Would the movie be bad? Prolly. Would it ruin the franchise? I'm not too sure about that.

Yes, so far all video-game based movies have been from bad to downright horrible, and it will prolly just get worse. But everybody has to realize that the stories and the memories experienced from video games cannot and will prolly never come close to the experiences that come from a movie.

Movies are too quick. They can only be about 2.5 to 3 hours long before the audience will start crying from torture, not from laughter or beauty of the movie. And they can never tell the whole story, otherwise people will start to ask "So what? Do I really need to know that?"

Second of all, directors feel the need to tell their own version of the story. Take for example, Shakespeare plays. William Shakespeare made many great plays, from Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and other great plays. While having excellent plot stories and standing out as true masterpieces, drama directors of today's world never, ever re-create those plays with exact detail. It's like the cardinal rule. Nowadays, all of Shakespearian plays have a twist to their story, so as to be relevant to today's society.

My point is that it is obvious that John Woo, if he is actually going to make a Metroid game, is going to put his own interpretation of the series onto the screen. Now, is it going to an interpretation like the Super Mario Bros. game? God hope not. But, let's just hope it is a good interpretation and be as popular as the Spiderman movies, the Batman movies etc., or at least a start in a good direction.

lol though I share your enthusiasm about Jessica Alba as being hot and a cool Samus, it's just not her. She doesn't embody a female who can be a bounty hunter. Women like Lucy Liu are great actresses who are hot, yet tough at the same time. Lucy Liu, however, is Asian and that kind of move to put her in the role for Samus will be blasphemous for the videogame world and quite possibly in Hollywood as well.

Because of that, I think Uma Thurman would make a good choice. Though I have mixed thoughts about her looks (she is average to poor in my eyes on the look department) she has the image of a tough woman ever since the Kill Bill movies were made, so she would be great for this role.