't see that same issue with the Dark Age.