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***Dark Jaguar*** · 30th July 2010, 2:09 AM

***Dark Jaguar*** · 30th July 2010, 2:48 AM

Actually I'd love to see a trilogy based on all 3 games. The first would be done 80's style, like Goonies and so on. The second would be 90's style. The last would be 2000's style, as soon as we get enough distance to be self aware enough to figure out what that style is.

***lazyfatbum*** · 30th July 2010, 7:22 AM

that was pretty damn genius. Didn't see Paula or Poo tho. I understand there are other games but the chances of Americans picking up on their references are slim. But the SNES version of 'Earthbound' is highly collected/sought after.

Imagine a scene of them learning teleport b or getting help from a certain blues band. It would be a fun movie for sure.

Sadly Nintendo signed a contract stating that they will never release another Earthbound game in the united states, so I assume rights to a movie would fall under that. It's so stupid...

***Dark Jaguar*** · 30th July 2010, 2:35 PM

They WHAT? I never once heard this, and I've been reading Starmen.net for a while. They signed a contract? With who? Why? Who would write up something like that? What possible purpose could this serve?

***Dark Jaguar*** · 30th July 2010, 2:40 PM

Oh, if the movie is well done, people don't need to get the game references, it'll be a surprisingly quirky movie adventure to the majority of people, just asking "what's the deal with the Nintendo logo?".

Oh! I can see a point with a long stretch of walking where the movie literally cuts away to the director apologizing because this is the most boring part of the movie, but encouraging the audience to stick with it, it gets better.

***Great Rumbler*** · 30th July 2010, 4:12 PM

They didn't sign any contract. Lol

***Dark Jaguar*** · 30th July 2010, 4:49 PM

Great Rumbler Wrote:They didn't sign any contract.

I didn't think so, but lazy said it with such conviction! You heard him! So that's what I wrote!

GR: Wrote what?

DJ: The Backstreet Boys!

***lazyfatbum*** · 31st July 2010, 8:01 AM

http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/02/ear...al-issues/

Great Rumbler just doesn't get it.

Nintendo signed a contract stating that they will never release an Earthbound/Mother game outside of Japan.

***Great Rumbler*** · 31st July 2010, 8:49 AM

Nothing in that link says anything about them signing a contract. Lol

***Dark Jaguar*** · 31st July 2010, 11:58 AM

That link doesn't say anything about a contract at all lazy. It just says Nintendo is probably scared of lawsuits for no good reason. (What ever happened to fair use, and well, HAVING A SPINE?)

***Great Rumbler*** · 31st July 2010, 12:02 PM

I doubt it's that Nintendo is afraid, or, if they were, it would really only take a few weeks to tweak the soundtrack. They just don't really care about the franchise, unfortunately.

***Dark Jaguar*** · 31st July 2010, 7:09 PM

Ya know I read every one of his "legally troublesome" arguments in that thread and the only thing I can think of is "The Simpsons".

***lazyfatbum*** · 2nd August 2010, 8:25 AM

Google Nintendo agrees to never release Earthbound in NA then. I would think after reading that you would understand why Nintendo made the decision.

They were threatened with court over 9000 times with the release of one game.

***Great Rumbler*** · 2nd August 2010, 9:05 AM

If they were worried about being sued yet still wanted to release the game, it would take, at most, a couple of weeks of work by an in-house composer to tweak the music.

And where are you getting that they were threatened with lawsuits? All the site does is list things that MIGHT come up IF Nintendo decided to re-release Earthbound/Mother in the US.

It really seems like your assuming a lot of things from that article that it's just not saying at all.

***lazyfatbum*** · 2nd August 2010, 9:27 AM

Nintendo of Japan refuses to alter the Earthbound games further, they're being stubborn with it. They could, but they wont.

It's just like film, if a film reaches too much legal hell it's simply scrapped and all those months of shooting and the money spent on sets, actors, crew etc are all pushed under the carpet because it's no longer worth it. Nintendo's agreement to never release Earthbound again was in 1999 or 2000 so I assume there is a time limit on it.

Also, it is not just about the compositions of the music, there's a million references to pop culture that got lawyers interested in taking the game to court. Earthbound was basically picked on so Nintendo said screw it. That link also showed all the changes already made to appease lawyers and the lists are from the proposed findings of other legal issues.

