Assassin's Creed: Lineage

Assassin's Creed: Lineage is 2009 Canadian web series, later compiled and sold as a movie that serves as a prequel to the Assassin's Creed II video game. Lineage was Ubisofts first foray into film making, for which they opted to shoot actors on green screen and then insert re-worked environmental assets extracted from the video games. Half of the costumes used were period re-creations leased from Italy; the rest were made by a design studio on behalf of Ubisoft. The total run-time of this "movie" is a measly 35 minutes and it could be purchased as a physical DVD in stores or watched for free on Ubisoft's official YouTube channel.

 

 

In 1476 Florence, Giovanni Auditore is a man descended from a long line of assassins that fight the corruption of the Renaissance era. He ambushes Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) but only manages to take one of his mercenaries hostage. Under torture conducted by Lorenzo de' Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent), the mercenary reveals a plot to assassinate Duke Galeazzo Sforza (Medici's ally) on St Stephen's Day. Giovanni arrives too late to prevent Sforza's death, but finds coins stamped with the coat of arms of Venice on one of the assassins.

At Doge's Palace in Venice, Giovanni overhears Marco Barbarigo dispatch a courier to deliver a letter to their master in Rome. When caught, the courier commits suicide to avoid interrogation. Giovanni presents the letter to Lorenzo who hands it to the Gonfaloniere of Justice, Uberto Alberti, who gives it to Father Antonio Maffei da Volterra for decrypting.

Uberto Alberti warns Father Antonio to not speak of the letter's contents to anyone and has a forgery produced. He then lies to Lorenzo about being unable to decode the letter and suggests that they deliver the letter to its intended target in Rome to see where it leads.

"And Father, remember you owe us your silence. Secrets are born here and they die here." -Uberto Alberti

The letter makes its way Rodrigo Borgia and then to Pope Sixtus IV. Displeased that Lorenzo is unwilling to bend to the Pope's authority, he agrees to support the Pazzi conspiracy. Giovanni follows Borgia to St. Peter's Basilica where he is ambushed and invited to join the Templar order. He refuses and barely escapes with his life. Back home, Father Antonio in the company of armed guards comes looking for Giovanni. Giovanni escapes through a hidden passage while musing on the dark days ahead.

 

 

Thoughts

As a free bit of promotional material for Assassin's Creed II it is of surprisingly high production value and makes sense when paired with the game. Had this been a feature length self-contained story it would have made for a decent film. The story is full of intrigue, deception, treachery, and historical films generally do well with a broad audience. Instead what we get here is a half-finished storyline that purposefully ends on a cliff-hanger in the hope of encouraging game sales. So without playing the video game the story never gets properly resolved and can't function as a standalone piece of media.

I actually recall seeing copies of this DVD in Walmart and wondering how many non-gamers picked up this 'movie' thinking they were getting a full feature length film only to be disappointed. I can't imagine that experience convinced any of them to pick up the video game. Lineage is certainly good as add-on material but not something that I would be happy to pay money for on its own.

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