‘The Sims’ Movie Premise
We were saved the horror of a Brett Ratner Guitar Hero movie, although the South Park episode showed that there could be a fair degree of hilarity involved with an effective parody of rockstardom. Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of ridiculousness of this type going around. More than a year ago word was spread that there would be a ‘Sims’ movie coming out.
Unless you’re portraying a world full of people unable to speak in anything other than mumbles and unintelligible grunts who all walk around with giant green diamonds floating above their heads, it doesn’t seem like a very plausible setup for a film.
The producer has let slip the setup for the film: “… So this is the way I did it: The Sims, as you know, you can control your imaginary world, right? And in our movie, a young man, a 16 year old kid or a 14 year old kid and his friend get their hands on this thing called the Sims Infinity Pack, right, which is kind of this very strange video game store which was there just for that moment, and seemingly wasn’t and all that. But what they realize is that they can scan their world in, because this is the most life like, real Sims game ever. And as they are playing this they are all of a sudden realizing is what they are playing on the game is having an effect on the real world. So in effect, through the game, they are able to control their world. It’s wish fulfillment, and obviously it turns against them.”
It sounds a bit overdone: films like Click, Weird Science, Bruce Almight and others have done this idea to death. Play with reality, find the joyous pleasure inherent in getting what you want for free and then the inevitable comedown of the realization that ultimate power might not be what you want. Throw in a cheesey ‘moral message’ scene and you’ve go the formula.