Assassin’s Screed: Lineage
In 2016, Ubisoft put its yearly release of an Assassin’s Creed game on hold (except for Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, Russia, and India) to release the long awaited Assassin’s Creed: The Movie, starring Michael Fassbender, hot off the heels of his success playing Magneto in the X-Men: First Class era of X-Men movies. It was an ambitious project, to take a series that struggles with managing its story and gameplay, both very good but often very at odds with each other, and to translate that to the big screen. It would even focus not only on the thrilling historical action adventure — set in the new, unexplored time period of Inquisition Spain — it would also delve into the modern day plot, with Abstergo forcing death row prisoner Callum Lynch to relive his ancestor’s memories.
It also fucking sucked, and I won’t have to watch it again until until this little series gets like twelve more episodes, so thank God that’s not what I’m talking about today.
No, I’m talking about the first movie that ubisoft made:
In some ways the story behind Lineage is more interesting than the story of Assassin’s Creed Lineage. You’ve no doubt heard of the VFX studio that created the movie, or at least you’ve heard of their work. Hybride Technologies, based out Montreal, has a really impressive portfolio, though from 1991 to 1996 they were primarily involved only in commercials and documentaries, with their big break into film coming with Guillermo del Toro’s Mimic.
You might also recognize their work from the Spy-Kids series, or Sin City and 300, both of which have the same unnatural hyperreal feel that Lineage has due to being shot almost entirely on green screen with everything else added in post. This was also a technique that Hybride used for the Avatar movies, which came out right after they were acquired by Ubisoft, meaning that Ubisoft Entertainment helped make James Cameron’s Avatar, as well as Pacific Rim and the new Star Wars movies (in conjunction with Industrial Light and Magic, with whom Hybride has a “strategic alliance”, whatever that means).
Its honestly kind of mind boggling just how much this division of Ubisoft has worked on that has been big and impressive visual effects work that just… goes under the radar as being relate to Ubisoft at all. But then again that’s sort of the thing with these big multi-national megacorporations, isn’t it? Eventually it’ll all be owned by Disney-Warner Brothers-Fox, which might as well just change its name to the Horizon Group, and you’ll never know which company is owned by who.
Either way, Ubisoft acquired the company in 2008 because it wanted to experiment with using its narrative tent pole franchises to branch out into cinema on their own, presumably so that they don’t have a repeat of 2008’s Far Cry, directed by Uwe Bolle, who allegedly got the rights from Crytek before the first game was ever even released.
The first collaboration between Hybride and Ubisoft was this three part, half hour long live action trailer and short film prequel for Assassin’s Creed II.
In at least one way Assassin’s Creed Lineage manages to really capture an aspect of video games: None of it looks real at all.
The whole thing was shot digitally on green screen using the same technique that were used in Sin City and 300, and I think the SyFy original series Haven, or maybe it was something else. As previously mentioned, all the scenes are shot in a green screen room, and then the actual scenery is added in afterwards in post-production. It gives everything this weird, hyperrealistic feeling. There isn’t much blood, but what blood the shorts have is digital, and maybe its just me, but noticeable.
I actually kind of dig this, though. The crowds are all fake, the buildings are all fake, the whole thing is filmed on a stage covered in green boxes, maybe with a few realistic props. I’m sure it doesn’t really give the actors much to work with, but the weird unreality of it gives the film a quality I like.
You can even watch here to see some of the techniques they use for yourself. Its kind of amazing that almost nothing in these shots is real except for the actors and their costumes.
Every single costume in this movie looks amazing.
There are so many detailed shots of Giovanni’s Assassin robes that I would not be surprised if they were intentionally trying to help out any cosplayers, or maybe just the costume designer was so impressed by their handiwork that they demanded that as much of it get shown off as possible. And fair enough to the hypothetical costume designer, it is an amazing costume. I kept pausing the video just to admire it. I’ve never really thought of myself as a costume kind of person, but they really are amazing.
Giovanni’s outfit, which admittedly lacks the beaked design on the hood that the games have, doesn’t just look like some fresh new cosplay for a photoshoot or a convention, it actually looks well worn and period appropriate in spite of the unique design. Leave down the hood and maybe hold off on the belts of knives and swords and it would blend in perfectly with a Renaissance Faire’s or LARP’s usual costumes.
Rodrigo Borgia’s comparatively simple design of neatly collared religious robes and a deep black hooded cloak still cuts an impressive silhouette, and all of the extras have period appropriate costumes that make me jealous. I wanna dress up in fancy Renaissance clothes like these. According to Wikipedia, about half of the clothes in the three episodes were reproductions leased from Italy.
It just looks like Halloween. Everyone is dressed like they just came from Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. It’s all very dramatic and theatrical. Even the monks have these high, stiff collars that look way more dramatic than an actual monk’s robes would have.
