What's Next for Netflix?

by Evan Deane

In recent years, the popular subscription-based TV streaming service, Netflix, has had great success with creating their own shows rather than hosting other popular shows. Programs such as Orange is the New Black and House of Cards have received several awards such as The Satellite Award for Best Cast and a TCA award for Outstanding New Program. That being said, Netflix newest project is sure to stir up some controversy.

 

In motion is a collaboration between Netflix and popular video game company, Nintendo. Netflix is reportedly working on a live-action TV series based on the Legend of Zelda series. First reported by The Wall Street Journal, the show is still in its very early stages, and has yet to even find a writer for the show.

Nintendo has been weary of film and television adaptations of their intellectual properties since the commercial failure of the “Super Mario Bros.” movie back in the 1990s. Nintendo also had several TV shows back in the 80’s and 90’s. The first of which was a show simply titled “The Legend of Zelda”. It was an animated show, as opposed to the live-action show rumored to be coming to Netflix, and only lasted one season. The other was the “Super Mario Brothers Super Show!” Again, another animated adaptation of Nintendo’s famous mustached plumber. Neither of the two did particularly well.

But having 20 years passed, Nintendo seems to be a bit more willing to experiment with their popular video game franchises. After all, it was confirmed a few months back that Nintendo were ready to take another crack at a Super Mario Bros. movie, this time animated, with the help of Sony, of all companies.

Netflix seems to be describing the new Legend of Zelda series as similar to Game of Thrones but with a more light-hearted, kid-friendly tone. Hopefully, “kid-friendly” doesn’t translate to painfully tame, but in stages as early as this it is difficult to tell. Netflix will reportedly be working very closely with Nintendo and Japanese game developers who have been pumping out games in the Legend of Zelda series for the past 28 years. However, the show playing it too safe isn’t the only potential issue seen by fans of the series.

Now, what makes the Legend of Zelda games so good is the visual aesthetics, immersive gameplay, and expert level-design -- not necessarily the story. Yes, it is true that Zelda games have story-telling elements to them, but I think most fans would agree that the stories are nothing special. They may be memorable, but not stand-alone experiences by any stretch of the imagination.

And the same problem goes for the characters populating the series. The series main character, Link, has been mute for decades now, never seeing so much as a cut scene or voice-over in even his most recent games. The closest our hero has come to speaking has been awkwardly grunting as he gets slashed with a sword. And maybe that’s for the better. At this point in the series, assigning a distinct voice to a character fans have known for nearly 30 years would be very strange.

But apart from Link, are any of the other characters in the Zelda series interesting? Many would say “nope”. We have Zelda, the series’ damsel in distress who is arguably there in most of the series to give Link a purpose to his adventure. Then there’s Ganondorf, who is just the series’ villain and nothing more. There is little to nothing to these characters, and their back stories are almost non-existent. This could pose a big problem for the writers of the show, who would need to write everything from the ground up, having very little to go on.

Portraying the series characters could prove to be challenging too. Because the show is live-action, there would need to be an actor fit enough to play the parts these characters down to a T. I can envision passionate fans of the series being angry that the actor chose to play Link doesn’t resemble like his video-game counterpart.

Also, bringing the world of Zelda to life in a real-world setting would be insanely expensive. There is some serious doubt that Netflix would be able to fund such a large project to bring this vision to fruition without cutting some serious corners. Creating such a lively and fantasy-driven world would rely heavily on costuming and makeup departments, and even more on CGI. The cost of this would certainly be more than any amount of funding Netflix needed to create Orange Is the New Black or House of Cards and possibly even more than HBO uses to produce Game of Thrones.

Finally if this show did become a reality, I can’t imagine Nintendo would be terribly easy to work with. The Mario and Zelda series have already been butchered in the past, so it’s entirely possible that Nintendo would give Netflix complete and total control to the point where they could take any single idea and just run with it, in which case there is the possibility that the show may not resemble the games in the slightest.

On the other hand, Nintendo seems to have been protecting themselves more and more as of late. The company could go and nitpick every single thing the creators try to do with the show. If Nintendo themselves, who haven’t the slightest clue of how to make a TV show, have too much control they could drive the creators absolutely insane, and force them to cut the show before it even comes into its own.

And yet, with everything the show has going against it, I find myself asking, why not? It’s sad to say that most every video game to movie or video game to TV show adaptation has been just okay at best, but who knows, maybe this show could set a new standard for such adaptations. If Netflix wants to sink thousands upon thousands of dollars into a Legend of Zelda inspired TV show, I’m certainly not going to stop them. I think I speak for every fan of the series when I say whether the show is a huge hit or a commercial failure, it wouldn’t tarnish my many years of appreciation I have for the series. In my mind the games would be very separate from the TV show and I am just extremely interested to see how it turns out. The show is an experiment at best, and it would be very difficult to truly “ruin” an entire video game series just because of one bad interpretation.

While Nintendo may have found most of their success with video games, they certainly aren’t afraid to step outside of their comfort zone. Before deciding on video games, they were everything from a playing card company, to a toy company, and even the more scandalous of choices, a love hotel -- so who’s to say they can’t also make a great TV show? Both Netflix and Nintendo have a long way to go before the Legend of Zelda TV show becomes a reality, let’s just hope the project isn’t killed off before then.