This ‘The Legend of Zelda’ Videogame Should be Adapted On-Screen

The Big Picture

• The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s success has paved the way for future adaptations of Nintendo games like The Legend of Zelda.
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has the potential to be a great starting point for a film adaptation due to its rich lore and origin story.
• Adapting Link as a fully realized character will be a challenge, but Skyward Sword provides a good foundation with its established relationships and empathetic traits.

Nintendo has finally ended its drought and unofficial ban on making film adaptations of its games. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a global smash hit at the box office and one of the biggest hits of the year. That pretty much assures there will be sequels and spinoffs for years to come. The Legend of Zelda is another crown jewel of Nintendo’s iconic library, and a recent announcement has confirmed a live-action adaptation is in development. The action-adventure series first debuted on the Family Computer Disk System (or Famicom Disk System) in 1986, and fans in the U.S. got to experience the game for the first time on the original Nintendo Entertainment System or NES when it hit stateside in August 1987, over 35 years ago.

After its release, The Legend of Zelda became a phenomenon, becoming the first Nintendo game release to sell over a million copies in the U.S. and up to three million copies on U.S .shores by 1990. It later went on to sell over 6.5 million copies worldwide. And for the next three-plus decades, The Legend of Zelda became one of Nintendo’s most celebrated, beloved, and enduring game series, with multiple sequels, spinoffs, remakes, remasters, and new installments across multiple console generations. The franchise is still going strong to this day, as the next game in the series, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a sequel to 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, hit the Nintendo Switch in May. Over the years, The Legend of Zelda has built up quite the lore, history, and mythology that looks like it would be rife for some type of film or motion picture adaptation. Now that the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie makes that a real possibility, it’s time to examine which game installment in the Zelda saga would make the best starting point for a new media adaptation. For this feature, we want to take a look at The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

A ‘Legend of Zelda’ Animated TV Series Has Already Been Attempted

The main point of reference for an existing Legend of Zelda adaptation is the short-lived 1989 animated television series produced by DIC Entertainment. The series only lasted 13 episodes, and it wasn’t exactly beloved for its goofy interpretation of Link and his infamous catchphrase, “Well, excuse me, princess!” There was also a rumored Netflix live-action television series that was in the works back in 2015. Surprisingly, The Wall Street Journal reported on the project, but Nintendo’s CEO at the time, the late Satoru Iwata, denied the report during an interview with TIME. However, a 2021 interview with Adam Conover and The Serf Times (via Endgaget) suggests the Netflix live-action project was legitimate.

Conover was working at College Humor at the time, and the plan was to create a Nintendo-approved Star Fox skit using stop-motion puppets in the style of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. But Conover revealed that because a Netflix employee leaked the details of The Legend of Zelda project to The Wall Street Journal, Nintendo “freaked out” and pulled the plug on everything. Eventually, Nintendo would partner with Illumination several years later to produce The Super Mario Bros. CG-animated movie, which finally came out earlier this month. It makes one wonder what could have been if the Netflix project had materialized because the anonymous Netflix employee did not leak the news to the press.

‘The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword’ Provides a Great Villain Origin Story

One thing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has going for it is that it has all the classic hallmarks of the franchise. There’s the heroic Link, his childhood friend Zelda, a unique fantasy land and setting, and an evil dark lord, Demise. The twist is that Skyward Sword is the canonical origin of the original Link, the original Princess Zelda, the founding of the kingdom of Hyrule, the creation of Master Sword, and the neverending cycle that repeats itself throughout The Legend of Zelda timeline.

Skyward Sword is essentially the Episode I prequel of the entire Zelda franchise and mythos, so it should be considered as a potential starting point for a future adaptation. Skyward Sword could set the tone for all future adaptations of Legend of Zelda, as well as provide audiences who are not as familiar with the world and characters with a fresh slate for where to start. The Skyward Sword storyline offers proper origins, backstories, and setups to the many hallmarks of the franchise. So, as a potential series or movie, it could serve as a starting point for what would become a long, developing, ongoing franchise.

The Skyward Sword game explains the origins of Hyrule and the Master Sword, and it also details how Zelda became Hyrule’s princess and ruler, and that Link is her ever-faithful protector. The game’s villain, the demon king Demise, is also the precursor to such villains later on in the timeline, such as Ganon (aka Ganondorf). In Skyward Sword, while Demise is ultimately defeated, he curses the original Link and Zelda. Under Demise’s prophecy, he will constantly be reborn as a being who will seek to take over the world and subject those who carry the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero in an ongoing cycle. Essentially, Skyward Sword is the linchpin and origin story for the mythology of the entire Zelda saga. It could potentially be the best starting point for a novice audience in the mood for a new fantasy saga as well as nostalgic players who will be happy to finally get a Legend of Zelda adaptation of their own.

