Australian Gamer Feature :: EXCLUSIVE Uwe Boll Interview

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EXCLUSIVE Uwe Boll Interview

Yug and Matt get an exclusive interview with video game movie director Uwe Boll, about his upcoming projects.

Introduction : Page 1 : Page 2

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Yug: It's fantastic to get through to you, some of the questions we wanted to ask about your upcoming movies and things your working on at the moment

Matt: you're best known for your adaptation of video games to movies; why adapt video games?

Uwe: it was basically in the beginning an accident, House of the Dead just arrived on set where I shot Heart of America, and I read it � I�m a big zombie movie fan � I know the game House of the Dead, but it wasn�t my favourite game, it's fun to play it, but I didn�t like the script a lot, but what was convincing was the marketing appeal behind it. You have a zombie movie, but there are tonnes of zombie movies, but if you do a House of the Dead zombie movie, you have an additional element that makes the movie interesting and this basically made me shoot the movie, even if I didn�t like the script too much. This was the beginning, and House of the Dead made a lot of money. So I started looking out for video games I really liked, and Alone in the Dark was a game that I really liked, so I made a bunch of those kind of movies.

Yug: what was some of your favourite games before you made the House of the Dead movie, that you played and thought would make fantastic movies?

Uwe: Silent Hill, Hitman, World of Warcraft, and definitely Alone in the Dark � part 4 was out, The New Nightmare, a really nice PC game. I�m definitely a fan more of the shooting games, not a big role playing fan, although World of Warcraft is different and it�s very interesting to play that game. These were my favourite games and I tried to get the rights for Silent Hill, I talked to several people, but basically I thought Christophe Gans did a good movie. I also definitely like Resident Evil.

Matt: What about other ones such as Dead or Alive and Doom, have you caught up with many of them? Are you interested in them as a genre, or just as they come?

Uwe: No, I get lots of offers, such as Virtual Fighter for example, and I didn�t like that. I don�t think that I�m the �mortal kombat� guy. It�s fun to play it as a video game but I don�t think that those kind of movies are so super exciting, where you have kind of tournaments going on, I�m not a big fan of this as a movie story.

Matt: How do you choose which ones do make a good movie, how do you decide that?

Uwe: You mean how I think what makes a good video game based movie?

Matt: Yeah, how do you decide which video game you would like to make into a movie?

Uwe: Well I look out more for interesting main actors or characters, like Bloodrayne I think is interesting. It�s different, like in Dungeon Siege for example, the interesting part is the story setup where the farm gets robbed, and here was an opportunity to do something big epic fantasy, something I always wanted to do. So it depends also, in what stage of the year I am in basically, so I couldn�t buy only zombie movies, or zombie games, and then make one horror movie after the other, I always look out for different games. I think Alone in the Dark should be a little more like creepy/sci-fi. Bloodrayne should be more like a classical vampire story � not too much sci-fi in it � more like a period piece. Dungeon Siege an epic, and now we Postal we do as a sort of overdrive �Falling Down� comedy. And Far Cry will be more like a Die Hard on an island, where you have more of an action adventure background. I always look out for different things we can show, and make different movies also, a little different genres, and that I don�t duplicate the same movie over and over again.

Yug: You don�t just create the same movie based on the same video game licences.

Matt: Is that just to stop yourself getting bored, or is there more to it?

Uwe: This is the thing, as long as you have different games, it wont get boring, you�ll have totally different stories to tell. Games are like best selling books, they are totally different. The negative aspect I get always in the reviews, like the normal � lets say � the wide critic audience, they think video games are all primitive, and when you do a video game based movie, you are automatically getting it counted as a primitive movie. So for a lot of people, video games are a whole lot of action only, and they don�t see the difference, and that�s the biggest problem with video game based movies. But I�m not bored, and I think we can make a few more interesting things, such as we did Bloodrayne 2 in the wild west, vampire movie, and it has nothing to do with the first part. I think its really cool, a kind of western atmosphere, with vampires. I always try to make different stuff.

Yug: What made you choose the Wild Wild West?

