doom - the first person film

now, we are all familiar with the point of view shot and its general application within classical film, but as i have recently discovered, this is going to be drastically altered by none other than an adaptation of the classic defining fps (first person shooter) DOOM. a friend of mine directed me to the trailer and much to my suprise, it makes extensive use of the first person point of view, walking down corridors, shooting the baddies and such. now this is by no means a huge revelation but within the mainstream market this is a big deal, perhaps equivalent to, say, eminems narrative structure in stan. while there are numerous avant guarde films made already which utilize this technique, the fact that it is penetrating into the wider market is an attribute, i think, to our increasing fluency with filmic language as an audience. of course it is aimed at the doom playing demographic who will already have an intrinsic understanding of its merits, but considering the big names involved - the rock, karl urban, rosamund pike and director andrzej bartkowiak (romeo must die, exit wounds) it must also be aimed at the generally curious. having only seen the trailer, and because there are no in depth articles on the topic, i can only speculate as to how much use they make of the technique and how far they stretch our ability to understand the unfamiliar. given its genre, it will probably not take us too far out of our comfort zones.

as the video game to film adaptations pump out of the hollywood orifice, im curious as to how much they will bring to the form of the medium. perhaps they will try a 3rd person style rpg in film format? maybe a strategy style format with a constant aversion to a big brother perspective over the battlefield- surely we havent seen a war movie like that yet..? one thing at a time i suppose.. i hope for now that they do justice to the doom's huge impact on it's platform and genre, though it certainly doesnt seem likely. well, if nothing else, at least it will be interesting in one respect. i would personally like to see as bigfat epics with dense layered scripts- final fantasy 7, starcraft, the legend of zelda
any others?

marC t