Ok, here’s what I am doing. Each Player is having a “star” game where that character will be the star- and their foe is the evil version (more or less) of that PC+. But I am also having fun by throwing in a movie parody too. So, for our Wizard, I did a Wizard of Oz parody, where the foe was the Wicked Witch, with flying monkeys, Witchguard and so forth. I did Maltese Falcon the time before.
So, the next character is a holy warrior/cleric/holyman/semi-angel type. Thus I need an iconic movie with that as the protagonist. By iconic, I mean that even if everyone hasn’t seen it, they know the basic plot, etc. *Seven Samurai, * *Casablanca, It’s a Wonderful Life *(which could qualify but not much action there, eh?), and so forth.
Hmmm…you could try The Mission, but I’m not sure “the cold brutality of human nature and the civilized world” would work well as a “boss” monster. (Maybe an elemental?)
How about undead? You could go with either vampires or zombies, there’s plenty of movies to choose from. And if you want a really, really nasty foe…go with Twilight.
I think the old trope of “missionary intends to convert ‘savages’ but learns from them” (a la Dances with wolves or Avatar) could work as an arc. Have the character’s church decide to convert an NPC tribe to his religion but along the way he learns to (hopefully, since this is after all an RPG and the player can do what he wants) respect their existing beliefs. You might even want to entice him to switch to worshiping the NPC’s deity by giving him some useful but non game breaking bonus power (a once a day heal or something).
If you’re going for an iconic movie with strong religious warrior type, your best bet is Excalibur. Certainly all the players should get the references easily. The player counterpart villain could be Arthur, Lancelot or Percival, depending upon where you want to go with the plot.
I know in D&D knights are more a paladin thing, but paladins are essentially just clerics with swords anyway. The D&D-style cleric is really kind of an oddity in fantasy fiction, except for those derivative of D&D, so you’d find it difficult to get a good match in a well known film.
Oh, what about something based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with your PC as either the Lion character or the PC and his party as the humans and his deity of choice as the Lion?
Kingdom of Heaven or Hellboy could work, properly tweaked. Come to think of it, Mulder in The X-Files TV show and movies is a faithful, holy warrior of sorts.
I like Lynn and Tom’s idea. Holy man vs vampires. Mock up a pseudo-Transylvanian setting and have the villain be a Bela Lugosi clone. Dracula’s a movie where everyone will recognize the cliches even if they haven’t seen it.
