New Rogue Trooper Film!!

[The Legendary Shark]

All he's got to do is fall into a river.

[Steve Green]

I don't think I would be that bothered if the Traitor General was ditched or substantially changed so he's a bit less Hooded Claw/Bond Villain.

The Clavell stuff of confronting your creators is very Blade Runner too.

For me Rogue's been more about the journey rather than the destination - there's an abundance of interesting visuals in the strip, from terrible hallucinations with the Dreamweavers, bio wire crawling into suits, the mad tech of drills, decapitators and hard rain - but what story to tell is a tough one.

Seems like at the core you'd want some interaction with Rogue and the regular Souther troops - or even maybe the Marauders at the core of it, both sides sick of it.

And it depends what kind of budget there is of course.

Best of luck to the team, equally daunting and exciting I imagine.

[JayzusB.Christ]

So, is Grant Morrison still doing the script, or has that baldy occult ship sailed?

That was about seven (!) years ago, so I'd imagine so.

Sweet Jesus.  When did that near-decade go?  It's hard to imagine a Morrison Rogue anyway, though I've just remembered he did a (fairly average) Venus Bluegenes one-off.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Let's assume Rogue Trooper has a similar Budget to Dredd had which tends to make it a mid-tier production. Outside shots might be limited to say the first fifth of the Movie and then it's mostly inside some Nort/Souther Base looking for information on the Traitor General. Rogue then has to contend with Souther/Nort Intelligence Corps both of who want the Traitor to survive for specific reasons. For the Norts it's the Souther Milli-Com Intel he provides, Goldust in Intelligence terms and as for the Souther's, 'turning' the traitor, making him work for them on his discovery since they must suspect somebody from their High Command is leaking information to the enemy. Rogue Trooper threatens both these interests with his resolute determination to identify and expose the Traitor, and we all know what happens to individuals who upset powerful Military forces even on this Earth.

[Steven Denton]

Let's assume Rogue Trooper has a similar Budget to Dredd had which tends to make it a mid-tier production. Outside shots might be limited to say the first fifth of the Movie and then it's mostly inside

Why would it need to be inside? The cost of re-creating a future city packed full of vehicles and citizens and a baron landscape are very different.   

[Steve Green]

Yeah, Rogue has a lot of advantages on the budget front.

[Jim_Campbell]

It occurs to me that you could quite successfully use Full Metal Jacket as a template. Open on Nu Earth with a battle in the Quartz Zone going badly for the Southers — Milli-Com tells them to hold the line, help is on its way... something new that will turn the tide...

FLASHBACK: the first half of the movie is the then-secret GIs in training, perhaps with a little added spice from someone actively trying to sabotage/kill off the GIs (foreshadowing the TG's ultimate betrayal), giving Rogue, Helm, Gunnar, Bagman and some supporting cast a chance to flesh out. Bonus: it's cheap.

NOW: the second half of the movie, they deploy and it all goes a bit Saving Private Ryan. You could end with the biochips and Rogue... going Rogue.

[JamesC]

It occurs to me that you could quite successfully use Full Metal Jacket as a template. Open on Nu Earth with a battle in the Quartz Zone going badly for the Southers — Milli-Com tells them to hold the line, help is on its way... something new that will turn the tide...

FLASHBACK: the first half of the movie is the then-secret GIs in training, perhaps with a little added spice from someone actively trying to sabotage/kill off the GIs (foreshadowing the TG's ultimate betrayal), giving Rogue, Helm, Gunnar, Bagman and some supporting cast a chance to flesh out. Bonus: it's cheap.

NOW: the second half of the movie, they deploy and it all goes a bit Saving Private Ryan. You could end with the biochips and Rogue... going Rogue.

This is pretty much what I was thinking. There has to be some background to the GIs and it would be good to get to know Gunnar, Helm and Bagman pre-biochip to make the horror of the biochip state (and desperation for re-gening) hit home. I don't think the search for the traitor general should really feature - the massacre and subsequent search should be where the film ends. A good framing device may be soldiers telling battlefield ghost stories/urban legends, then make the rest of the film something like FMJ or even Starship Troopers.

[Steve Green]

It could be really horrific, beta-testing the biochip.

