Discussion: Game to Film Adaptation

[Bobic]

Regardless of the question of quality, something is off about this. Books don't get that treatment, nor do stageplays.

To be fair, this isn't exactly true. Books get heavily 'edited' too. Do you think the original three musketeers involved many flying ships?


Also, as much as I love it (and am looking forward to the upcoming sequel), have you seen the knew Sherlock Holmes?

Oh and, although I haven't read it (but intend to), I'm pretty sure Stephen King wasn't picturing Arnold Schwarzenegger spraying out cheesy one liners when he wrote The Running Man.

OT: It may be better that the movies tend to do their own thing, the people who've already played the game already know the games story quite well, why not give them something new whilst holding on to the same atmosphere, setting or themes of the original works. Of course, most of the time, the results are terrible, but that's probably due to a lack of respect and effort to make a good film. I'd say most game movies fall easily within the realms of cash in rather than movie made by someone who genuinely thinks he/she is constructing an artistic masterpiece.

 

[Thaius]

Regardless of the question of quality, something is off about this. Books don't get that treatment, nor do stageplays.

To be fair, this isn't exactly true. Books get heavily 'edited' too. Do you think the original three musketeers involved many flying ships?


Also, as much as I love it (and am looking forward to the upcoming sequel), have you seen the knew Sherlock Holmes?

Oh and, although I haven't read it (but intend to), I'm pretty sure Stephen King wasn't picturing Arnold Schwarzenegger spraying out cheesy one liners when he wrote The Running Man.

OT: It may be better that the movies tend to do their own thing, the people who've already played the game already know the games story quite well, why not give them something new whilst holding on to the same atmosphere, setting or themes of the original works. Of course, most of the time, the results are terrible, but that's probably due to a lack of respect and effort to make a good film. I'd say most game movies fall easily within the realms of cash in rather than movie made by someone who genuinely thinks he/she is constructing an artistic masterpiece.

Different takes on a story, yes. Thus things like the flying ships and the recent Sherlock Holmes films. In addition, the older a work gets, the more freedom is generally had with it. Shakespeare, for instance, is adapted a lot more freely than most other things. But in the end, it's always a similar story (though I'm not sure if Sherlock Holmes was, but considering the source material is a set of mostly episodic short stories it's more understandable to do a different story in that case). Liberties are mostly taken on details, setting, or style, but the story usually at least makes an attempt to follow the source, even in the cases you mentioned.

And in the end, that "respect and effort" is mostly what I'm talking about. I'm not saying every game adaptation needs to be a word-for-word recreation of the original story, but if the filmmakers aren't even viewing the game as a story in the first place, if they don't have respect for the game as an artwork... well, we've already seen the results.

 

[Tonz of Fun]

I think the whole thing is a TLR. Skim the basic plot, take out what you don't like and put in what you think would make it interesting.

 

[Thaius]

The problem is games are interactive. Books, films and so on are not. This makes the whole game -> film process a pain (and we've all seen rather forced film -> game adaptations).

I cant remember who said it, but they made a good point. In a film or book, the protagonist is always one down, they have to be losing right until the end otherwise the tension dies. Now look at games; the only way they mirror this is through the cutscenes, where the antagonist gets there before you. At all other times you're backflipping off walls, gunning down legions of enemies, you're always winning.

Also, in games, a lot of the sympathy for the characters and generally building our images of them is done through the gameplay. Placing them in a film means you can't do the same repetitive combos that give you a feel of the character.

This is the inherent difficulty with game-to-whatever adaptation, I think. Because you're right. Interactivity does a lot to connect us to the protagonist, and moments like Ryan's office in Bioshock or the end of Halo: Reach are as effective as they are largely because of that interactivity. But it does not make it impossible; it's simply the big difference between mediums.

