EDGE - Screenwriter Max Landis is the writer of sleeper-hit superhero movie Chronicle and now has 14 projects in the pipeline. As the son of John Landis, director of An American Werewolf In London, Max may have the silver screen in his blood, but games have been a presence throughout his life, if sometimes only as pieces on his bedroom floor.
Hollywood screenwriter Max Landis contends that Uncharted 4's Nadine is a fake strong female character. Naughty Dog chooses story over being true to what is established about her. By denying her access to the role that is clearly hers, her strength as a female character is significantly weakened.
Max makes good stuff and writes great female characters, as a fan, I tend to think he's probably right here.
i ve said it again here in comments......if they wanted to make a realistic strong female character she should have been the main villain and be killed at the end
All i think is that Nadine became rich as hell because she literally took a boatful of goodies. She's the only one who came out rich from that expedition. Plus she beat Nate twice. She was the villian who won - literally.
But how is she strong? and how would define strong? Jessica jones is a strong woman who lifts cars or is she a strong woman cause she battles a sexual ptsd and finally confronts her purple demons. Women are mentally stronger than men, while men are physically stronger than woman. You dont call a man strong when he deals with crap and gets on with it but he is weak if he cant get over said crap vice versa for women. Women who cant deal with crap are just called women and are strong women if they can
She's not really the victim, though... she strategically takes a bit of abuse from Rafe until she can flip the situation towards her favor. And sure, she's a villain with an ethical side but it's not a racist trope so much as it is round characterization.
She's a freaking MERC. She does what she's PAID to do, it's her BUSINESS. She's trying to save a mercenary outfit run into the ground by her father and took a job from a man she clearly does not like in the least as a means of trying to save said company.
Why do people act like she's some inherent villain or HAS to be to be strong? That she flipped the situation in her favor even AFTER being betrayed by her own soldiers and came out on top, not letting herself get bogged down in a petty personal squabble is intelligent, it is strong, it is brilliant. What you wanted her to cave in to emotion and get herself KILLED? That's not strong, that's petty and stupid.
I mean by your definition MARLOWE was a "strong female character".
Uncharted is full of strong female characters, including Nadine. The Last Of Us is another shining example. Max and yourself should probably find another developer to criticize surrounding this issue.
Landis is the kind of guy who think he has the answers to everything yet his only good movie to date was Chronicle (2012), a rip-off of the anime movie Akira.
I'm glad someone noticed that the similarities
I don't even think Chronicle was good....YEAH I SAID IT
Overrated as hell.
I agree as a fan of Uncharted. People need to understand that no game is free from criticism no matter how good it is.
Shhhhh don't say that around here. They'd put you in front of a firing squad
It's ok guys he's joking...Uncharted 4 is absolutely perfect
Actually what makes weak characters is the constant nit picking and critiquing of decisions by gamers and gaming media, it's a double edged sword, yes dialogue creates progress, but game companies try to please everyone, and in so doing create mediocre stories and situations as not to offend or disappoint anyone. As an example take gameplay in uncharted4,
I have read reviews critiquing the lack of action sequences, while others critique that there was too much action and drakes body count is unrealistic, too much stealth, not enough stealth, oh no I have to kill some enemies, oh there aren't enough enemies, oh the last boss was great, the last boss sucked etc etc.
Now imagine you're a gaming company and you have to try to please those people? You can either make a mediocre game that offends no one and has no personality, which ironically offends everyone, or you make a game that you artistically want to make and realize you can't please everybody.
I would choose the latter
Okay, correct me if I'm mistaken here, but the crux of your entire argument hinges around a suggestion of "how they should have done it"...which amounts to Nadine completely breaking character, losing all of her intelligence, security & sensibility to suddenly snap, turn on Rafe & be killed by the Drakes?
Sorry but that's just off base on a lot of levels. Firstly we look at Rafe. Rafe had a long history of an antagonistic relationship with the Drakes. He is the rich kid whose parents money could never buy the kind of adventure that Nate found himself in, and he has stewed with that fact after hearing tales of all of these journeys we as a player have taken Nate on. Rafe plainly states that he's spent nearly as much on finding the treasure as the treasure itself, that this isn't about money for him, it's about glory.
Moving over to Nadine, literally the entire thing is about the money. She's the owner of a mercenary company, she's just there to be paid to do a job. No skin in the battle whatsoever. In fact, she actually knows Sully & has a little laugh with him during the auction. By proxy, she has more familial ties to Drake & more monetary ties to the rich prick Rafe she is having to put up with. Her monetary ties are already satisfied by the time they make it to the ship. She plainly states that she's made her money back & then some with the stray treasures they have acquired along the way.