While the colour for most of the series is washed out and dull looking, the colours of the costumes really stand out, in particular the reds of Rodrigo and Giovanni’s outfits amongst the duller whites and blacks of their outfits, particularly in the night fight in the first of the three episodes. Also Giovanni’s lips, which I’m not entirely sure was intentional. The nights are the unnatural blue tint of day-for-night, and the day scenes are bright and yellow. It adds to the uncanny nature of the short series, but again, that’s something that I’m surprisingly fond of.
Lineage is unabashedly nothing more than a half hour long cutscene setting up the plot of Assassin’s Creed II. It isn’t at all necessary to enjoy or understand that game, but in a way it does provide context for things. Things that don’t actually need all that much context, and it gives absolutely no context for some of the actual things that happen within the film.
There is a whole lot of historical shit to Wikipedia, though, which is what I did for some of it.
The first episode of the three sets us up, beginning with our hero donning all his battle gear, with really good prop-making close up shots of his robes and weapons being done up and belted on. He then peeks out from behind the doorway to watch his family having dinner without him. He then heads out of the house through a secret passage and lurks on the rooftops of Florence at night.
Throughout it all, he talks about how history will remember this period of Italy in 1476 as a renaissance where art, culture, and science flourished, but that it was also a time of greed and corruption and betrayal and secrets. Secrets so dangerous that Giovanni can’t even tell his lovely family of three sons, a daughter, and a wife with a really amazing costume.
He goes on to tell us that family, justice, and honour are the values guiding his blade. His truth is written in blood, and he strikes from the shadows. He is Giovanni Auditore, and like his ancestors before him, he is an Assassin.
Cue the title drop.
Giovanni stops and attacks four men traveling through Florence at night, killing two of them and capturing one, but the fourth, their leader, escaped. The captured man is taken to the palace of Lorenzo de Medici, who Giovanni works for.
Under the torture of Uberto Alberti — Not a real person, which is comparatively rare here — the Gonfaloniere of Florence, which is a position I could not begin to explain or comprehend, but seems to be a type of cop, the man breaks and reveals a plot to assassinate the Duke of Milan on Christmas day at the mass for the feast of Santo Stefano (Saint Stephen).
Giovanni heads to Milano, only to get to the church just as the here-unnamed Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani stabs Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who is only named Sforza in this. There’s a lot of interesting context here that would probably get a snarky little database entry from Shaun Hastings if it were in one of the Assassin’s Creed games, but here it’s just a thing that happens.
A fight breaks out, and there’s a big brawl as Giovanni tries to capture Lampugnani, but Sforza’s unnamed faithful Moorish guard gets the other Giovanni up against the wall with a man catcher — one of those long poles with a spike filled half circle on the end, nasty stuff — and snaps his neck despite our Giovanni shouting not to kill him. Its honestly a bit less ignoble than the real way that Lampugnani died, which was when he got caught in some of the cloth hanging in the church. His body was then grabbed by an angry mob, dragged through the streets, beaten, and strung his headless corpse up outside of his house, but not before his sinning hand was cut off and burned to later be kept on display. His head was hung in the belltower for weeks as a warning.
But we don’t get to see any of that brutal stuff, just Giovanni rifling through his pockets, finding some foreign coins, and using them as a clue to hunt down the next lead.
Giovanni then gets to go home and watch Ezio and Frederico playing chess. The men share a moment while a smiling Maria watches, only for the bright scene to dramatically shift to Rodrigo and other conspirators skulking through the city at night, and Giovanni in his hidden room looking at the coins and giving us a voiceover about how the Duke of Milan’s death hurts Lorenzo’s position and that his enemies plot their next move, and that Galeazzo’s death was only the beginning, but he knows where to go next.
The second episode starts in Venice, though we don’t get to see many canals. The coin, with its winged lion design, leads Giovanni to the Palazzo Ducale, where he manages to sneak around and overhearing a man who here goes unnamed — but who is Marco Barbarigo, the not-yet Doge of Venice — telling a courier about the importance of a letter and directions to where it needs to go in Rome. Giovanni of course tracks the man across the rooftops and when he finds him alone, tries to murder him. There’s a fight, but in the end he stabs his own throat on Giovanni’s blade instead of give up any information.
Back in Florence, Giovanni gives the letter to Lorenzo and Uberti, who notes that it has the seal of the Barbarigos, and when opening it they learn the letter is written in code. The gonfaloniere tells Giovanni to get some rest while he has the waiting Father Antonio Maffei (a real person, though other than the existence of an “Antonio Maffei da Volterra” I can’t find much) break the code. Maffei is able to decipher the letter, but Uberti tells him that secrets are born here, and they die here. He swears the father to secrecy, and sends him off to get Giovanni.
