Twisted Metal
Peacock just can’t make adaptations.
So I just finished watching the Twisted Metal series, and the thing is awful. Not only it basically ignores everything in the games it creates an unsustainable narrative alienating the longtime fans and repelling new ones.
The story relies heavily on vulgar adolescent comedy which never lands a single joke, the timing is all wrong. The action looks worse than a school project or a really crappy TV movie. Even when the cars are supposed to go fast they just speedup the shot, that was made in Batman from 1966, I think they could have hired a good driver for that. It has great actors but they are following a terrible script which make them see go to waste.
The series goes from bad to worst reaching peak at episode 6 where I suppose the creators tried to make some sort of character development but it only feels the network gave them 1 too many episodes and ended making a bottle episode to save money. But don’t fear, that doesn’t means the show gets better, it actually gets constant on the terrible, but at least there is a change of scenery every.
That’s another point, to be a show based on a demolition derby with madness to the extreme they spend an awful amount of time in little rooms. You never feel the size of the cities or the emotion of the highways, just some backroads and dirt roads if you are lucky.
None of the characters have any
development or anything to make them feel relatable, they are just there things
happen and is over. They present a character 5 seconds and is dead in the next
scene, which is the funeral and we are supposed to be all emotional for some
character who did nothing but deliver a of fart joke, poorly. And to finish killing the franchise all the cars are models after the year 2000 making them useless pieces of plastic with computers that should have been fried by then.
Even worse than all of that the essence of the story the idea of all fighting for the same prize, and the magical element to it is gone, there is no mystery, no wondering if the prize is real, hell even Calypso is there just to check a box.
This show feels completely off, even more because they put things in it from the game but are completely forced to be there and creating a completely different direction which is lost 20 seconds later. Putting things from the game doesn’t make it an adaptation, it can look nothing like it and be a good adaptation or being identical and has nothing to do with it.
Now I gave this show 2 stars, making some parts watchable doesn't make it a good show.
**
Well now I have heard “Well, can you do something better?” and my answer is “Of course I can”
Here are my takes on how could this have been handled.
We can start chronologically
First season could be Twisted Metal Black.
Start with a family driving on the highway when there is a massive collision in the highway, the father ends up horrible burned and crawling from the car but a shadow looms over him. Cut to 4 years later in the Blackfield Asylum, the guards reading a newspaper talking about crime and destruction which happens around that time of the year and one say he heard about an underground tournament which the prize is a wish, the other mocking him asks, “Like a genie? That’s nonsense magic isn’t real” and a voice calls from the other side of the counter “Oh but is true” and we see Calypso on the other side (Thinking Bruce Willis would do great for TMB Calypso) They we see Calypso giving his invitation speech to all the racers, same speech just changing the one hearing it and at the end we could see a divided screen on everyone’s desires and a cut to all the faces looking at it in surprise, I thought the screen division could look like a Brocken mirror. Anyway, as the series advance we could center on the racers from the game who had the better developments, like Stone, John Doe, Dollface, anyway keeping the brooding of all the characters and the intention they want to get their desire.
After the drivers get broken out of the Asylum Calypso ask them permission to modify their cars he got from the police impound, with someone like Agent Stone asking him something around “You already break us out and we agreed to your circus why do you ask our permission to modify the vehicles?” And Calypso just answer something like “It always adds to be polite” but also giving a little hint on him having certain limits to his power. Also we could see a montage of John Doe not having a car and being dropped at a junkyard and putting one together with everything he found, you know, like in the game. And every episode a different stage of the game.
Every episode would be a little more of the story of that family who crashed, which if by this point you still don’t know the father is Calypso and that is how he got his powers. How he got the idea of the tournament so he put criminals to kill each other in cars so the demons would be too busy with new bad guys dying in cars so they don’t realize he is not in hell. But also we would be following the story of the drivers and see how they develop. Here is one idea my brother had which is they could get famous cameos to play any of the racers and kill them in one episode. Reaching the end of the season all the drivers left would be the ones we are invested the most, and because is the Twisted Metal Black almost all of them can win because they don’t affect the story.
We could even make shorts of what the drivers do between races, like the animations they released with the TMB by S4 Studios that way we could even see
Twisted Metal 1
Could be Second Season or the first if you don’t want to go so dark on the first season going all maniacs and serial killers.
The season starts with a glimpse of the previous season (This if we went with TMB being the first season, if this is the first season then we start with the car crash) and after that we cut to 5 years later and on the TV a reporter talking about the new sensation Tournament that has captured viewers all across the world for the past 3 years. Then we see an email invitation for Twisted Metal, we again see it in a similar format to the previous one, a montage of all the drivers reading the email and as it progress we see the cars leaving for the tournament. The email would be read by Calypso off camera (I think for now on Calypso could be played by Matt Mercer) but now Calypso will not interact with the drivers, will be the host of the tournament but always from afar.
