Netflix’s Gears of War Movie Should Expand On A Theme From The Games

The pitch for the Gears of War movie must have been challenging. It’s a mixed bag. On one hand, the draw of the franchise rests entirely on the gameplay. No one watches longplays or lore videos. This is an experience for the person holding the controller. Conversely, the visual component of the action can be spectacular. A film adaptation needs something beyond fire and blood to succeed. Ironically, the fact that war is the only string to Gears‘ bow is a narrative statement within itself.

Netflix quickly became the home of video game adaptations. Their animated series like Castlevania and Captain Laserhawk are their crown jewel, thanks to Adi Shankar. They have several live-action video game films coming down the pipe. BioShock, Beyond Good & Evil, Dragon’s Lair, Horizon Zero Dawn, and more enjoyed announcements with few additional notes. Gears of War was pitched as a film the year after it came out, and Netflix seems to be close to bringing it to the small screen.

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Gears of War is an action-packed franchise

Gears of War is primarily known to non-fans for two things. It popularized the third-person cover-based shooter format that was inescapable from the late 2000s to the early 2010s and featured chainsaw bayonets. Those are the twin icons of the franchise to those who weren’t interested. Its influence was undeniable, and every game was immensely successful, but the series drew a specific audience. The gameplay consists of wall-to-wall intensity. Countless enemies explode into goo between the occasional gigantic set piece. Any game that communicates its action through chainsaws, shotguns, and skull-crushing stomps delivers groundbreaking gore. The characters, plot, and visuals are set dressing for the violence. That sort of relentless brutality would become monotonous in a hurry. They’re not making a Terrifier sequel. They need something other than shouting and shotguns to help the project work.

But there’s more to the games.

Remember the Hammer of Dawn? It’s one of the franchise’s most iconic weapons, an orbital laser that devastates anything it strikes. Players can call it down as effortlessly as they’d aim a gun and watch their foe be disintegrated by the most catastrophic technological innovation in human history. It was invented before the Locusts invaded. When Professor and Marcus’s dad, Adam Fenix, imagined finishing the design, he considered it the end of war as a concept. He stated,

Someone has to break the cycle. Someone has to create weapons so powerful that if politicians want to wage war, they’ll face the same death as the men and women sent to fight it. A deterrent. A damn big deterrent. I can build a deterrent that’ll bring governments to their sense. An orbital weapons system. That’s my duty now.

His logic was sound, but he was wrong. He escalated conflict to a new level, intending to end it, making the same mistake societies have made for generations. The evolution of weaponry invites new challenges, necessitating new weaponry, and so on. The Hammer of Dawn is an excellent example of the commentary Gears of War can provide, but they’re unfortunately few and far between.

Netflix can explore Gears of War‘s deeper themes

The version of Gears of War set to appear on Netflix began life in 2016. The producer, Scott Stuber, The Coalition’s Rod Fergusson, and co-writer Shane Salerno have offered little about the film. Fergusson frustratingly mentioned that the film’s place in the timeline has been determined but declined to announce it. Paradoxically, he said, “the movie won’t be based on one of the games, but a new story set in the universe.” Two years later, he said the opposite. Gears of War will or won’t take place in the franchise’s narrative and could occur anytime up or down the timeline. The general order is that fans can expect something new. This allows a wider purview and the opportunity to explore new angles of the conflict.

Gears of War is a franchise known for its violence. The only way to turn an experience crafted for an interactive medium is to add something new. A game like Gears of War isn’t expected to spend half its disc space intricately unpacking the cost of eternal war. A film must go deeper. The viability of Netflix’s Gears of War is contingent on it finding something worthwhile to say about the soul-crushing conflict that dominates every aspect of its world. As the escalating Hammer of Dawn strikes turn the atmosphere into a hellscape, they’ll almost have to try to miss the symbolism. No one ever accused Gears of subtlety.

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