Before leaving, Giovanni has a moment alone with Maria while the young Ezio watches on. Giovanni’s middle son wants to go to wherever his banker father keeps going off to in the middle of the night, but Giovanni rebuffs him and tells him to help his brother before heading off to the midnight meeting.
Uberti tells Lorenzo and Giovanni that Maffei couldn’t break the code, and that a duplicate letter needed to be made that Giovanni will now have to deliver. Lorenzo asks Giovanni if he’s sure he wants to go alone into such a dangerous city as Rome, and the Assassin bows to the Duke, swearing to keep the safety of Florence and the honour of the Medici. I’ll get to it later, but this kind of relationship between the Auditores and the Medicis is really weird to me.
Lorenzo dramatically orders Giovanni to find the pit where these snakes hide and be merciless, and then we see the conspirators, lead by the still unnamed Rodrigo Borgia, deep in a secret torchlit meeting praying “may the Father of Understanding guide us” and laying their swords down on the table in solidarity.
The third act opens with Giovanni in Rome, passing off the letter and then tracking it as it changes hands multiple times throughout the day, passed off from one courier to the next until it finally gets to Rodrigo, who delivers it to “Your Holiness”, the here unnamed Pope Sixtus IV, who finally names the lead conspirator, asking “has Rodrigo Borgia become a messenger now?”, and doesn’t actually read the letter. The two discuss Lorenzo da Medici, with Rodrigo trying to convince the pope to lend his aid in the Pazzi conspiracy, though here still there isn’t really any indication of the larger conspiracy or its other players beyond the Barbarigo family and Rodrigo. While Sixtus won’t outright condone the murder of the Medici, he does agree to offer his spiritual support to the plot, as well as his military, “to insure order is maintained”, warning Rodrigo to preserve the honour of the Holy See.
Which, like, I don’t know how many of you know who Rodrigo Borgia is, but spoilers for Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, and the years 1492 to 1503, but… hah. He doesn’t really do that.
This thing is only ten minutes and there hasn’t been a fight yet, so after Rodrigo leaves Sixtus, Giovanni tails him, losing him in the half-finished Basilica di San Pietro. When he finds him again, Rodrigo tries to tempt Giovanni, wanting to convince him to join the Templars. The world is changing, and if Giovanni joins him, he’ll live to see it. Of course, the Assassin is our hero, and would never do that, so Rodrigo has him ambushed by a bunch of mooks with really nice costumes.
Giovanni’s hidden blade is snapped off — providing the explanation for it needing to be repaired in the first act of the game — and Rodrigo throws a pretty big ass knife at Giovanni’s chest before fleeing, but our hero manages to kill everyone, and get back to Florence for Maria to change his bandages. He breaks down and tells his concerned wife about the beginnings of the Pazzi conspiracy (though he doesn’t use that term), only for Frederico to bust in telling him that Maffei is here, with armed guards, looking for Giovanni. Sending his son out to slow them down, Giovanni leaves through the secret room and heads out.
Dressed in his Assassin’s robes and a cloak, Giovanni heads out while elsewhere the conspirators argue over one another about that damned assassin, only for a sly Rodrigo to say that he has something planned for Giovanni.
Giovanni comes out of his secret passage to see Ezio flirting with a young woman, likely Cristina Vespucci, and then dramatically walks down the darkened streets of Florence musing in voice over on the nature of mortality and saying that the final battle is about to begin, declaring to his sons (Frederico and Ezio; not Petruchio, who is like seven) that they are the Auditore da Firenze, and they are Assassins. The movie then ends with the incredibly cheesy title card reading:
So, that’s the Assassin’s Creed II trailer movie set up. A lot of stuff happens, but not a lot really happens. It isn’t exactly bad, but it also isn’t exactly good. Its a sequence of events that don’t have context, and don’t ever really get context. The Pazzi conspiracy is unraveled throughout the game as Ezio gets revenge for the murder of his family, but here it’s all just a bunch of unexplained events. Why does Uberti just straight up lie? Who knows. What do all these people want to screw over Lorenzo de Medici for? Who knows. This is obviously due to how the whole thing is just set up for a different story, but at the end of it, nothing really affects Ezio’s story.
A lot of it also doesn’t really ever get context. As far as I recall, though I haven’t yet dived into the game again, Ezio never learns about the murder of the Duke of Milan or how that set off the Pazzi conspiracy. Ultimately none of what happened in Lineage is necessary to enjoy Assassin’s Creed II, and really it only slightly enhances the game.
Also, there are a few other questions the movie brings up, without really intending to…
So, that’s the Assassin’s Creed II trailer movie set up. A lot of stuff happens, but not a lot really happens. It isn’t exactly bad, but it also isn’t exactly good. Its a sequence of events that don’t have context, and don’t ever really get context. The Pazzi conspiracy is unraveled throughout the game as Ezio gets revenge for the murder of his family, but here it’s all just a bunch of unexplained events. Why does Uberti just straight up lie? Who knows. What do all these people want to screw over Lorenzo de Medici for? Who knows. This is obviously due to how the whole thing is just set up for a different story, but at the end of it, nothing really affects Ezio’s story.
