The love of board games is being taken to a new level, and it’s something that’s been happening for a while since everything from Clue to Battleship has been considered for a live-action movie at this time. Risk is just the next big name that is bound to see people embracing or vilifying yet another game that can be kept much as it would appear in real life unless it’s subjected to the same treatment that was given to Battleship, meaning that it won’t even come close to resembling the actual game it was pulled from. To be fair, some games might not be as easy to translate to the screen, but Risk is a game of strategy, so it’s easier to think that it might conform to an actual story that could make use of its many different tactics and might even come out looking like something that might compliment the game in a very big way. The series is being created by the same person that created House of Cards, so right away it should be noted that it could easily take a lot of different twists and turns that people might not be expecting, but will enjoy since the idea could be that it will explore things at a very personal level, and will take a much broader view of the entire scene that’s unfolding as the series moves along.
It is a big hope that this series will be pulled off without a whole lot of difficulty or deviation since a lot of people truly enjoy this game and would love to see a faithful adaptation of it created by someone that was already responsible for creating something that was only derailed by lackluster writing and a scandal that was able to rock the career of one of the primary actors of the series. Admit it, once things went south for Kevin Spacey, things only got worse for House of Cards. But the premise was sound, meaning that there’s a lot of faith in the creator, Beau Willimon, and there’s a lot of goodwill when it comes to one of his creations finding an audience once again since this game is something that one can easily imagine taking shape over the course of a series as it spreads from one corner of a territory to another. The fact is that Risk, much like House of Cards, is all about strategy and is bound to bring out the best and the worst in humanity given that it’s something that is started and ended by humanity, a continual game of planning and coordinated effort that allows an individual to maneuver people and resources so as to conquer others in one arena or another.
People love Risk for their own reasons since some enjoy the feeling of being able to outsmart another person, while others enjoy the feeling of being able to compete and think around corners in order to win or at least learn how to employ one strategy after another. In a much wider arena though, the game of Risk is one that is bound to be seen as a matter of survival in several ways and a series might bring that feeling out in an even more effective manner. Looking at things this way it doesn’t feel as though a movie would do this idea justice, though it’s possible if that movie was made into a trilogy or even one long, drawn-out feature. But a series gives far more room and more opportunities to stretch the game out and to show the many different facets that it might possess when it’s being played by those that have mastered its intricacies and know how to best confound and stymie their opponents. If one is being honest, almost every conflict within human history has been one ongoing game of Risk, but with different stakes and too much horrible realism. But getting back to the series, it does sound like an interesting idea, so long as the source material is followed in a manner that people can easily see and might agree has been adhered to.
One thing that almost always happens when translating any facet of pop culture into the movies or to TV is that the director, the writers, whoever is in control, tends to eschew the source material in a big way and simply goes with what they feel is going to embody the idea in the best way. That’s when we get movies such as Battleship, which confused a lot of people as to what it had to do with the game. But Risk feels like something that might be difficult to screw up in such a manner since it’s pretty straightforward and doesn’t appear to be capable of being messed up in such a manner. We’ll have to wait and see what happens though.
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