My Name is Katrina

A BattleTech movie pitch

When I was getting into BattleTech, the old hands who taught me the game would sometimes talk about casting “The BattleTech movie”. At the time, the plot didn’t even need to be discussed. Of course it was going to be the Clan War, and so the film would need an action heroine to play the notorious MechWarrior Natasha Kerensky - as I remember, Sigourney Weaver was the people’s choice for that part. Other prominent roles were less clear-cut or maybe the actors and actresses suggested didn’t stick so clearly in my mind. Despite the amount of time that’s passed, the concept’s still pretty popular. Just about everyone knows that the movie rights are held up in some kind of intellectual property limbo that I won’t pretend to understand, but suspension of disbelief is an important part of storytelling. Right?

So, with our disbelief properly dangling (levitating?), let’s indulge in a related idea - not the casting of BattleTech: the Movie, but the story. In a post-MCU world, any pitch would have to pick a starting point in BattleTech’s now-sprawling story that might lead to dozens of sequels. In my heart of hearts, I think adapting Michael Stackpole’s “Ghost War” would be the right call - or failing that, going all the way back to “Decision at Thunder Rift”. Both of those books start fairly small and intimate, allowing a new audience to gradually learn about the universe. Of course, just recommending an adaptation of one of those books would be a pretty short article, so let’s think about breaking somewhat new ground with a less obvious option.