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Tomb Raider Movie Reboot Story Details Revealed

D

dex3108

Member
In an interview with Hey U Guys, producer Graham King explained that the film would focus upon Lara's search for her dad. "This is kind of what we call a back to the roots story," he said. "This is a young Lara Croft in search to see if her father is dead or alive, so it has a very emotional part to it and I think that’s what Alicia found so interesting about it.

"I think the storytelling is really good and I think we've got the right crew and a great director," he added.
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http://www.gamespot.com/articles/tomb-raider-movie-reboot-story-details-revealed/1100-6445648/
 
B

BluenoseGames

Member
It pisses me of that they are yet again focusing on the Daddy/ family issues . They just can't seem to do Lara just wanting to go on an adventure. They've done the daddy /family issues in the original films, LAU trilogy and now the reboot. I mean Jesus, can't they come up with something else.
 
S

SprachBrooks

Member
BluenoseGames said:
It pisses me of that they are yet again focusing on the Daddy/ family issues . They just can't seem to do Lara just wanting to go on an adventure. They've done the daddy /family issues in the original films, LAU trilogy and now the reboot. I mean Jesus, can't they come up with something else.
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I'm sure they have lots of ideas. But this is what they see as gaining the most profit.
 
L

Lime

Member
BluenoseGames said:
It pisses me of that they are yet again focusing on the Daddy/ family issues . They just can't seem to do Lara just wanting to go on an adventure. They've done the daddy /family issues in the original films, LAU trilogy and now the reboot. I mean Jesus, can't they come up with something else.
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Otherwise male audience / players cannot relate!!!
 
F

Finale Fireworker

Member
BluenoseGames said:
It pisses me of that they are yet again focusing on the Daddy/ family issues . They just can't seem to do Lara just wanting to go on an adventure. They've done the daddy /family issues in the original films, LAU trilogy and now the reboot. I mean Jesus, can't they come up with something else.
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For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.

I am fine with this being a permanent part of Lara's character and being emotionally invested in what she's doing doesn't negate the possibility (or likelihood) of an actual exciting adventure. Uncle Ben always dies. Some things just don't change. You can still have an interesting story with some permanent narrative elements.
 
K

Killer Queen

Banned
Finale Fireworker said:
For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.

I am fine with this being a permanent part of Lara's character and being emotionally invested in what she's doing doesn't negate the possibility (or likelihood) of an actual exciting adventure. Uncle Ben always dies. Some things just don't change. You can still have an interesting story with some permanent narrative elements.
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No but people make fun of it to hell and back
 
S

SprachBrooks

Member
Finale Fireworker said:
For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.

I am fine with this being a permanent part of Lara's character and being emotionally invested in what she's doing doesn't negate the possibility (or likelihood) of an actual exciting adventure. Uncle Ben always dies. Some things just don't change. You can still have an interesting story with some permanent narrative elements.
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Yup. Hell they view it as canon and central to her character and decided to write the story around it. Like Batman exemplified, the core backstory does not preclude the film from being interesting and different in many ways.
 
P

Peru

Member
I think this makes sense actually. It roots her yearning for adventure and mystery in her family and grounds the movie somewhat. It does need to have more of an emotional foundation than the profoundly goofy Jolie films.
 
F

Fliesen

Member
Finale Fireworker said:
For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.

I am fine with this being a permanent part of Lara's character and being emotionally invested in what she's doing doesn't negate the possibility (or likelihood) of an actual exciting adventure.
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While they can be part of the origin story, the arc of the character shouldn't be slave to their daddy issues, imho.
Like, Tomb Raider 2013 was Lara growing to be the adventurer she is, and all of a sudden, in Rise of the Tomb Raider, she's fanatically trying to prove her dad was right all along. But i'm fine with it, if it serves as a starting point for an interesting franchise.

Also, who compares Lara to Batman?
 
C

chrominance

Member
Finale Fireworker said:
For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.