***Great Rumbler*** · 2nd August 2010, 9:55 AM

Here's what happened: NOA's lawyers said "We can't let this go through as is because there's the potential that we could get sued over some of the music and other references, so we'll need to change that." NCL said "No changes." NOA's lawyer's replied "Then it's not getting released."

It's not about any kind of agreement that Nintendo signed or because a bunch of lawsuits were threatened against them, it's an internal dispute between NCL and NOA.

And now it doesn't matter, because Itoi [the man behind the series] is pretty much done with it and the Earthbound hype generated by Brawl has long since faded away.

***lazyfatbum*** · 2nd August 2010, 10:47 AM

Yes, and when Earthbound was taken to court the agreement Nintendo made was that they wouldn't release another Earthbound game in order to settle out of court.

lrn2reed

***Great Rumbler*** · 2nd August 2010, 11:01 AM

If you're going to keep brining that up, provide a LINK that says that. Otherwise I'm sticking to what I've read, which is that it's an internal conflict between NCL and NOA and has nothing to do with actual action by any outside entities.

***Dark Jaguar*** · 2nd August 2010, 4:51 PM

Sorry lazy, there's nothing I've been able to find that backs that up. Who sued Nintendo? What "court settlement"? We need more information, and yes, a "link or it didn't happen".

Really though, it's completely fair use. No one would have a legitimate case, and more importantly, I really don't think any company out there is even going to notice Earthbound.

Let me put it another way. If The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, and even more than all that, Robot Chicken (which I despise, but that's beside the point) can get away with their CONSTANT parodies of pop culture fiction from characters to music, I'm pretty sure Earthbound will be juuuuuust fine. It's not like video games are anything special. King's Quest 2 has the BATMOBILE and the Batman theme song (Adam West version) as a joke if you wander near Hagatha's cave often enough. King's Quest 4 uses the Jaws music (very well done if you have an MT-32) when you get eaten by a shark. They released an (admittedly shoddy) compilation including those games just a few years ago, if you'll recall the thread I made about it, and from reviews, they did NOT alter the games in any way, so those references are still in there.

They've got no real reason to be so afraid of this. Let's not forget that not a single lawsuit has come up for Earthbound yet. It doesn't matter that they aren't publishing it NOW, they DID at one time, that'd be enough to get them on if someone was going to make a fuss.

If it's really true that scared lawyers are why Nintendo isn't releasing Earthbound now, then they need new lawyers.

***lazyfatbum*** · 3rd August 2010, 9:12 AM

Why do I have to provide a link? go search for it yourself, its something I read back in 2000. The first NA localization of Mother was Earthbound which is Mother 2. It was struck by a billion citations of things that need to change by the legal department when Nintendo's lawyers cross referenced with entertainment industry lawyers. The result was that so much had to be changed it would have put the game on the back burner for too long, a simple contract was made stating that Nintendo will never release another Earthbound game outside of Japan with the trade off being that the one Earthbound game can be released without the other million changes. It was agreed upon and here we are today.

Right now, Nintendo of Japan is being defensive and saying they wont make the changes. Its like a scorned boyfriend, meanwhile the girlfriend is trying its best to ignore him while we all wonder when we'll see Earthbound again. The legalities of the contract are so fierce they are even removing the snippet of gameplay from Earthbound in Super Smash Brawl.

***Great Rumbler*** · 3rd August 2010, 1:39 PM

There is literally NOTHING on the internet to support that.

***A Black Falcon*** · 3rd August 2010, 2:38 PM

I know there was a rumor that one reason we didn't even see Earthbound (SNES) on Virtual Console in the US was because of licensing issues with stuff the game referenced which were ignored back in the mid '90s, but probably wouldn't be now...

***Great Rumbler*** · 3rd August 2010, 2:49 PM

That's most likely the case, but that's not what lazy is saying at all.

***Dark Jaguar*** · 3rd August 2010, 3:18 PM

lazy, I take issue with one thing. You are of course free to claim whatever you like, and you are free to not have to back it up, however we are free, and perfectly within reason, to dismiss your claims if you don't bother to back them up. I've found nothing, GR has found nothing. You sit there wondering why you should have to provide a link, well here's the deal. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. That's how it works.

What confuses me most is why they would "sign a contract". It's Nintendo's OWN lawyers. A "contract" isn't needed. All a company president needs to do is say "no" and a game won't be published. That's all it would take. Why bother with some contract? What are the translators going to go outside the system and expensively produce millions of cartridges themselves without Nintendo?

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