Video game to movie adaption is a controversial topic for both fans and critics. Past Hollywood attempts including "Tomb Raider," "Hitman," and, most recently, "Warcraft," all got weak reviews and disappointed many fans of the source material.
But that isn't stopping companies from trying - and it makes sense. There's a lot of nostalgia for the older games, and nostalgia is popular right now. Just take a look at all the live action remakes of classic films coming our way in 2017. Something about this formula is working - so we are going to keep seeing them.
So it shouldn't you surprise you that a remake of Galaga has just been announced.
What we know
Variety reports that the Galaga Animated Series will be produced by "The Nuttery Entertainment" after the company signed an agreement with Bandai (the creators of Galaga). It's currently unclear what the scope of this project is - if it's planned to be purely digital and released to the internet or embark somewhere on television. It would certainly be interesting if they went that route, as we don't see a lot of video game television shows.
An executive at Bandai has confirmed that this version of Galaga will be reimagined with a clear story and characters. So we won't just be watching rocket ships vaporizing 8-bit aliens in space.
But since there's no "source material" for the story, what exactly that story is and who the characters might be, remains a mystery. They are pledging to respect the illustrative history of the game, which includes parent game "Galaxian." The current title of this project is "Galaga Chronicles."
Galaga in popular culture
Galaga has had a strong hold on the world of gaming for over 30 years.
You don't have to go to an arcade and wait in line anymore either - versions of Galaxa are available on a variety of consoles from as old to the Atari to as new as the Nintendo Switch. You can even play Galaga on your phone as a downloadable app.
Hollywood has also been well aware of the game's popularity and made nods to it over the years.
In the first Avengers movie (2012), Tony Stark notices an agent playing Galaga and makes a joke about it. We also saw Galaga in Pixels, as one of the games that the main characters have to fight against.
With other Video Games like Konami's shoot-em-up Contra seeing movie adaptions, it's clearly that the '80s video game nostalgia train is just beginning. Fans will just have to wait and see if the approach of an animated series brings something new to the table for Galaga.