Every trans-medium adaptation deals with this. Every medium has some sort of unique property that cannot be emulated by another. That's what makes adaptation so interesting; seeing how the story can be told in another way, with a different focus due to the differences in the source and adapted mediums. To see how cinematography is used in a Shakespeare film, to see how the written description of a certain object or location looks on-screen, so play a part in a story we previously only could watch (though something-to-game adaptations have an even worse track record than game-to-film, but that's a whole other issue). Those differences are exactly what makes adaptation so interesting.

As for the protagonist being one down, there's a lot more to look at regarding that concept than the simple winning of battles, and video games with good stories certainly have this element. Because games now are not always about winning; they're about objectives. When Master Chief discovered The Flood, the objective was not to kill them all; the only thing he could do was escape. He was running for his life from a new and terrifying enemy; I'd call that being one down. In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, most of the story is about a journey to the place where the villain already has the most important element of his plan, and once they actually get there they suffer another setback anyway (which does happen in a cutscene, but understandably so since the player is not in control of whether the Prince trusts Farah). Things like this also happen countless times in the better Final Fantasy stories; if you've played VI, you know what may be the most extreme example in the entire medium. This is not about whether the protagonist wins battles, it's about the bigger picture and the story as a whole, and good game stories do that perfectly well. For that matter, a film is essentially one big cutscene anyway (putting it in game terms), so anything shown in cutscenes would translate easily to the screen.

In the end, removing interactivity from a game may take away from some of the impact, but it shouldn't make telling the story difficult at all.

 

[ResonanceGames]

The problem is games are interactive. Books, films and so on are not. This makes the whole game -> film process a pain (and we've all seen rather forced film -> game adaptations).

The level of story interactivity in games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Prince of Persia, Doom, etc. is so low that it's almost irrelevant.

Adaptations of games don't suck because it's harder to adapt a game than a book or a comic, they suck because the studios and directors don't take the property seriously. They're basically overpriced exploitation movies.

I'm not saying they should follow the plot of the games they're adapting (they usually shouldn't) but they should try to distill the qualities of an IP that could make for an interesting movie and use those as a base. Instead, they turn all of them into incredibly generic action movies with a gaming IP slapped onto it.

 

[Starik20X6]

Erm, do we need them? The vast majority of games work because gaming is an interactive medium. What would Mario, Zelda, Half-Life etc. gain by removing the interactive element from them? Dunno about everyone else, but I don't feel the need to watch some actor dressed as Link wandering around dungeons trying to figure out how to open the next door- it's only entertaining when you are the one doing it.

 

[AD-Stu]

I think it really depends on the game they're using as a basis.

The earliest game to movie adaptations were of games that basically had no story (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat) so it made sense that something was simply fabricated around the characters and setting.

In some later cases, and with some upcoming projects, I think it's actually that games have too much content (not to mention too many diverging plot paths) to squeeze into a two-hour film. The idea of a Mass Effect movie in particular made me think about this: how do you cram a 30-40 hour game into that time period, let alone establish all the back-story and lore that was told through Codex entries?

Spoiler: My thoughts on that...

I'm thinking you probably establish Shepard as a Spectre from the outset, skip Artemis Tau altogether by picking Liara up some other way, probably drop one of either Noveria or Feros, and obviously skip all the side material - and that's if you assume they're going to use the game's main story...

In cases like that, I can see how a lot of people would think it was easier to just tell a different story altogether...

 

[Vault101]

when you take the gameplay aspect out of it alot of whats there..is just kind of B-movie type stuff..at best however the setting and stuff an be rather unique

and also some games there is stuff thats variable...suh as the mian charachter

can you imagine what its like having a unique and crazy charachter in your game...only to have them made into "white action hero male" for the moie? HUGE step down (part of the reason I wouldnt watch a mass effect movie with shepard in it)

overall you have to have the right people behined it....and even then Id just rahter play the game 99% of the time

 

[Truly-A-Lie]

I dont know why most of the movies try to haphazardly cram concepts and stories from videogames into a 1 hour movie.

I would much rather they use the Movie to expand the Background and world of the Videogame.

Dont make a Mass Effect Movie starring Shepard and his crew, make a movie about how the Illusive man got to where he is.