I am fine with this being a permanent part of Lara's character and being emotionally invested in what she's doing doesn't negate the possibility (or likelihood) of an actual exciting adventure. Uncle Ben always dies. Some things just don't change. You can still have an interesting story with some permanent narrative elements.
Click to expand...

To be fair, if I never saw another "Batman's parents die in an alleyway with child Bruce Wayne watching" scene it would be too soon, and I don't even watch/read/play very many Batman things.

The 2013 game didn't really worry about her family history at all, and still managed to give us a decent origin story. The biggest implausibility is in how many people she kills given her complete inexperience with murder, and that's something a movie wouldn't have to worry about because it's not trying to support a video game with guns.

All that said, whatever. I don't really care what they do with the reboot; learning that Alicia Vikander is Lara Croft is the first thing that's made me even remotely interested in it.
 
T

Toa TAK

Banned
Why are people so bummed out about this?

Isn't her parents a core of her character? At least since the Legends era?

I don't see an issue with it.
 
sublimit

sublimit

Banned
Finale Fireworker said:
For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.

I am fine with this being a permanent part of Lara's character and being emotionally invested in what she's doing doesn't negate the possibility (or likelihood) of an actual exciting adventure. Uncle Ben always dies. Some things just don't change. You can still have an interesting story with some permanent narrative elements.
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No one compared her with Batman in the classics. She was just a female Indiana Jones with an attitude who loved adventure and archeology.

This whole mommy and daddy crap is just Crystal Dynamics trying to make pretendious stories and "evolve" Lara as a character when what they are actually doing is making her even less convincing and realistic than she was before.
 
kunonabi

kunonabi

Member
Fliesen said:
While they can be part of the origin story, the arc of the character shouldn't be slave to their daddy issues, imho.
Like, Tomb Raider 2013 was Lara growing to be the adventurer she is, and all of a sudden, in Rise of the Tomb Raider, she's fanatically trying to prove her dad was right all along. But i'm fine with it, if it serves as a starting point for an interesting franchise.

Also, who compares Lara to Batman?
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The daddy stuff was still a big part of 2013 so it was logical that Rise double-downed on it. Hopefully, Rises failure leads to another reboot and we don't have to hear about it again.
 
S

Stallion Dan

Member
Not this shit again. Why they gotta keep giving her mommy and daddy issues.

Toa TAK said:
Why are people so bummed out about this?

Isn't her parents a core of her character? At least since the Legends era?

I don't see an issue with it.
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Even in Legends era it was disliked.
 
H

Hektor

Member
Finale Fireworker said:
For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.

I am fine with this being a permanent part of Lara's character and being emotionally invested in what she's doing doesn't negate the possibility (or likelihood) of an actual exciting adventure. Uncle Ben always dies. Some things just don't change. You can still have an interesting story with some permanent narrative elements.
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I see people complaining about Spidey's and Bat's origin storys being explained over and over again all the time actually.
 
Azelover

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
I hope they use the main tune from the original game this time.
 
I

IvorB

Member
Finale Fireworker said:
For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.
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I love Batman as a character and I very much complain about this. It's every goddam movie or whatever the scene with the pearls and the shooting. It's enough already.
 
A

Alpha_eX

Member
Calm down people, maybe her dad ran off to hunt some massive tomb and Lara goes follows the trail, raiding tombs and shit until she bumps into his skeleton at the end of it.
 
F

Fliesen

Member
I still don't get the Batman comparisons.

Lara Croft, to me, was always the female equivalent to Indiana Jones. A confident adventurer, cocky, self-assured, but not after money or fame.

It wasn't until Last Crusade that we found out about his daddy issues. And while that is my favourite part of the series, i think it's good that the relationship (or lack thereof) to an emotionally distant father was only used as a one-off thing and not a central driving force of the character.
 
Opinionatedfish

Opinionatedfish

Member
I hope that the teaser trailer has long dark cuts and a foghorn.

Anyhow, it would be nice for them to define her character as an explorer or a genuinely enthusiastic treasure hunter.

I do think it's a little sad that they can only seem to define her personality by her relationship to her parents.
 
