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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in HD
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The first official trailer for the Prince of Persia movie (opening in theaters May 28, 2010) is now online.
There are some bootleg low-res versions bouncing around the net, despite the best-laid plans of Mouse and men. Accept no substitutes. The hi-def version looks better.
I got to see the trailer in a movie theater for the first time last week in San Francisco and L.A., when producer Jerry Bruckheimer and I did Q&As with journalists. It was quite a thrill seeing it on a big screen with a theater full of people.
There’s actually one line of dialog in the movie trailer that’s also in the homemade game-footage trailer John August and I used to pitch the project to Jerry and Disney six years ago. Which is funny, because the line’s not actually in the movie (at least I don’t think it is). No prize for spotting it.
For the past year, I’ve been posting daily entries from the old journals I kept while I was programming Prince of Persia on the Apple II, 20 years ago.
This “blog from the past” now has 48 pages of entries, covering roughly seven and a half years from May 1985 to January 1993 — from Prince of Persia’s conception through the development of its sequel, Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame.
In a coincidence I couldn’t have planned, this month marks both the 20th anniversary of the original game’s release, and the release of the first trailer for Disney’s Prince of Persia movie. Time is an ocean in a storm.
If you’re curious to know how the Prince’s journey began, back in those halcyon days when computers looked like this, it’s all in the Old Journals. Some highlights include: the day my kid brother modeled the prince’s moves; the day Prince of Persia got its title; and the first rotoscoped animation test.
Or you can read the whole story from the beginning, starting here.
From my last day in Shanghai:
This is my new favorite skyscraper, the Jin Mao Tower. (The one that looks like a bottle opener is the Shanghai World Financial Center.)
I did this sketch from the top of the tower. It was growing dark and the city was fast disappearing in the haze, so I only had a few minutes. I actually like it better than the more “done” sketch I did in the park.
I’ve met Eric Chahi (creator of Another World) twice: in Paris in 1992, and a couple of years later in San Francisco, where the Smoking Car team and I were toiling away on The Last Express, while Eric and his Amazing Studios were deep in the throes of finishing Heart of Darkness — both passion projects that had gone over schedule and budget, an ocean apart, exacting a psychic and financial toll for which the experiences of making Prince of Persia and Another World had only partly prepared us.
I remember looking at Eric’s tired face and thinking: He looks the way I feel.
Recently, Mark Siegel, my editor at First Second Books, asked me if by chance I had Eric’s contact info. I hadn’t spoken to Eric in a dozen years (though the original Another World poster he signed for me is hanging in my office), so I asked my friend Eric Viennot.
That email sparked Eric to suggest a joint interview, which, after much patience and persistence on his part, he’s now posted on his blog. Here it is, for those who read French.
Update: An English translation (non-Babelfish) has been posted on Gamasutra.
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