Five Rules To Making A Successful Zelda Movie!

In my opinion, Zelda has a lot of potential for a movie (or series of movies) because the setting and plots of each game is so original, even for fantasy. I mean, where else but Zelda do you get friendly rock-people, non-mermaid-esque fish people, plant people that are more akin to shrubs than trees and shoot nuts out their snouts, giant armed dogs/pigs, and a tribe of vicious female thieves?

So a movie could be cool without overly ripping off Lord of the Rings. But, unfortunately, video game movies often (if not always) suck for the very reason that movies and games are two different animals and Hollywood producers are idiots who can't figure out how to correctly translate them to film. So, here are my five rules to making a good Zelda movie, in case Nintendo ever sells the rights.


1. Keep Time Travel To A Minimum

This might get some backlash from some Ocarina of Time fans (of which I actually am), but unless the entire plot revolves around Link specifically going to a certain time period with a device (i.e., the Ocarina) and is mostly about how he deals with the disorientation of the time period, or how he escapes from the time period, time travel could get very confusing very quickly. Zelda has always been, at its core, about a boy's journey to save his land from the forces of evil. The time travel was a little frosting on top that worked wonders for cool puzzles and gameplay, but would be unnecessarily complex in a movie. I mean, what's the real point of having Link start as a kid only to find out that he can't be the Hero of Time unless he's seventeen? Why not just start him out at the proper age? In movies, time travel only works when it's the central driving force of the plot, but, honestly, in Ocarina of Time, it is not. Even less so in the rest of the Zelda series as a whole. So very little (if any) time travel.

2. Combine The Plots Of Many Games

The Zelda series is notorious for having fairly good storylines as far as video games go, but movies are different animals. A straight adaptation would just not work very well, yet if there were no elements of any game's plot, it wouldn't feel much like Zelda. So I would combine parts of different games, especially ones with similar concepts. The two best combinations that I can think of (and it could be how they do two movies) is one film with a plot that's derived from OoT, and TP, with some LttP thrown in for good measure, and another with a plot derived mainly from LA and MM, with a little bit of tWW and AoL thrown in. Basically, the first film would have Link start out as a teenage farmer, ala TP, perhaps working on Lon Lon Ranch, when, during a milk run at the castle, there's an attack and he meets Zelda, who, ala OoT, tells him about Ganondorf and his evil scheme. The other one could have Link, who had set out on a personal voyage after the events of the first, being shipwrecked on an Island that seems to be a parallel world to Hyrule and is about to be destroyed in three days unless he wakes the Windfish. Something like that...

3. Keep The Dungeon Crawling To A Minimum

A staple of Zelda games is the countless dungeons filled with traps and puzzles that Link must trek through to find pendants, or stones, or mirror pieces, or medallions, or shadows, or instruments, or essences, or Triforce pieces, etc, etc, etc. This works great in the games because it nicely divides the quest into easy to manage missions/levels. But in a movie, if Link kept going through dungeon upon temple upon cave upon castle, it would get really repetitive (and boring) really quickly. Instead, much of the plot should focus more on the sidequest-type parts of the games, with Link helping people out and exorcising monsters from towns rather than dungeons. However, there should be at least one dungeon, as a nod to the fans, where they could even joke about the typical conventions of Zelda levels. But only once! And no heart pieces, maps, or compasses! Well, maybe a map...

4. Give Link Some Friends

The one thing above all else that presents a problem when translating Zelda to a movie is that, aside from a few fairies and a talking boat, Link travels alone. But movies need multiple characters to create conflicts. So how do you solve this problem without completely going against the games? By taking some side characters from the games who you would just talk to, and giving them expanded roles. You would, of course have Link and some sort of guide character (I'd do a fairy, since Navi is one of the most memorable of his companions directly from the games, but you could easily do something else) who would offer the exposition, but who else? Well, the first character that comes to my mind is Sheik. There are plenty of posters and art from Ocarina of Time that showed Link and Sheik fighting together, so it would not be a stretch at all. And, assuming you keep the whole SHEIKISZELDA twist, it would make for a better ending if she's been with Link the whole time (instead of disappearing). But three characters still might not be enough, which is why I'd also give Link a Goron companion, mostly because I love Gorons, but also because Gorons are the most popular race from the games, they're kind of dim (which could make for good comic relief) but would still be useful due to their size, and they're just plain cool. Plus, who doesn't like fat rocky guys?

5. Keep The Music Of The Games

When choosing a composer for the Zelda movie, you have to find somebody who is a fan of the games' scores. Zelda's score is one of the most recognizable (and one of the best) scores in videogames, and it would be a disgrace to not use an epic theatrical version of the theme for the main titles. But you can't just stop there. You also need to use other themes from Zelda,too, peppered throughout at clever moments. Use Ganon's theme when he makes his big entrance, use the castle theme from LttP when Hyrule Castle is being sieged. Use the OoT Master Sword theme mixed with the main theme to LttP when Link first grabs the weapon. And, God, oh God, if you don't use the "puzzle solved" jingle when Link solves a puzzle, don't even bother making the movie!

And that's how you can make a good/great Zelda movie without upsetting the fans too much! Now I can't wait until Hollywood buys the rights and completely ignores everything I just typed! Yay!

So long, and thanks for all the fish!