Uwe: My plan was to do Bloodrayne as a trilogy, and to end in the second world war, where the game is based, and to start in Romania in the 1700 to show how the Brimstone Society evolved and how Bloodrayne become Bloodrayne. 100 years later she ends up in the wild wild west, so she moves after Kagans death away from Transylvania to the Wild West. For me it was interesting to do something with the time jump, and with Vampires not really aging, there was the opportunity to do a totally different movie, and not to duplicate or replicate the first part. I directed it also, so Alone in the Dark 2 for example, I will not direct. I don�t see Alone in the Dark 2 as something really really new, and that�s the reason I will produce it only.

Matt: The Bloodrayne movie was criticised by a few people for being out of the timeline of the games. How do you react to the fans of the games and the disagreements they have with the way you handle their favourite games, is that just something they have to accept?

Uwe: Yeah, they are right in that critique, but on the other hand we used a lot from the game, not only the weapons, the costumes, the characters, the bad guys, the brimstone society, all kinds of stuff from the game, even camera angles. They should see that basically. On the other hand, we made the decision that we don�t want to start in the second world war, what would be for the gamers close to the game, because I planned it to be in three parts of the movie, and if it started directly in the second world war, we would be forced to tell the prequel in the second part, and I prefer to start the prequel within the time continuity and this would be the 1700 first, to show where it all began. And every famous vampire story started in Transylvania.

Matt: We�ve been reading a little about your non-game adaptations, particularly Seed. The story of it sounds very interesting, can you tell us a little bit more about it?

[technical difficulties, we lost connection and called back at this point]

Yug: Uwe are you there?

Uwe: Hello? The connection was gone �

Matt: Too many oceans between us. I was just asking how Seed was going, it sounds really interesting.

Uwe: I read a book about the death penalty in America, especially in the 60�s and 70�s, there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of executions that didn�t work, and recently there was the guy who got the poison injection where his arms burnt down physically from the poison, they forgot to give him the tranquilizer, it was horrible. So there was rumours that people survived 3 electrical shocks and got buried alive. They of course died in their coffins and had no chance, but we tell a story about a guy who digs himself out, survives the execution, comes back and goes on a revenge trip. It�s a really dark horror movie. With Seed, I developed it a long long time the basic idea, because I read the book 6 or 7 years ago, and then last winter I was sitting down in a really depressed mood, and I wrote all my aggressions into that Seed movie, and it�s a really hard movie. We have problems right now even getting NC-17. It�s not R rated, it�s actually between NC-17 and X rated �

Matt: Wow

Uwe: � so, it�s tough because I want to do at least a small theatrical release in America with it, I have a company that wants to do 200 prints before it goes onto DVD. And it looks like in Australia all my movies go direct to DVD, although Dungeon Siege will go up in the theatres over there I hope, but with other movies it�s not so easy. No I�m really proud, I think Seed has turned out to be a very good movie, and very intense, and I think Postal will be the same. In a way it�s very bitter, but also super funny, and it�s a reflection on what we use from the game what with Osama Bin Laden and George Bush, and we have a normal trailer trash guy who has a really bad day in between everybody, and I think this movie has a cult kind of chance. The reactions were like, a guy from Sony saw a rough cut and said �this is a movie everybody wants to see, but no-one wants to distribute�. So, we started this movie in the cockpit of the September 11 machines for example, and if he acquired it for Sony he would get fired, and they would never release the movie, but he was also sure that there�s a lot of audience, that they give a shit about it and they want to see this stuff. And after a long time now, I think the world is also ready to make some jokes about the political landscape of the last 7 or 8 years, because it�s a kind of atmosphere after September 11 of self censorship and � basically � craziness!

So you have the oil and weapon industries in America, and they make the Iraq war without any connection to Al Qaida, they lied to the whole world telling everybody Sadam is a good buddy of Osama, and that�s the reason we have to go there, and it was all bullshit! At the same time you have the Islamic power everywhere, and its just a crazy world. And we basically go hand in hand, we only look at it, and we walk slowly to an edge. It�s so stupid, and I think a movie can make good points about it in a way that we all have to laugh about it, and at the same time we feel its time to change the politics. It�s good to make jokes about George Bush, he�s TWO TIMES President, and it looks like the people don�t learn.

