Check Out This Clever Faux Film Trailer For a Civilization Movie Adaptation

Fans of Firaxis’ classic Civilization series of turn-based strategy games will no doubt get a kick out of the above fan-made parody trailer, which imagines what the Civilization series might look like if it somehow made the jump to the big screen. The long-running game of diplomacy, city-building, science and war has never looked so epic, thanks to this fan, who used clips from more than 30 films, primarily historical epics, to illustrate the various world leaders, armies and units that one tends to see in entries of the Civilization series.

The results will certainly make long-time fans chuckle, as there are clever references to Civ in-jokes such as Mahatma Gandhi’s famous propensity toward nuclear violence. Here, the Ben Kingsley version of Gandhi is heard intoning “We will light a fire that will be seen in Delhi, and in London!”, which immediately cuts to a nuclear blast demolishing London from what I think must be G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Other bits of clever editing imply the time-traveling aspect to the game’s warfare, as spearmen are implied to be attacking helicopters and WWII tanks from Fury appear to be battling German barbarians. Both instances illustrate why the idea of a Civilization film would be so whimsically unrealistic in real life.

There are also many other world leaders on display, from Abraham Lincoln and Elizabeth I to Boudica, Queen of the Celts or the Syrian Sultan Saladin, as well as some of the trademark grandiose shots and gravitas that Civilization is known for, set to a recitation of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” We even get a bit of the classic “Baba Yetu” theme from Civ 4 during the closing montage of global achievements. Check out the full video above; it’s a nice bit of editing.