Battlezone Forums

According to Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion...

We licensed Battlezone, our Ex Atari classic title, to be used in this light-hearted movie:

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2398335257/

Battlezone (arcade) was already licensed/used in Wreck-It Ralph. Once again, the name/license for Battlezone is more attached to the 1980s wireframe tank shooter than the 1998/1999 titles that these forums are dedicated to.

-- GSH

Yes, the evidence we have does indeed say Rebellion only own the name for the 1980s Atari title. Wasn't aware they had licensed it for Wreck-It Ralph, though. That's interesting.

I'm pretty sure I saw Battlezone listed in the *many* companies/products listed in WIR's end credits. Most of those products only got a background glimpse in that 'Grand central station' interchange. It's been over a year since I saw that movie (and only a rental) so I can't conclusively verify that BZ was in there.

-- GSH

It'd be interesting though if they actually do use the iconic wireframe tank in the movie. Judging the the trailer, I think it'd be awesome to have it rolling down the streets like Pac Man, but blasting buildings in half.

It seems that they are willing the license the name out. Interesting.

Yea, but you guys realize that single transaction took 10 credits at least - it's not "just a license", but everyone's payrolls involved. Movies are big business, we revel in patience and delivery. GSH is right, we are more interested in the cliche' wireframe/tron look. Although, when I passed that idea and a few examples to modders, they laughed me off. I could wireframe every model texture in the game using a robot in a day, but they want HD shadows. (but bz is not by any definition an hd game... lol)

IMHO whatever reference exists -- it's likely the back of a crate/arcade or passing notion. Look at your main actors, they don't have material for Battlezone. It's the wrong setting for crazy hover tanks -- people want and pay for Pacman - Kong - Space Invaders, because that's what the real $$ was spent on. BZ likely went for less than 20k, if 10k, maybe just given away for free as a publicity stunt because the title is dead. I'm still making stuff, but that's different, the ratio loss we'll suffer this year of New Incoming/Old Leaving defines BZ2 dead and BZ1 about to die - so I think it went for 3k. ...eh I'll change to 100$.

How much do you actually think 3-5 seconds of BZ is worth to the modern audience? Skrillex got less than 1 (24fps) in Wreck It Ralph, let's use that as a reference point.

That's not the point I was making. Rebellion Developments - best known as a games company - seems to have purchased the Battlezone name with the express purpose of licensing it out. That means they're likely not making any Battlezone games with it. Of course, this isn't the first time Rebellion licensed one of their IPs out for filmmaking either - the most obvious example is Dredd, a hugely underrated film.

The source I was referring to was explicitly saying they did not purchase the Activision IP that was licensed from the same name. If they did, Rebellion absolutely would be the people to develop it further.

Psyringe wrote:GSH is right, we are more interested in the cliche' wireframe/tron look. Although, when I passed that idea and a few examples to modders, they laughed me off. I could wireframe every model texture in the game using a robot in a day, but they want HD shadows.

Dunno who it was that laughed you off, I find the concept interesting and recent discoveries have revealed it might be possible to have tanks in BZ1 render as wireframes. Still a long ways off from actually implementing it, currently it causes a crash, but it sure would be neat. Transparency in BZ1 is possible as well, the underlying code for it exists but so far trying to use it has just made things invisible.

Just as well, HD shadows aren't on the wishlist of anyone that I know of. BZ2 already has it (though a bit buggy) and BZ1 had HD shadows in it's early alpha (though I'm told the colours on screen would invert any time the camera entered the region of a shadow, ew). BZ1 players, and modders as well, aren't looking for fancy shadows, though it would be nice if they weren't drawn directly onto the light layer because that does mean they will linger permanently even after a building is destroyed, fortunately it's possible to simply disable building shadows entirely in the TRN file if you need shadows to be disabled on a map.

I realize you were just giving examples, so forgive the nitpicking.

Rebellion Developments - best known as a games company - seems to have purchased the Battlezone name with the express purpose of licensing it out.

Good point. I missed that.

I realize you were just giving examples, so forgive the nitpicking.

Nah, it's all good. It doesn't change the fact that right now distribution and ticks are going to hit an all time low this year and if we don't react *yesterday* it's going to be permanent. So I mean, even if we were doing continued modding of the games -- the community is bleeding out faster than the iv can put people back in, metaphorically speaking.

I was more interested in the idea of how much the license was worth to Paramount and Sandler's people, because the other "commercial-worthy" titles are getting facetime. Rebellion may have rights, but it really brings out the curiosity of what it's actually worth at this point in time.

I bet if they licensed it to a movie titled "The Tank Battlezone", a game would soon follow. Maybe they're waiting for that - the collab effort.

AHadley wrote:...the most obvious example is Dredd, a hugely underrated film.

The irony is, I just rented that movie earlier today... Gonna watch it in the next day or so probably.


Speaking of the original Battlezone game, I remember playing the old wireframe one ages ago. Fun little shooter, but don't think I ever got "far" in it. Far as its use in Wreck-it Ralph, I'll have to watch the movie again to know for sure in the Hub. I may have seen it roughly 4 times by now, but very small details like that I tend to miss unless I'm really scanning for it.

TwinShadow wrote:

AHadley wrote:...the most obvious example is Dredd, a hugely underrated film.

The irony is, I just rented that movie earlier today... Gonna watch it in the next day or so probably.

I was quite impressed by how well it showed off Karl Urban's acting. That said, I did also hear his billing (accurately) described as "Karl Urban's Chin as Grumpy Cat"

Speaking of legal challenges, once Warner Bros ever gets around to producing Ernest Cline's 'Ready Player One', the licensing phase will be a nightmare. The novel specifically mentions and "uses" tons of old 80's games.

GSH wrote:I'm pretty sure I saw Battlezone listed in the *many* companies/products listed in WIR's end credits. Most of those products only got a background glimpse in that 'Grand central station' interchange. It's been over a year since I saw that movie (and only a rental) so I can't conclusively verify that BZ was in there.

-- GSH

I've recently seen it and without really searching for any reference to BZ it may just be the 'escape pod' that is what is used from BZ.
Remember getting those flying things coming at you a bit later in the game? The escape pod reminded me of those.

I'll tell you exactly where it is - in the intro, during the "30 Years Ago" fast forward sequence, two machines to the right.

Time Stamp: 2:13 - 2:19, roughly 5.5 seconds of screen-time. It's replaced with Frogger.

It's the oldschool retro Battlezone Arcade machine. It's not the pod. I'm sure the sequence is on YouTube.