Films for Rifts

[slade the sniper]

What are your movies that you might show others or give as examples for what Rifts "looks like?"

My idea is Suckerpunch, as that it has that "everything goes" feeling.

-STS

[ShadowLogan]

Not a Movie, but I think the old cartoon "Thundarr the Barbarian" can work, its post-appocalypse, its got magic, its got tech, its got mutants, etc.

[slade2501]

"Damnation Alley", for starters. "Logan's Run" also kinda works.

[Killer Cyborg]

http://forums.palladium-megaverse.com/v ... 0#p2094200

The Tripods was a BBC release based on the books by John Christopher. It's a post-apocalypse setting where alien tripods have taken over the Earth generations ago, and a group of children decide that maybe the giant tripods that want to mind-control them aren't their friends after all, and try to escape to the mountains.
The books are better, of course.

Circuitry Man
In a world where the atmosphere has been destroyed, oxygen is money and people live underground. A Romeo-Bot and a female bodyguard try to smuggle a case of stolen microchips from LA to New York, pursued by the evil cyborg Plughead.

Cyborg II
The first film to feature Angelina Jolie, this quasi-sequel to Van Damme's Cyborg also has Jack Palance and Billy Drago.
If that doesn't draw you in, here's a plot summary via Wikipedia:

In the year 2074, the cybernetics market is dominated by the USA's Pinwheel Electronics and Japan's Kobayashi Robotics. Cyborgs are commonplace, used for anything from soldiers to prostitutes. Casella Reese is a top-of-the-line cyborg developed for corporate espionage and is programmed with the "Glass Shadow" program, meant to mimic human senses and emotions such as fear, love, pain and hatred. However, Glass Shadow is also an explosive that runs through her entire circuitry. Guided by the renegade prototype cyborg Mercy, who can communicate through any television screen, she and combat trainer Colton Ricks escape the Pinwheel facility so she can avoid her fate of self-destruction, one that faces most corporate espionage cyborgs.

12 Monkeys
Bruce Willis travels back and forth between a future where humans have been mostly wiped-out by a terrorist created plague and a time right before the plague was released where he might be able to stop it from being unleashed.

The Blood of Heroes
Rutger Hauer and Joan Chen.
If that doesn't get you to see it, I don't know what will, but this is also perhaps the greatest sports movie of all time.
A ragged team of Juggers try to win enough dog skulls in The Game to get the attention of The League, and win a place inside the Nine Cities instead of having to live out in the wastelands.

Def-Con 4
The crew of a nuclear missile satellite refuse to fire their missiles during a nuclear war, only to have their satellite crash-land on a post-apocalypse Earth ruled by savages and mutants.

Hell Comes To Frogtown
Roddy Piper stars as Sam Hell, the last fertile man in the world who is recruited by a female government to infiltrate Frogtown and rescue a group of human women who have been kept as sex slaves by the mutant frogs- then to help start repopulating the world with humans.

The Mad Max Series
If you need a description, you don't deserve to have it.

Six-String Samurai
In 1957, the US went to war with the Soviets and a nuclear war ensued.
After the apocalypse, the last bastion of freedom was a city called "Lost Vegas," where Elvis ruled as king for 50 rockin' years before eventually dying.
After the King's death, every rocker with a sword and a guitar (including Death himself), starts making their way across the wastelands to get to vegas for the contest to crown the new king.
The soundtrack is provided by The Red Elvises- if you don't know who they are, you need to find out.

http://forums.palladium-megaverse.com/v ... 0#p1933220

The problem is that Rifts has so many different aspects and angles, a single movie can only probably cover one or two of them.

