Barbie has paved the way for “toys come to life” movies in 2023. The boys and girls who played with Barbies in their childhood enjoyed the film’s representation. However, it’s time for Barbie to make way for the return of the best toys to come to life movie of the 90s, Small Soldiers.
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The world had all but forgotten about the 1998 classic Small Soldiers, the action comedy adventure that combined CGI and live action to create a mid-medium film in which missile technology was mistakenly installed into toy action figures, causing the toys to not only start coming to life but to be changed by their programming that demanded battle.
The movie centres on fifteen-year-old Alan Abernathy (Gregory Smith), the son of a toy store owner. Thanks to his parents’ connections, he gets his hands on a new line of action figures, The Commando Elites versus The Gorgonites. Alan didn’t know when he got the toys that they had been enhanced with government military tech, allowing them to learn and eventually talk and move.
Despite their name and brutish appearance, the Gorgonites are kind. Still, the ruthless Commando Elite action figures won’t break away from their combat programming. With the girl he has a crush on, Christy Fimple (Kirsten Dunst), Alan must find a way to protect the Gorgonites from the Commando Elites and his home.
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Almost 25 years later, the Small Soldiers YouTube channel posted a video of a Proof of Concept Trailer for a new mystery project they have been working on with Comadran Studios, inspired by the Joe Dante-inspired classic 1998 film.
The YouTube video premiered on the 21st of June, 2023, and already has more than 1.9 million views. The video brings the concept of the epic toy battle to life using Unreal Engine 5. The video is titled Small Soldiers: War for the Nekron and has replaced the Gorgonites and the Commando Elite factions with the Nekronites and the Space Elites.
The first thing you will notice about the footage is that it looks so good that you might be tempted to think it is stop motion, not something rendered in Unreal Engine 5. The story starts in a toy warehouse this time and sees a Space Elite soldier waking up in her box and going to investigate a sealed box in the distance that contains Nekronite figurines, the sworn enemy of the Space Elite soldier.
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After opening the sealed box with a box blade (pretty sure that toy hasn’t been safety approved…), she notices that the box is empty and that the Nekronites have already escaped out the side and are making their way out of the glass doors because one of them has crawled up and managed to trigger the automatic sensor.
The Nekronites distract the soldier long enough to escape through the door and wait until the door closes. An oddly warm moment follows where a Nekronite touches the glass opposite the Space Elite.
Instead of being defeated, the Space Elite soldier activates the red button on her suit, awakening the rest of her squad, and they assemble, ready to take on the Nekronite threat.
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Unfortunately, the studio hasn’t shared if the concept trailer is for a movie, video game, animated series, mixed-media TV series, etc., but stay tuned to see if they release more information about the unknown mystery project.