The other benefit to adapting a story such as Skyward Sword is its depiction of the Zelda and Link relationship. Rather than starting as a princess, Zelda in Skyward Sword is also Link’s childhood friend. Like Link, she is a student at the Knight Academy. That would offer an adaptation an organic way for Zelda to know how to fight and take care of herself. Of course, in Skyward Sword, Zelda is also the reincarnation of the Goddess Hylia, giving her an important destiny to protect the world from the demon king Demise and setting up Hylia as the ancestor and precursor to the Royal Family of Hyrule.

The benefit of starting Link and Zelda as childhood friends is that adapting the story makes them the audience surrogates. At the start of the story, even though Zelda is not royalty or a monarch of a benevolent kingdom, she is already close with Link. Since they are childhood friends, there could be hints of romance or something more. If the audience finds their friendship and relationship cute and sweet, their potential romance would appeal to a prospective film or television audience.

The Kingdom of Skyloft is also a great location as the main setting of the series. It’s a unique starting point for a new show since it’s not the familiar Hyrule location. Throughout the story, audiences will learn and understand what Hyrule is and what it will eventually become. Starting the story in Skyloft would also present the mystery of why the Hylians are forced to live in a floating isle above the clouds and what happened to the surface. That mystery would unfold throughout the story, and by the end, Hyrule will be a newly established kingdom for the ongoing narrative.

Writing Link as a Fully-Realized Character Poses a Challenge

The biggest challenge of any future, potential, or upcoming adaptation of The Legend of Zelda is how to form Link into a fully realized, fleshed-out character. For many years, Link has been a silent protagonist. Link is essentially a cipher. He is literally named Link because he is meant to serve as a “link” between the video game world and the player. The player is supposed to imbue Link with their personality and assert their agency in Link. Link doesn’t talk and is silent because Link is the player character.

What’s more, the previous attempts where Link does talk or show more of a personality, such as the DIC animated series and the notorious Philips Interactive Media’s game, Link: The Faces of Evil, are not exactly well-liked or beloved by the fandom — in fact, they are widely maligned. To this day, Nintendo still refuses to have Link talk. Yes, there are voice actors for Link, but that’s for general grunts and yells while fighting. Link never speaks discernible lines in Nintendo’s games, so the casting and depiction of Link in any potential media adaptation will be very tricky to navigate, not to mention controversial.

Case in point, Chris Pratt endured a great deal of controversy for his casting as Mario in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, along with the choice to have Pratt talk in a more Americanized voice with what appears to be a Brooklyn accent. Yet Charles Martinet was the longtime voice actor for Mario in the Nintendo games for many years, giving Mario a heavy Italian accent. Regardless of the controversy over Pratt’s casting and voice, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been an overwhelming success, and audiences are largely enjoying Pratt’s performance as Mario. Therefore, previous failed attempts to make Link into a fully voiced character with dialogue do not mean the task is impossible. It simply means that it will be challenging to find the right balance in developing Link into a fully realized, speaking character for a media adaptation.

The benefit of Skyward Sword’s version of Link is his established, existing relationship with Zelda, so it gives the audience something to start with. Link is a knight-in-training at the Skyloft Knight Academy in the story. Also, he gets bullied by his rival Groose. And rather than Groose being a one-dimensional bully antagonist, he grows into a close friend and ally to Link throughout the story, while also serving as comic relief. There are flourishes of Link in Skyward Sword to give writers a start in adapting his story, including his bravery, his relationship with Zelda, and his underdog nature, making him a more empathetic character.

Wes Ball Is Tapped As Director For the Live-Action ‘Legend of Zelda’ Adaptation

Nintendo and Sony have handed The Legend of Zelda reigns to Wes Ball, director of the Maze Runner franchise and the upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. News of the adaptation coming in live-action form was a bit shocking to fans, however Ball has the right skill set to pull it off. The unique maze environments of Maze Runner lends themselves perfectly to the dungeons that Zelda has become synonymous with. Additionally, it surfaced that Ball might have manifested his hiring on the project over 10 years ago with a tweet proclaiming Zelda as “the next big mo-cap ‘Avatar‘-like movie.” Initially, Ball seems like a great choice for the franchise, but fans will still have to wait to hear which game Nintendo and Ball plan to adapt first. Here’s to hoping it’s Skyward Sword!

Legend of Zelda is available to stream on Tubi in the U.S.

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