But here are some I'd use:
Crash & Burn
Star Wars (original Trilogy)
Krull
Robocop
Heavy Metal
Phantasm (1-4)
Robot Carnival
Akira
Dog Soldiers
Starship Troopers
Vampire Hunter D
Nemesis 1 & 2
Hellboy
Serenity
Screamers
Iron Man
Ninja Scroll
Big Trouble in Little China
Waterworld
Excalibur
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Lair of the White Worm
Resident Evil
The Mummy

ALSO,
The Village-- The way the village initially seems to operates is how I imagine many communities in Rifts work. There are deadly monsters lurking in the woods, but the locals know their weaknesses and behavior patterns well enough to lead fairly decent lives.
In Rifts, these monsters would also keep other predators at bay... until something worse came along, be it monsters or Coalition.

[slade the sniper]

So, that second list you posted... uh, ok. How do you figure Star Wars? Fast space travel seems to be so central to the premise/setting. Sure you can pare it down to the essentials, but then is it even Star Wars anymore?

-STS

[Curbludgeon]

Stalker
Vesper
Annihilation
Kung Fury
Robot Jox
Arena
Hardware (the last four being pretty cheesy)
Roughly half of Love, Death, and Robots
A great many video games, but I'll mention Hyper Light Drifter/Breaker.

[Killer Cyborg]

So, that second list you posted... uh, ok. How do you figure Star Wars? Fast space travel seems to be so central to the premise/setting. Sure you can pare it down to the essentials, but then is it even Star Wars anymore?

-STS

No.
Than it’s Rifts.
Star Wars is literal one of the elements KS brought into the original Palladium campaign which lead to the creation of Rifts.
Hence Cyberknights.

[Blackwater Sniper]

Blade Runner
Mad Max
Logan
Firefly/Serenity
Dark City
i, Robot
Edge of Tomorrow
Avatar (James Cameron)
Alita
Book of Eli
The Rocketeer
Oblivion
Matrix
Transformers

[slade the sniper]

Matrix

In the Matrix or out of the Matrix? Both?

-STS

[Blackwater Sniper]

Matrix

In the Matrix or out of the Matrix? Both?

-STS

I like the idea of being in both without knowing which is the "real world" and which is a game.

Recently it was done in both The Matrix and Inception.

If you go back a few years (I'm showing my age), look up Mazes and Monsters. Tom Hank's character was playing a TTRPG and soon couldn't differentiate reality from fantasy.

[slade the sniper]

A few years??

-STS

[Fenris2020]

Riddick movies are good
Robocop (either old or new works)
Nemesis (also works for Cyberpunk: 2020 and Shadowrun)
both Blade Runners (again, also works for Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun)
Soldier
Predator movies
Alien movies.
Star Wars IV, V, VI, and Rogue One
Johnny Mnemonic (though works best for Cyberpunk: 2020 and Shadowrun, can detail life in the 'Burbs)

Also not a movie, but Netflix's Love, Death + Robots has a LOT of episodes that work very well for Rifts (among other games).

[Sureshot]

The day After and Threads to see how rough it will be after a nuclear exchange.

Damnation Alley and the other listed here.

[Aermas]

Six String Samurai
Tank Girl
Hell Comes to Frog Town
Independence Day
A Boy & His Dog
Starship Troopers
The Postman
Defiance (tv show)
TMNT (2003 Series where they start universe hopping & Shredder is an alien)

[hup7]

The Blood of Heroes
Rutger Hauer and Joan Chen.
If that doesn't get you to see it, I don't know what will, but this is also perhaps the greatest sports movie of all time.
A ragged team of Juggers try to win enough dog skulls in The Game to get the attention of The League, and win a place inside the Nine Cities instead of having to live out in the wastelands.

Aka The Salute of the Jugger - Amazing movie and you know people started playing the post-apocalyptic ultra-violent "game" IRL.

Hardware (the last four being pretty cheesy)

Edit: Just noticed Curbludgeon already had Hardware on his list. I recommend finding this movie and watching it - now. I'll wait...

Dredd (2012)
Hardware (1991)
Lockwood and Co. (2023)
Rouge Trooper: The Quartz Massacre (2018) - short on youtube
Space Sweepers (2021)
Altered Carbon (2018) / Resleeved (2020)