Thirdly we have Nadine's men. If you know much about PMCs, they are typically populated with soldiers of fortune, military washouts, dishonorable discharges & soldiers declared mentally unfit for battle. This is because people with honor & a predeliction for combat go the more honorably route of fighting for a cause...people who don't have that kind of honor see higher profits as a worthy cause. That is basic humanity...there are some aspects of storytelling that only end up as clichés because they are inherent truths of reality. To subvert them would be to neglect basic common sense in favor of the meta idea of avoiding a trope.
So in your version of the ending we have Rafe, a guy who has spent decades at odds in his own mind w/ the Drakes just rolling over for Nadine, a woman who has already been paid. We would see Nadine turn to present some kind of blatantly murderous threat not only to her employer, but also to two men who happen to be family with another person that she seems to know & like fairly well....all in order of what? Did Nadine ever once display the greed that Rafe did? Did she ever display the disdain & hatred towards the Drakes? Did she ever seem to care for the glory of a find?
Lastly, we need to look at the entirety of the Uncharted franchise. In every single installment, the villain of the piece hunts the treasure to its source, is unable to let go & ultimately gets buried with it. How would Nadine be displaying strength by falling victim to that same exact fate? Seems to me someone smart enough to cut ties when they've got their piece instead of pushing forward at their own peril is the strongest one there is. Strength is as much about the battles you don't fight as it is about the ones you do.
There are criticisms to be had here, hell you could've made a sound argument that Nadine didn't have to exist in the story of UC4 whatsoever, but what you guys have suggested here just misses the entire point, and it would've made for a pretty bad conclusion in order to tick some boxes to satisfy some kind of agenda.
I have to agree on some of his points....SOME
I do think you could have done the game without Nadine and I also think her being potrayed as this strong character who Nate can't even land a punch on is a bit over the top since he's took on so many highly skilled people in the past like Lazarević and Talbot.
HOWEVER
Max can eat shit...I'm sorry but he's not a good writer and he's up his own arse most of the time.
I did script writing in University and we all watched this video of him being interviewed saying how if you want it and want to get into industry then you can just like he did. You can go from nothing to someone big and that really touched me.
Until I found out his dad is John Landis, a highly talented well known script writer already within Hollywood and his mother is Deborah Nadoolman Landis a well used costume designer for Hollywood. Basically the guy was born into the Hollywood scene and he makes his mouth go that it's easy to do it just like him. Liar. Most of the crap he has wrote wouldn't have even made it to Hollywoods front door if it wasn't for his parents.
Yeah he made a couple solid points, but he neglected the most obvious one that you mentioned there, that Nadine could feasibly be removed entirely & the story wouldn't suffer at all. She creates some thematic supports to the idea of Greed & Power, but she doesn't contribute much directly aside from just being someone for Rafe to interact with instead of just chewing scenery.
Also agree that Landis ain't much to write home about. The dude could potentially grow to become a decent writer, but not if people aren't calling him out on his fallacies. He gets more praise than he really deserves in some circles. Chronicle was decent at best & that was his crowning achievement. The rest of his cinematic work is pretty rough. I've heard his Superman series was pretty good though but haven't read it.
So he really said all of that stuff about "making it on his own"? That is absolutely hilarious. I got shades of that in this video, we see him in what looks like a fairly typical cheap studio apartment, which tells me that he thinks himself a "self made man" because he only takes out certain handouts from his father & enjoys living as "common people". He obviously didn't divorce himself from the Landis name & anyone who read his work looking to hire talent was most likely only doing so as a favor to his father. His stuff is decent fan fiction. Not transcendent, not very unique yet. He could reach a higher level given time & practice but he will only have ever had that opportunity given to him by his father. Ain't exactly "self made"
Except... he did land hits on Nadine. You see it when you play.
She just lands more. lol
@ShadowWolf
Yeah...barely.
Then when you do she lands a punch or kick twice as hard. It's just unrealistic 3 games in.
It feels like Neil sucking up to people like Anita to please them
He is right on this topic. Watched his entire video and had to agree with just about everything he said. I don't know why you are getting so many disagrees.
Why though? Why fill in the blanks the consumer doesn't deserve? It sells the story short because it becomes unnatural.
In real life, we don't know our rivals personal lives, we don't watch them shower even though we are in a different country.
