Sounds good... but I thought the idea of this was not to stick to established tropes and stereotypes.  As you said yourself, evil orcs are somewhat stereotypical--why not, say, have heroic goblins (like Squid has done with Ouskavar in The Lost Invention)?  Of course not all orcs should be heroic, but I don't think they should always be inherently evil. And why should elves always be inherently good, either?  I'd love to see some evil/corrupted elves for a change.  While LotR is great and I can appreciate its influence on the fantasy genre, its influence has become overpowering and cloying in general, so I think it would be better to break away from the mould as it were.

I do really like the idea of having a patchwork of kingdoms and small potentates for the medieval world, with possibly a few Free Cities thrown in here and there as well.

Ditto on the sci-fi stuff, that sounds great.

Yeah, but I'm not sure there is specifically such a thing as "Forest Police"--I mean, there isn't a lot to attract criminals into the forest, compared to, say the city.  On the other hand, being a park ranger could cover a lot from patrolling large areas of wilderness to fighting against illegal logging and poaching.

Well, I would hope it would be obvious that we don't want to rip off anyone.  I just meant the general idea of setting a supernatural crime in a forest.  I also think it would be cool to make it sci-fi or futuristic as well--that way you could have a conflict and contrast between modern technology/forensics and "magic"/supernatural/the unexplained.  Because in that storyline almost nobody believes in supernatural stuff like monsters and people think the creatures are a superstition or myth, the police are way out of their depth when they realize that this isn't just any ordinary crime.  Also this would add great potential for adding in the Agents or Alpha Team, or maybe even Adventurers.  Again, I'm not too sure about adding CIA/FBI conflict stuff, because that has been done to death and I think it would be better to come up with fresh ideas...

EDIT:  That sounds like it's going to be hilarious, Max.  You should really do that.  I'm not sure I would like it as an interactive adventure, though; I think it would be better as a film.

Last edited by Mr Vertigo (September 22, 2013 (12:08pm))

True.  Though I thought the Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit weren't evil per se, but rather morally neutral, or seeking to protect their own interests.  But my point is that elves usually seem to be good, while trolls are pretty much always portrayed as evil.  And yeah, I have seen BrotherHoodWorkshop's clips, and they are indeed hilarious, though they're more of an outright parody and comedy skit/short, rather than a self-contained story.  What I meant is that we should try to stay away from the obvious or well-established tropes/conventions in our films, unless we want to deliberately parody or pay a homage to LotR (or Star Wars, or whatever). 

Hmm, coming to think of it, I think my police story idea would probably work much better as a stand-alone story rather than a part of the BFCU.  If this universe is really eccentric and idiosyncratic it doesn't make a lot of sense for loads of people to be sceptics--and the majority of people in that film would be sceptics, because they belive science has explained everything, or something along those lines.  The conflict between scepticism and the seemingly magical abilities of the mysterious Slenderman-like entity would be a central focus of the film, so it would be difficult to work around that.  On the other hand, maybe it could just take place in an alternate universe or timeline, or something like that.

Oh yeah, and while I'm pretty sure that a specific CIA/Forest Police conflict has never been done before, I was more referring to the general characterization.  What I meant was that portraying an intelligence agency as either "the good guys who get everything done" or "the jerks who basically mess up everything and make life hard for our protagonist(s)" is pretty cliched and has been done to death (OK, so this is a huge oversimplification, but you get what I mean).  Besides, it seems kinda weird to me to throw in real-life agencies like the CIA or FBI into this universe which is clearly fictional and has no semblance to the real world--what with magic everywhere, and medieval kingdoms and fantasy worlds and sci-fi futures all co-existing simultaneously and stuff.  I think it would be much more interesting to have a fictional intelligence agency that is morally ambiguous--they either obstruct or assist the heroes depending on whether or not it suits their needs (this would potentially create a lot more tension too as nobody knows what their true motives are).  They don't really form a central presence in the film, but  are always lurking around the edges, watching and waiting....  Of course, this isn't to say we could have agencies that are rivals and stuff.

Last edited by Mr Vertigo (September 25, 2013 (03:28pm))

Just thought - should we do a Halloween collab? I mean, if we each did a short animation that was something Halloween-y, all set in the BFCU, and then each video would have a link at the end to the others. It might actually be a good starting point for us.

E.g., someone could do a Castle one that's all haunted ruins and walking skeletons, someone could do a City Halloween thing where a real monster is on the loose but everyone thinks it's a trick-or-treater (just an idea, not a very good one, I know), someone could have a Pumpkin-headed character, and so on.

If we were going to do that, we'd need to start co-ordinating it now. Thoughts?

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

I think I remember him from the Minifig Critique thread...

I think that could work. A Halloween-powered superhero would be fun. What are his powers, and who would his enemy(ies) be? Could they be another, lesser-known holiday, like Meal Monday or Singles Awareness Day (just as some examples of 'holidays' nobody knows about).

I have an idea for a castle one, about this guy called Oneiro. The minifig will be massively updated, but I have the whole thing planned out. Part of it would be narrated but the rest would be like the Fantasia 'Night on Bald Mountain' thing, when you see Oneiro sending nightmares to peoples' homes.

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

I has story idea!
So, it's space, Year: FarFuture. And Earth has discovered a new planet they call, Planet K, and plans to research on it's "uninhabited" land. The gravity is much too unstable to sustain anything living (so they thought) so they were able to build a large, tube-like device that made the gravity levels just like on earth. The natives aren't happy about that. An fleet of natives are sent onto the human space station to destroy the machine and their operation. Will they be victorious?
Main Character: (I'll try to post a picture and bio in the character thread) Think Tom Cruise in a space suit. Classic action hero: Good looks, heroic, brave, but all in proportion.
Bad guys: Obviously the Natives. They will destroy anyone in their way to stop what the humans are doing on their planet. Ugly creatures that show no mercy.

I was also thinking, there could be and epic fight scene where Hero and Native are fighting... and falling. They are falling through the tube 'cause they fell or something, battling each other, all as our here is trying to turn the machine off so they don't fall splat! That in my opinion would be epic.

I hope you guys like it. I'd say it would be about four minutes long in total because I don't think it would need too much plot development.
Thanks!

Gee, what kinda sucks is that I agree with you. Forget that idea then, too many bugs. I shall be back when I get better at ideas!

I never saw Avatar. Probably could have helped if I did.

I'm not entirely sure. FlyingMinifig, what's your status? (on that animation you had plans for? assuming I'm not getting confused)

I'm going to start Vampire Council soon.

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

Ah, okay.

Same here…Istari Halloween royally flopped

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein