After 1,460 days of planning and filming, independent film studio BMB finished its Zelda-based movie, The Hero of Time, and released it towards the end of December. A few weeks later, when everyone gets back from their holidays, Nintendo steps in and pulls the distribution plug.
A post on the BMB website reads, "We just wanted to let you know that Dec. 31 was the last day that The Hero of Time was available for viewing. We came to an agreement with Nintendo earlier this month to stop distributing the film.
"In the spirit of the holiday season they were good enough to let us keep the movie up for you to watch and enjoy through the end of 2009, but not past 2009.
"We understand Nintendo's right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan's interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself - even from fan-works with good intentions."
Looks like there might be more fan-made fun onthe way though. "I'm sure our next project will be right around the corner! No, it's not Majora's Mask." Twilight Princess or Phantom Hourglass?
I mean, I bet it won't even turn up on that Pirate Cove website or whatever it's called. Certainly not as an avi file with more than 200 seeders. And definitely not in a torrent that also contains the soundtrack with over 180 seeders.
I saw the trailer on Kotaku or somewhere yesterday. It was terrible. Some shots looked great with some nice post processing of moody skies etc but the rest was pretty poor. Link was played by a big blond chap who couldn't act and the dialogue was awful. It would have been so much better without any dialogue at all, just visuals, music and some captions. Oh well, fair play to them. 4 years to make.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