She kicked ass, she was hot doing it, she beat Nate up twice, and in the end she got away slapping her traitorous boyfriend, and made away with hooooow much money? It was awesome not knowing everything for once unlike a spoiled brat who demands more.
Loved her character, one of the best in U4.
So you're against character development? You're partly right, we don't have to know every single details of a character but if it's a major character like Nadine, then not delving deeper into her background would be a disservice to the narrative. Wanting more character development for someone who's lacking of it does not make someone a spoiled brat by the way.
"she got away slapping her traitorous boyfriend"
Rafe slapped her, but anyways I agree with you post. Nadine was one of the only characters to come out rich, and with Shoreline shut down all the gold she was able to get is hers to keep.
@goldwyncq
Unnecessary character development actually can undermine a narrative.
In the case of Nadine, we get all the backstory we need. Literally. She runs a mercenary army. She inherited it from her father, who was unscrupulous and lacked discernment in terms of what jobs to take, wound up getting in on the wrong side of too many civil wars and his employers then couldn't pay out. She doesn't like Rafe at all, but she took the job to save her company. She's trained herself far beyond what most would do because she IS a woman in a field run exclusively by men, and as such works twice as hard to earn respect in that line of work and from her own men.
Working with Rafe over time, she's seen him grow more and more unstable, seen his fortune dwindle, seen his focus switch from finding this treasure to an obsession and hatred for the Brothers Drake. It's why, when she finally has the money to set herself up for life, to finally be a payoff for all the abuse she took, all those years of hard work, she takes it, and leaves the others behind to sort out their own petty arguments themselves.
Nadine has backstory, laid out in the game. Just because they don't spend an inordinate amount of time explaining it via flashback doesn't mean it's not there. Just because she's not made the end boss, depicted as inexplicably snapping and deciding to, against all intelligence, give up on escape to kill people she literally gives not two craps about, doesn't mean she has no development, and doesn't make her weak.
Would you prefer the game take the route too many anime series take; stop the ongoing narrative for the sake of a flashback chapter about a side character who had no real stake or ties into what was going on here? Because I'd prefer we get the backstory relevant to the story at hand. Which we got.
Omg people need to get the hell over being so damn offended by every little thing. It is freaking ridiculous. The manner in which you tie your shoes offends people these days
To make a strong female characters, you need to show their flaw first and characters background development. I agree that Nadine was weak than other characters development.
I agree that she was, but at the same time, I didn't find her to be a main point of the story...more just an accessory to the story. So it didn't bother me either way. She was there simply to be a threat to Nathan (and Sam) so they couldn't just waltz in and solve the puzzle. It might have been an issue for me if she was the main baddie.
The internet be like using this character to attack ND and accuse them of being SJW. Now developers can't experiment and bring diversity to their games without being accused of such thing.
Disgusting!
And its as much the fault of SJWs taking every instance of sexuality or diversity and blowing it out of proportion. Making such the only factor a game is recognized by.
" accuse them of being SJW"
It's a fair accusation, as the main guy outright admitted to being influenced by Anita Sarkeesian. I was okay with Nadine before I heard about that stuff, I mean I did think she was a bit too powerful to be reasonable, no way she could take down Drake AND Sam at the same time, regardless of "military training", because at this point, Drake alone has enough experience fighting mercs (many of whom undoubtedly have military training as well), but add in Sam to the mix, and it just becomes clear Nadine is the mary sue of mary sues. Also, can someone who remembers the previous uncharted games stories vividly tell me how many, if any main villains or right hand man villains make it out alive? I don't recall any.
If this were ANY other franchise, n4g folk would be all over this game, but since it's Uncharted, pretty much a religion around here, they turn a blind eye to it.
The problem is Neil is a massive SJW himself. I'm sorry but he is, he likes Anita and loves the videos she does
Apparently it's rumoured he made Nadine the way she is, over the top strong where Nate and Sam together have trouble fighting her, to please people like her. It shows...
vickers500 above said it best
I have to agree with vickers500 on this. Because Niel came out and admittedly reported that it was the feminist movement that influenced him to not only change the end result of Uncharted 4, but also make Nadine such an invincible super villain that couldn't be destroyed in the end makes Uncharted 4 a butter child for non diversity and makes the game the epitome of sexist.
