The following contains spoilers for Ash, now playing in theatersEiza González’s Ash has convinced me that the time is finally right for a big-screen adaptation of this $1 billion dollar franchise. Ash focuses on a human expansion to a distant alien world, with their efforts to find a suitable planet to terraform bringing them into contact with a dangerous hive-mind enтιтy. Ash is a solid horror/sci-fi film that plays with perception and indulges in plenty of scary body horror as the hive mind infects the humans and turns them against one another.
Ash‘s ending leaves the door open for a larger story about humanity trying to contend with this newfound enemy. It’s a set-up that’s intimately familiar to sci-fi fans, with plenty of stories building off of similar premises. The best elements of Ash give it a thematic and visual connection to one of the most popular sci-fi videogame franchises of all time, highlighting how Ash filmmaker Flying Lotus might be the perfect person to finally make a cinematic version of that story.
Ash Reminded Me A Lot Of StarCraft & Proves A Movie Adaptation Could Work
The visuals in Ash reminded me a lot of the Zerg human conflicts in StarCraft, proving the right filmmaker could bring the $1 billion videogame franchise to the big screen. Ash shares some thematic connections to the earliest moments of the first StarCraft, when human expansion to the greater galaxy exposed people to a powerful and horrifying alien races. The hive mind in Ash has a visual similarity to the Overmind from StarCraft, which controls the invasive Zerg species. Both of them control countless creatures from a centralized psychic collective, giving them a universal reach.
In Ash, any human can be infected with the hive mind alien and turned into a physical tool for the creatures. The creature is even able of physically transforming the humanoids into a new monstrous form, as it does in the film’s final confrontation between Riya and the reanimated body of Brion. This is similar to the way the Zerg in StarCraft can infest humans and convert them into new monstrous forms. Ash proves that film has reached a point where it can replicate the distinct alien visuals of StarCraft and believably bring it to life.
Why A StarCraft Movie Hasn’t Already Happened
StarCraft Would Be A Tricky Cinematic Undertaking
Hitting shelves in 1998, StarCraft quickly became one of the biggest strategy videogames of its era. Developing a fan-base that has thrived for nearly thirty years, StarCraft was quickly considered as a possible movie. However, Blizzard has never formally moved forward with a cinematic adaptation of StarCraft. Many people at Blizzard have considered the prospect, and the game studio listed StarCraft as a possible franchise to adapt for the screen following Warcraft. However, nearly ten years since Warcraft hit the big screen, there’s been no news about a StarCraft adaptation.
The alien designs and colorful visuals of [StarCraft]’s Zerg and Protoss worlds be hard to replicate. However, a relatively small budget sci-fi film like Ash was able to do all of that stuff very well, proving it can be done.
There’s likely a couple of challenges to making any adaptation of StarCraft. While the story starts in a familiar sci-fi thematic space, the overarching narrative of the games became increasingly large-scope and byzantine in their plotting. Keeping it grounded, at least initially, would be an important element to lean into while introducing audiences to the setting. The alien designs and colorful visuals of the game’s Zerg and Protoss worlds be hard to replicate. However, a relatively small budget sci-fi film like Ash was able to do all of that stuff very well, proving it can be done.
I’d Love To See Ash’s Director Flying Lotus Tackle A Starcraft Movie Next
Ash Is A Great Test-Run For A StarCraft Movie
Ash is a solid sci-fi horror film that wears its influences on its sleeves, taking a potentially confusing story about an alien life-form trying to eliminate pesky humans and keeping it rooted in character. Director/writer Flying Lotus found the happy medium between trippy visuals, gross-out monsters, and flawed but compelling characters. That balance is something any adaptation of StarCraft would require, making Flying Lotus a great pick to actually tackle a hypothetical StarCraft adaptation. The film’s clear glee with body horror would be perfect for the Zerg, while Ash‘s Eiza González would make a pretty great Sarah Kerrigan.
The thing that has me the most excited about the idea of Flying Lotus tackling a StarCraft movie is his approach to the human characters. Even when confounded by larger-than-life discoveries and unknowable horrors, the humanity of the characters remain at the core of the film. This would be the key to keeping a StarCraft adaptation compelling, especially with the main human characters like Jim Raynor or Kerrigan. Those stories are part of what makes StarCraft such a cool world, and Flying Lotus’ success helming Ash suggests he would be the perfect filmmaker to tackle Blizzard’s iconic sci-fi setting.