H

Harlequin

Member
This news definitely killed my hype for the film. See you for the next Tomb Raider reboot, Hollywood.

Finale Fireworker said:
For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.

I am fine with this being a permanent part of Lara's character and being emotionally invested in what she's doing doesn't negate the possibility (or likelihood) of an actual exciting adventure. Uncle Ben always dies. Some things just don't change. You can still have an interesting story with some permanent narrative elements.
Click to expand...

The difference is that this was never part of Lara Croft's original backstory. From TR1-6, Lara's parents were very much alive, having disowned her because they disagreed with her treasure hunting lifestyle (and they were neither archaeologists nor did they have any particular interest in the subject matter). The first film shoehorned her parents being dead archaeologists into her background and then Crystal copied the films rather than the actual source material. It simply doesn't fit with her character. She's supposed to be a rebellious, independent, emotionally closed-off loner who makes her own path, not a daddy's girl dutifully following in her parents' footsteps.

Not to mention that it's incredibly cheesy and cringe-worthy for an action-adventure hero's origin story to revolve around their dead or missing parent/s. In Batman it works because it's a superhero film and you expect certain tropes from that genre but for Tomb Raider it just feels cheap and lazy.

Opinionatedfish said:
I do think it's a little sad that they can only seem to define her personality by her relationship to her parents.
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It just shows that they're lazy and not looking at the actual source material because there's a lot to work with in the first six games (and the original bio) in terms of characterisation. Sure, there are moments of inconsistency here and there and you have to do some interpreting and read between the lines but despite what many people seem to think, Core Design's Lara actually had a lot of personality and depth, she simply didn't wear her heart on her sleeve so that's why many people wrote her off as a one-dimensional "ice-queen".
 
T

TheBrainninja

Member
Finale Fireworker said:
For a character that people love to frequently compare to Batman, you don't see people saying Batman needs to get over the death of his parents and focus on something else.

I am fine with this being a permanent part of Lara's character and being emotionally invested in what she's doing doesn't negate the possibility (or likelihood) of an actual exciting adventure. Uncle Ben always dies. Some things just don't change. You can still have an interesting story with some permanent narrative elements.
Click to expand...

I see people complain about this every time new Batman media comes out, and I think it's certainly a valid criticism. Things can be constant elements of characters' backstories, to be sure, but those common elements should be used sparingly as characters' primary motivations. Why would creators saddle themselves to narrative elements that have already been explored? It's boring for the viewer.
 
Stilton Disco

Stilton Disco

Member
Sick to the back teeth of young Lara, but at least you can ignore it for 90% of the games. This rehash of an inexperienced, weak and boring version of the character obsessing over her parents just does nothing for me.

Give me another reboot where she's in her 30's and at her peak as an adventurer, and I'll be interested. This can just fuck off.
 
P

Peru

Member
TheBrainninja said:
I see people complain about this every time new Batman media comes out, and I think it's certainly a valid criticism. Things can be constant elements of characters' backstories, to be sure, but those common elements should be used sparingly as characters' primary motivations. Why would creators saddle themselves to narrative elements that have already been explored? It's boring for the viewer.
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But this has never really been explored for Lara outside of goofy video games. The Jolie movies did not 'explore' anything - they were purely surface-level typical early 00s action schlock.

So this is in fact the first attempt at telling Lara's origin story in a movie. And so it's only natural to get to the core first.
 
H

Harlequin

Member
Peru said:
But this has never really been explored for Lara outside of goofy video games. The Jolie movies did not 'explore' anything - they were purely surface-level typical early 00s action schlock.

So this is in fact the first attempt at telling Lara's origin story in a movie. And so it's only natural to get to the core first.
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It's not Lara's origin story, though. Lara's origin story takes place in the Himalayas and includes parents who are very much alive and very much not archaeologists. This is some shoe-horned, generic Hollywood action hero backstory which the writers of the first AJ movie slapped onto her as a cheap stand-in for proper characterisation.
 
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