GI escorted into a lab on Milli-com, shot in the head and the chip extracted to prove the process 'works'

[IndigoPrime]

Let's assume Rogue Trooper has a similar Budget to Dredd had which tends to make it a mid-tier production.

Didn't they say in the end the $50m budget was bullshit, designed for investors, and the actual figure was much lower (something in the region of $35–40m)? That puts you in the same territory as the likes of Lucy, Paul, The Muppets, etc. What we got for the money in that film was quite astonishing.

As for Rogue, I'm not that fussed about the character, but I do hope it's a good film and a success. Moon is a superb slice of sci-fi, and showcases that Jones can do VFX on a tight budget. That said, I do hope they figure out how to deal with the biochips in a non-awful way. I always hated that stunning coincidence thing that the one called Rogue went rogue, the one named Gunnar ended up in the gun, and so on. That's fine for a comic for children, but would come across really badly in a movie. (I can't recall what Brian Ruckley did in the IDW version, but I remember Rogue's name came right at the end. I vaguely seem to recall they were basically all serial numbers, and given nicknames based on their subsequent situations. Hence 'bag man', rather than someone called Bagman ending up in a backpack.)

[AlexF]

Daniel Kaluuya for Rogue Trooper!

I think keeping the character young and ripe for disillusionment is the way to go.

[Steve Green]

I just imagine that they're nicknames they give themselves based on their abilities and what they drift towards.

Kind of works for Bagman and Gunnar, less so Helm - considering that they don't exactly have any experience outside of their training.

Or it's a designation, that it's a class of clone, so there's a Gunnar Class, a Bagman etc, and hundreds of each.

On Milli-com they'd just have a BXXXX or a GXXXX serial number amongst the Genies.

They are designed for a particular piece of equipment, in the event of an emergency.

Rogue is the awkward one, since he doesn't have anything to slot into.

[TordelBack]

i can contain myself no longer! First off, elements of Cinnabar should form the 2nd Act: Charybdis gives a unifying theme through the manufacture of genetically engineered materiel by both sides, plus gives the biochips opportunities to shine (Rogue less so).  As an obstacle to/stage of the hero's journey (Descent into the Abyss! Revelation! Rebirth!), it also serves as exposition about the world, and the nature of the 'sides' in the conflict, especially with added TG involvement. 

Second, War Machine got lots of things right, not least the nicknames: 001=Top, 013=Friday, 008=Eightball etc.  Not sure how to translate this into Helm etc, but its a better path than the one that leads to short-lived member of the team Sammy, and of course the legendary (round these parts) unseen GI, Buttplug.

Also: another vote for Stammels. Non-negotiable.

The element of classic Rogue that always stumped me, even as a nipper, was why GI equipment wasn't equipped with some kind of AI control as standard: Rogue's gear is so phenomenally useful with his dead buddies on board, that it seems wasteful not to build that functionality in.  Solving the problem of the biochips(how? why? where?)  is key to this thing working - leaving them out removes so much of the premise that it would be up there with helmetless Dredd as a no-no.

[Steve Green]

i can contain myself no longer! First off, elements of Cinnabar should form the 2nd Act: Charybdis gives a unifying theme through the manufacture of genetically engineered materiel by both sides, plus gives the biochips opportunities to shine (Rogue less so).  As an obstacle to/stage of the hero's journey (Descent into the Abyss! Revelation! Rebirth!), it also serves as exposition about the world, and the nature of the 'sides' in the conflict, especially with added TG involvement. 

Second, War Machine got lots of things right, not least the nicknames: 001=Top, 013=Friday, 008=Eightball etc.  Not sure how to translate this into Helm etc, but its a better path than the one that leads to short-lived member of the team Sammy, and of course the legendary (round these parts) unseen GI, Buttplug.

Also: another vote for Stammels. Non-negotiable.

Ahem, buttplug got a mention on a twitter thread I tagged PJ in - Duncan noticed that one...

[Keef Monkey]

One thing I've never understood about Rogue (and think would come across really oddly in a movie) is what Gunnar actually does in terms of aiming the gun. In the comics he's adjusting Rogue's aim for him (unless I've imagined that) and I just roll with that because the premise is so fun, even if I can't understand how he could be doing that.