If the creators of Uncharted 4 didn't want to be sexist and wanted to be diverse than they should've had Nadine remain a villain until the end so she would've been killed and didn't win so they could just put a smile on a feminist face. If the creators wanted to remain diverse than they shouldn't have cared if the ending resulted in a male or female child and stuck to their original design as the only reason they changed the gender at the end was because of Anita Sarkeesian which is the worst influence game developers can have. It is the epitome of being sexist and has been happening all over the entertainment industry at an unprecedented rate since the success of Star Wars the Force Awakens. I am all for having female lead roles like Ripley in Aliens, but not at the expense of changing your original design plot just to please a sexist movement against men.
So now if there happens to be a sequel to Uncharted it will be with a forced female lead role just like if there happens to be a sequel to The Last of Us there will also be a female lead role as well which is fine as long as it caters to the story and not the developers sudden lapse into social justice frequency.
ND were appealing to the feminazis. As a normal feminist iv'e lost faith in ND.
"An invincible supervillain that couldn't be destroyed"
She's a trained combatant. You put Nate up against someone like Holly Holm, Rhonda Rousey, he'd get his ass kicked solo too.
She held her own against the two of them, sure, but again: trained to be lethal, even without a weapon. They're tossing out broad hooks and the occasional kidney shot, she's tossing out precision strikes at joints, nerve bundles, organs, each strike planned. They're brawlers; they can hold their own in fights against regular combatants, sure. They're tough, yes. But so is she, and she's trained for precision and lethality.
You put a couple boxers in the ring with Bruce Lee and see what happens.
I'm also going to bring up the fact that people are attacking Druckmann for being an SJW, (which even if true, has minimal impact on his craft overall) by agreeing with Max Landis, who really is an outright SJW.
TBH I, "not having an agenda", didn't see anything wrong with her character.
She seems like someone who had a reason to be there, played her part, and in the end, like an intelligent human being, "which for SOME reason the bad guys usually aren't", made a choice to GTFO before her luck ran out.
She got the money, she got back at her lunatic ex, she left with her life, probably laughing and retired, "unless ND wants to continue the really cool bratty trend of filling in ALL the blanks because consumers are spoiled unimaginative brats."
Truth is this. The entertainment industry is so hopelessly retarded and focusing on silver linings and character development and social trending media, they forget to make a story/character that is believable.
Her character is believable. Honestly? The only one who's believable.
-A mid 60 to 70ish year old man quickly finds his way through a dense jungle full of 20+ foot jumps and miles of climbing.
-An angry wife suddenly becomes Chickbo and fucks up dozens of trailed mercenary's.
-That Chickbro manages to find her husband magically in the middle of a massive cliff ridden island.
-Nate is a superhuman who can jump 40 feet, and grab onto a wet rock with 1 hand and not only fail to slip, but fail to tear every muscle on the 1 side of his body.
Not to mention Nate's brother's obsession, Nate's adventure addiction, Nate's wife rising to be girl rambo and is suddenly a badass treasure hunter because north american gender equality.
Yea... I could go on honestly, hope my point stands though.
A woman owning the loyalty of many men, who is full of herself, who trains to fit in a mans world, who is hungry for money, who wields a gun, blows shit up but then is smart enough to gtfo before she has to become superwoman is about as real as this game got. Hope we see more real characters in the future.
You do make a solid point about her being the "real-ist" character in the game. I just don't see the point in judging her as a strong or weak female character because she's a plot device...she could have been a bald Chinese man or a Latina Business-woman in a suit with hired mercenaries...and it really wouldn't change anything (well other than superficially). The story centered around the conflict with Rafe....Rafe by himself is no threat to Nathan, Sam, Sully, and Elena....so in order to keep the story centered on the conflict between Rafe and (mainly) Nathan, they introduced a band of mercenaries. True, they gave the mercenaries a leader that is a badass, and that's fine...but it wasn't necessary. Rafe and one woman, no matter how badass she is (without being super-natural) is still a hard threat to sell. Just saying the leader of the Mercenary gang could have been anyone...it could have been someone terrified of violence and it still would have had the same end result.
So as a supporting character...she was somewhat designed to be "fake", we didn't need to dive into her past, they fleshed her out more than they needed to..which is to be applauded...but at the end of the day, judging her as fake/real has no true point IMO. This conversation makes more sense in regards to Elena, which I do think is a very real (within the confines of a video game) strong female character.
it took 3 games for "chickbro" to reach rambo status.... what is that saying, about marrying ur equal?
Max Landis, co-writer of the popular 2012 feature film, Chronicle, has recently released a 436-page script that he wrote for a Super Mario World movie.
Excerpt from Landis' script: "In all honesty, I would love to play this script as an Uncharted-style new, grounded Super Mario video game."
