Undertale works as a whole because of its deconstruction of it being a video game.
not exactly sure how it would work as a movie
I disagree with the idea that Undertale works because it's a deconstruction. I know that it's meant to be one, but I don't believe that to be integral to it's success.
We've already been discussing doing an Undertale animated film for quite some time now and it works just fine as a film. Frankly, there were really only 2 glaring issues that I've run into while mocking this up, those being the run time and the order of the endings. Technically speaking you could just make Undertale as the True Pacifist ending and it would work just fine, but I wanted to work in all 3 main endings. The two main problems are a result of this decision. Having all 3 routes showcased would normally be fine for something like a TV show, but I know we wanted it as a movie, and without cutting out too much, it ends up being pretty damn long. This shouldn't be too big of an issue however, as long as good pacing is maintained and frankly, it's a bullet I'm willing to bite for the sake of having the most complete story I can get. Then comes the ordering...and hoo boy! That was giving me trouble for a good while. I obviously wanted to showcase all 3 routes and bosses, but the problem with doing this for a film is that it's going to get repetitive. This isn't a problem for the video game, as it's part of the nature of the game, but it would be one for the film. Initially, I wanted to arrange it as Neutral Ending first, then Genocide Ending, and then True Pacifist. Neutral first goes the least in depth about the deeper bits and bobs in Undertale and is pretty straightforward overall. There are other things I could say, but basically, Neutral Ending first was a no-brainer. But then I wanted to do Genocide next and ending with True Pacifist because I wanted to end the film on an uplifting, optimistic, cheerful, and all-around feel good note, and so True Pacifist had to be the ending, but this doesn't work with Genocide coming before it because of the tonal whiplash and overall wouldn't mesh well with getting the feel-good "everything worked out in the end"-ending right after genociding everything. Not to mention that one of the requirements for Neutral Ending in the game is not going through all of the friendship stuff with the other characters. The other potential requirements(you only need one) are to kill but not kill everything, and I didn't want to do that at the beginning of the film as I felt like it would fit tonally, or not exploring the True Lab, but that wouldn't feel right to explore in the True Pacifist ending at the end of the film or in Genocide Route, so the relationship one had to be the requirement that happened, but that would undercut the shock and emotional impact of the Genocide ending, as the relationships and bonds aren't as strong as the could be. Not to mention that you can't expand on them as much as in True Pacifist because then it becomes repetitive seeing the same scenes, and so in order to work, Neutral Ending has to have less strong relationships. Overall, nothing was working, everything was clashing, it was all a freaking mess, but then I decided to think about how it would work out if I put the Genocide Route at the end and True Pacifist as second. This worked out much better. Not only does it justify the reset in Neutral Ending as not everyone having escaped or had a happy ending and so it makes sense to reset and do things right the 2nd time, it would also strengthen the relationships much further and get you firmly invested in these characters and their success while spending so much time with them before Genocide occurs. Everything remains tonally consistent and you get the rousing optimism of True Pacifist before the soul crushing Genocide Route. It also gave me a very convenient ending, the True Reset with Chara. This would allow for a more bittersweet ending as opposed to just ending with murder and death, as Frisk gives up their soul in order to reset the world and try and make things right again. And given that no one remembers due to it being a True Reset, it feels all more natural. I may not be able to make it the happy ending that I wanted it to be, but I can still leave it off on a bittersweet ending with some hope that things can get better.
I don't feel like I explained it all as well as I could have or how I'm picturing it, but I feel as though it's good enough.