Matt: Yup, that�s the scary thing

Yug: Surely if the creators of the South Park can distribute a movie like Team America, surely with Postal audiences can appreciate a humorous movie about such delicate political topics over there

Uwe: Yeah, this is what my goal is right now, that I get a change to get in every American city just one screen for Postal, and then we will see a different movie. It�s not a typical game adaption, where you have to have a wide release or your dead. I think this is a movie where people will drive to the theatre because they want to see THAT movie. So I can live with it that the movie is only in a few screens, maybe 200-300, and hopefully in Europe and America, but I�m sure it will stay on that screen a long time, and people will talk about it. Theres no chance that after you see that movie, you won't talk about it. Some people will be totally against it. Like yesterday we had a group here in Germany, and there was a newspaper journalist and I showed him the movie, and he was laughing and laughing and laughing, and then the German part comes where I play my cameo, where I play a leiderhosen Nazi, and my movies are all financed with Nazi gold, and I pay everybody in gold teeth, and then he was flipping out on me saying �How can you do that, when you are German, you are totally crazy?� and I said �Look, the point is I make a joke out of myself! I�m not a Nazi, I show myself as a fucking idiot!�. And then to play with that, like I remember that movie with Chevy Chase and Rowan Atkinson, where they did that race and they stopped in the Nazi museum, and Chevy Chase�s daughter stopped in the museum, and she thought it was a puppet museum, and it turns out the Ku Klux Klan was behind it. This was also radical and funny, in a movie that was not so perfect, but we have tones of stuff that for a few people is insulting, but the whole movie is about � we are in a situation where we have to fight for the freedom of speech, and the freedom of what we think, and what we think is funny, and we must stop with the self censorship. This is the whole point. Everybody since September 11 is super careful in regards of �we don�t want to hurt religious feelings, we don�t want to hurt the feelings of the patriots, of the troops, whatever�. And in a good comedy, like the old comedies like Monty Python � Life of Brian or this kind of stuff, you made jokes about everything and you give a shit about it, and if some people have problem with it, that�s their problem not mine.

Matt: Yup, that�s what makes it funnier

Uwe: Yeah! That�s the thing, and I think Postal is made in that kind of tradition, more like over the top, Naked Gun comedy, where you don�t have the typical � actually let me back up for a second, in the last few years all the big comedies, are love stories. Meet the Fockers, whatever, you have tones of funny comedies, but its all this �boy meets girl�, and in the 80�s we had comedies that were more political, and with Postal we go a little back in the time when the Blues Bothers were there, and I love that movie and I hope also that a lot of people want to see a movie like this, where you don�t have that over and over told romantic comedy. Like even every Adam Sandler comedy now, has made that you get the last 20 minutes, that you sit there and cry in your chair, because everybody's so poor, yeah. I think its time to make an old fashion comedy where you have a blast from beginning to the end.

Some people will be � like my parents, they were very upset with me. They saw 10 minutes and said �How could you do that, this is ridiculous�, and I said �Yeah, but I didn�t make that movie for your generation�. My friends here laughed their asses off, and they love it!

Yug: I think that�s great, I�m personally sick of watching funny movies, like you said, the last 20 minutes the boy gets the girl, its all emotional � what happened to all the funny bits?!

Uwe: Exactly, even to all the people that didn�t get the girl in the end.

Matt: Yeah!

Uwe: That�s the thing, with Postal I felt like after video game based movies, its time to sit down and go back to my roots. I started with German frat movies, like the German version of Kentucky Fried movies, where we made fun out of anything. And funny enough, in 1991 we made a joke, an Iraq show, because there was an Iraq war with Bush�s father as president.

Matt: It�s like deja vu isn�t it.

Uwe: And now, 2006 I�ve made another movie and we have again an Iraq war, and again we�re making fun out of it. To be honest, I�m tired of movies like � I hated the World Trade Center with Nicolas Cage, I cannot believe that Oliver Stone made a movie like this, loosing his critical � lets say �edge�. And �Flags of our Fathers� I thought was one of the worst war movies ever, from Clint Eastward, I couldn�t believe it. If I had directed the Flags of our Fathers, I would have gotten the Raspberry for that, or the Golden Razzies, or whatever for the worst movie of the year. I think its really bad, boring, and after 10 minutes you know exactly what will happen at the end of the movie. And this isn�t also exactly what happens. It�s all a commentary.

Postal gives everybody shit, Tom Cruise gets roasted in Postal with his Scientology shit, all the tree hugging idiots getting grilled, and the Taliban, Islam, the Germans, everybody.

Yug: It sounds great!

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