A lot of it also doesn’t really ever get context. As far as I recall, though I haven’t yet dived into the game again, Ezio never learns about the murder of the Duke of Milan or how that set off the Pazzi conspiracy. Ultimately none of what happened in Lineage is necessary to enjoy Assassin’s Creed II, and really it only slightly enhances the game.
Also, there are a few other questions the movie brings up, without really intending to…
Even beyond the historical context, there’s a lot of context within the worldbuilding that just… isn’t here.
The Assassins of the Crusades were a secretive sect, with their own religious beliefs and social codes. They were the protectors of the village of Masyaf and had agents around the Holy Land. They opposed the Crusaders and Saracens alike, and didn’t pledge themselves to anyone beyond Al Mualim. In the novel in fact the Assassins were enemies of Saladin, though I don’t recall whether that detail was canon at the time of the second game or this movie.
How did this secretive order of ascetic warrior monks become a single banking family in Florence? Why does Giovanni work for the Medici family? He doesn’t seem to just be a strategic ally with his own sociopolitical goals that Giovanni works with, but not for. Instead, here he’s treated as taking on the role of Al Mualim. The movie ends with a declaration that the Auditore family are Assassins, but what that means, here, in this context, is never addressed.
The secret society dedicated to upholding freedom and personal liberty has now become seemingly one single family? A family of bankers, no less? The Assassin hero is okay with a man he captured being tortured on the rack? He outright bows to head of the Florentine Republic? How did all of this come to be?
The Templars, meanwhile, are still a scheming and manipulative group with a vague tie to the Church, but there’s not really any indication of their motives here or why destabilizing Florence will lead them closer to their goals. Or even what their goals are, beyond the destabilization of Florence and the removal of Lorenzo de Medici.
The worst part here is that I don’t actually think there ever comes an answer, even in the game itself. We’re left with the implication that Giovanni Auditore is the one and only Assassin and that his sons — who don’t even know their lineage as members of a secret sect of warrior monks dedicated to upholding peace and individuality — are the next in line to be Lorenzo de Medici’s personal hitmen and secret agents. In fact, it takes quite a while into Assassin’s Creed II before we even learn of other Assassins, and the way that Florence is set up works well for Ezio’s story in the game, but it certainly does leave a lot of questions. But those will have to be mused over elsewhere.
There’s also the fact that only the opening and closing monologues and a few second long scenes where Giovanni talks to Ezio or Frederico, there’s nothing really related to “Lineage” here, but you’d think there would be, since that’s the title of the movie.
Personally, if I were to give advice to Ubisoft on a movie that they made a decade ago, I’d say that it should have given us more. More focus on Ezio, perhaps, since he’s the main character of the game, setting out to avenge his family’s death, and more of just what it is that Giovanni does as an Assassin. Instead of having it show the beginnings of the Pazzi conspiracy, maybe show off some different way in which Giovanni makes an enemy of the Templars. The term Templar doesn’t even show up, as far as I can tell!
That said, while I will say that the plot is just a sequence of events, I love everything else about this. I love the costumes and props, I love the visual effects techniques. I especially love the acting by Romano Orzari and especially Manuel Tadros as Giovanni Auditore and Rodrigo Borgia respectively. They reprise their roles in the game itself, and Tadros especially is just really good in a way that I don’t recall the in game model being. His smirk is so good, and I love his accent and the way that he talks. Honestly my biggest complaint about the acting is that it isn’t more over the top and theatrical.
If you’re getting people to dress up in period costumes and run around in green rooms filled with green boxes, just fucking go wild and ham it up. Chew the scenery so hard you need to floss afterwards.
All in all, it’s a neat little movie, but it could have been more. Then again, I bet I thought something similar until I saw the Michael Fassbender movie. But that’s for another time.
Anyway, I mean, the thing is only 35 minutes long, and its on Youtube. So you could just watch it.
If you liked what I had to say about this weird little trailer movie, you might also like me talking about the first Assassin’s Creed game, or the unknown PSP spin off game; I’ve also talked about things that aren’t Assassin’s Creed, like how work is bad, actually, or the way that liberals can often view politics similarly to a game.
If you like all this weird writing, you can become my Patron and help me write more. Even just a dollar helps. If you just want to give me a one time donation — think of it as a tip — I’ve got a Cash.me page for that.
Assassin’s Creed II is next, where I begin Ezio’s trilogy, and compare II to the Renaissance novel, which I accidentally listened to early and I’ve almost finished it and only just barely started the game. See you then.