So the first episode would be a little meet and greet with the new drivers and the first stage of the tournament but at the end we would get the twist, Calypso announcing the next level would be on the streets of LA.
As we advance the story we get to know better the drivers and some would except by Mr. Grimm and Mr. Ash by obvious reasons (They are Death and Satan and they are there to kill Calypso) So the tournament goes on and again we are thinning the heard until the last episode in which Outlaw wins, why, because is how the canon story goes and give for a good ending (Yes I know Roadkill has a good one too, but this way we get a lighter ending)
In this season we can also give the civilian perspective because in the game there were civilians trying to protect the city and the reactions of all different drivers having to face innocent bystanders. Some like Sweet Tooth and Hammerhead getting excited by the extra features in the fight, Crimson Fury and Pit Viper completely unfaced, just another job, and Outlaw and Specter trying to avoid them knowing they are just protecting their own.
Twisted Metal 2
Next Season will start with the game intro (Why try to change perfection?) The season will work pretty much like the previous one but now all over the world (Yes even Minion in the Amazonian) but here is where we can get creative, choosing different places in the world, places we know are very well known across the world, and destroy them. But not only that, because we will introduce Marcus Kane (If you saw the show you’ll think that is Sweet Tooth, but no, he is Needles Kane) with him starting to show there is something weird with the world (Marcus Kane knows this world is not real, is all a dream) and through the season he will be kind of a shadow giving bits of information making it sound like he is crazy and never talking about his past.
Again every episode a stage from the game, maybe changing some, like Amazonia for Rio to give it a more urban setting, anyway, this year Marcus Win the tournament and his wish is to wake up and he does, wakes up in the hospital and when we see the rest of the wing are all the other drivers who were in the highway crash and all are in a coma. But it doesn’t end there, we see Calypso walking through the wreckage of his games and find the Krista Sparks, the driver of Grasshopper, and she call him dad, Calypso realizes she is his daughter he thought dead year ago in that car crash when he got his powers, she dies in his arms and in that moment he realizes she was not his actual daughter but was rebuilt by the LAPD as an android with a bomb inside to take him out. This gets Calypso furious and swears revenge on the whole world.
Twisted Metal 2012
In this season we would take the Twisted Metal made for PS3, and will be kind of the series, but done right.
Here Calypso has made the Twisted Metal a global event, like the World Cup, making every region choose their champion and the champion fight in the tournament for the one wish a year, turning the whole world in thematic gangs like the game; Clowns, Dolls, Skulls and Holy men. Each lead by their respective main character. While on the real world Marcus keep having nightmares of that world, he can’t have a night’s rest due to that and thinks he needs to find a solution. Marcus study and finds out that Calypso is the one holding everyone there, holding Minion’s powers, but no matter if Calypso’s body dies the tournament will continue forever, he needs to stop him inside the dream world because his reach is leaking into the dreams of the whole world. Marcus finds an experimental drug called Red Mercury (See what I did there?) which helps him get inside the twisted metal world completely aware of it but the more he use it the more he takes to wake up, so every time he use it he might never wake up again.
Marcus joins forces with Mr. Ash, Mr. Grimm and Minion to bring down Calypso, but first he needs to get with Needles Kane AKA: Sweet Tooth who up to this point we think is his brother, but actually they are the same psyche only Marcus is the conscious side and Needles the dark side so is a way to accept himself, the good and the bad.
Calypso gets notice of Marcus being back and has his sights on him so learns about his plan, he keeps trying to stop him but they earn the right to participate in the tournament. They win and with a simple wish Calypso is defeated and they all disappear, except for Marcus and Needles who stay there and Marcus apologize to Needles saying they might never wake up due to the Red Mercury, and Needles say something like “Don’t worry, I don’t think I would fit anywhere else but here” we can play with an after credits scene making a hint that Marcus wakes up only using audio giving him a happy ending.
Now this is not the end of the series necessarily, if you like it can be extended, Calypso coming back is easy, he did it once already.
Also I added a little from the Twisted Metal Head on in this last season to keep it spicy
Well now a quick treatment of the abortion of series peacock made.
Well you should have to use the 2012 game as base, to get the gangs but have to do it right, John going from region to region, Sweet Tooth with his clown followers, then instead of twister get Dollface with all the dolls because women support each other or whatever, what they used as Holy men should actually be Skulls with Mr. Grimm and adding the Lawmen, each controlling an area of the country, that way you have 5 factions for 10 episodes so one episode each while going and one episode coming back and at the end a big free for all among the 5 factions and John Doe with a group of characters from the game. This way we would have technically 6 factions, 3 we root for and 3 we really don’t want to mess with. Also make Calypso the one who sends him for something to cross the country, reduce the sexual content because gets way too unnecessary.
See? I made a more faithful treatment in an afternoon for free, than this morons did for god knows how much money.
