Full Throttle: The Movie (with edited in-game footage)

(For completeness sake, this thread will contain Full Throttle spoilers)

A short while back, I was inspired by a small group that was putting together a Knights of the Old Republic movie by simply making use of the in-game footage and the cinematic that appear in the game(I believe Kaydon_Sentry, if that's his nick, had made a thread about it in this forum and the fan films forum). It was something that I had been thinking about earlier m'self when I bought the game, but I never really got around to it, due to the fact that I was unable to capture any sort of footage. Plus, the main character would have to be voiced, and uh, *cough* I'm not exactly a voice actor(to put it mildly). I tried something similiar with Rebel Assault 2 a few years earlier by capturing frame-by-frame using the cheat codes, but never got around to completely finish it.

In any case, when I did manage to find a few neat utilities that allowed me to capture footage from the screen, I decided to try and give it a go of my own. Basically, I wanted a game that #1. Is completely voiced by characters and #2. Not too long. Frankly, Lucasarts' old adventure game Full Throttle fits the bill for this little project. The game features a nice storyline with interesting characters, and frankly, the game is short. I finished the game in only a few hours, but definately entertained me.

So, I decided to go with it. What I did want to avoid is creating a movie which is just basically me playing the game, which is just boring. So I do get to have some fun with hiding the GUI, deciding what to put in and what to cut. Everything that would remind me too much of it being an adventure instead of a simple movie, I wanted that removed as much as I can. If necessary, swap scenes, add or remove minor things, and have different cuts.

A fine example of this would be the chase scene halfway through the game when Ben has to chase after Maureen from her Mink ranch, a scene that I completed a few days back. It's quite an entertaining scene, leading up to an explosive ending when a bridge and the truck is obliberated by the Cave Fish. However, the scene afterwards, in my opinion, isn't. Ben has to drive through a few canyons, attack random gang members to gain items, and be chased by the goons, so that by the end, he has all the items he needs to jump the bridge. Honestly, I hated this sequence, couldn't wait for it to end and continue with the storyline. And for the movie that I'm building, I honestly didn't want some silly subplot where Ben has to do all these random things to jump the bridge.

On the other hand, I did want to have a large part of the chase in there, as well as the jump. My earlier thoughts was that I would simply make a simple montage of Ben doing all that stuff. It might hurt the pacing a bit, but would solve my problem and keep the chase in there. Once I got to this scene, however, I had a different plan on doing it. By editing various in-game movies together, I had the following...

1. When Ben is chasing Maureen, he is immediately followed by the goons.
2. Ben's booster fuel was never removed by Maureen. Rather, when he is about to activate it, he's interrupted by the truck.
3. When the trucker removes his cargo, we see Ben safely passing it, while the Goons crash.
4. Once the bridge is destroyed and the Cave Fish retreats, we cut to Ben activating his booster and jumping the bridge. The shot of Ben's bike going straight to the bridge has been modified to remove the ramp.

There are only two problems that I can really see so far with this. First is that I'm unable to introduce the Polecat leader who shows up to give a few pointers, and also appears at the funeral in the ending cinematic. However, his role is small, so it isn't too much of a problem. Second is that Ben activates a hover mechanism when he jumps the bridge which basically seems to come out of nowhere. I'm practically going with this by saying that Ben's Bike is like R2. It has the right gadget for the right moment when it's needed.

Nonetheless, I'm very satisfied how thi

 

Very nice. Full Throttle was always one of my favorite games that came out of LA's adventure era. The only thing I disagree with you on is that I always LOVED the fighting part of the game where you gathered all the equipment for the jump. The part I really hated was that blasted demolition derby! All in all I'd say you did an excellent job and I'm interested in seeing the finished product.

 

Full Throttle was always one of my favorite games that came out of LA's adventure era.

Well, I'd hesitate to call it one of my favorites of theirs, but it's certainly an excellent vintage Lucasarts adventure game from those days. It's a pity that it's so short. I certainly liked Ben in a way tho', he's rather different from the goofy characters they used to have.

The only thing I disagree with you on is that I always LOVED the fighting part of the game where you gathered all the equipment for the jump.

Well, it seemed to come a bit out of nowhere for me, and I disliked that it felt rather random at times(you had to wait for the right biker to show up and such). Plus, the fact that I was awful at the action scenes didn't help either I'm rather glad that I found out about the shift-v feature to skip the fights when I started 'filming'. Definately saved some time with that.

The part I really hated was that blasted demolition derby!

Don't get me started with that one either. Took me ages(felt like it, anyway) to find out that it was a puzzle stuck in an action mini-game. Been doing some more editing just now, and just reached the demolition derby part. I skipped the start of the Corley Motors bit, and have Ben immediately arrive at the Vulture hideout after completing the chase on the highway. It's a bit of a shame that I had to drop the amusing way to clear the minefield, but can't have everything. So far, I've captured the music, captured the sound, captured the voices... now to capture footage and edit it all together. I have a bit of a plan on how I'm gonna do this, and I hope it won't be too much of a problem. Wish me luck.

 

Just would like to up this once... did quite a bit of editing for the past two days, and just got to the final showdown. Everything's coming together pretty nicely, and I think that the whole movie will be about an hour.

 

It's a bit of a shame that I had to drop the amusing way to clear the minefield, but can't have everything

Man, then you had to cut out my favorite line! "Now it's just me and the bunnies"