Dont make a Halo movie about Recapping the last games, make a movie about Humanities first contact with the Covenant.

Dont make a Mario Bros movie. EVER!

The Movie makers seem to forget that one of the main appeals of the Videogames is the INTERACTIVITY, something that cannot be translated into a Film, sometimes we let some really horrible plots get away with themselves, because the player is the one living them.

This occurred to me when I looked across the Halo franchise and wondered why the film should be any different from the books or Legends or graphic novels. I didn't understand why that universe would be shared across all media, except for a film adaptation which would be a separate version.

Movies should just become part of the extended universe for games. I always imagine a Resistance movie that takes place as the Chimera first invade the UK, or an Assassin's Creed that was like Lineage but a full feature length production. It would allow for all kinds of stories to take place in the same world as the game, with each portion of story taking place in the medium that best suits it.

 

[boag]

I think it really depends on the game they're using as a basis.

The earliest game to movie adaptations were of games that basically had no story (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat) so it made sense that something was simply fabricated around the characters and setting.

In some later cases, and with some upcoming projects, I think it's actually that games have too much content (not to mention too many diverging plot paths) to squeeze into a two-hour film. The idea of a Mass Effect movie in particular made me think about this: how do you cram a 30-40 hour game into that time period, let alone establish all the back-story and lore that was told through Codex entries?

Spoiler: My thoughts on that...

I'm thinking you probably establish Shepard as a Spectre from the outset, skip Artemis Tau altogether by picking Liara up some other way, probably drop one of either Noveria or Feros, and obviously skip all the side material - and that's if you assume they're going to use the game's main story...

In cases like that, I can see how a lot of people would think it was easier to just tell a different story altogether...

You are going to end up with a mediocre sci fi shoot em up action film if you do that.

Part of what I found entertaining about the ME series is that I can dick around a bit hearing Bioware dialog while I shoot things in their kneecaps or do backflip on the Mako.

I stand by the idea of Expanding the Universe Through a movie, what is the point of retelling a story, without the witty banther, without the interactivity?

I loved the ME comics cause they told stories that filled in the Gaps of the Games, I loved the Shadow Broker DLC, because I read what Liara went through to get Sheppard.


Also, ME has the inherent flaw as a film that if you choose a male actor, you will be pissing off anyone that played Fem-Shep and vice-versa.

 

[Veylon]

Someone earlier on mentioned the pacing. The reason for that pacing is that most games with stories take anywhere from four to sixty hours, whereas the time budget for movies is one-and-a-half to three hours, meaning that even an dreadfully short game is considerably longer than a painfully long movie.

Imagine turning, say, Final Fantasy 8 into a movie. Scenes like the train-jacking or the missle base invasion would be fifteen-minute (at least) set pieces in a movie, yet there are at least a half dozen others clamoring for attention from that game alone. There's the assassination set up and attempt, the Dollet incursion, the prison break-out, the Garden sparring, the search for Ellone, etc. And then you've got to explain Esthar, Time compression, Space travel, cover Laguna's story, Lunatic Pandora, the day care, Adell, show us who Seifer & co. are, and have enough time for the battles at the end of time. Major plot elements would have to be excised wholesale. I haven't gotten into junctioning or GFs, both of which would probably have to be dumped entirely. RPG plots can sprawl so much more than movies can, so there's not much point in trying to make them into movies. Maybe a mini-series or anime season.

 

[Thaius]

Someone earlier on mentioned the pacing. The reason for that pacing is that most games with stories take anywhere from four to sixty hours, whereas the time budget for movies is one-and-a-half to three hours, meaning that even an dreadfully short game is considerably longer than a painfully long movie.

Imagine turning, say, Final Fantasy 8 into a movie. Scenes like the train-jacking or the missle base invasion would be fifteen-minute (at least) set pieces in a movie, yet there are at least a half dozen others clamoring for attention from that game alone. There's the assassination set up and attempt, the Dollet incursion, the prison break-out, the Garden sparring, the search for Ellone, etc. And then you've got to explain Esthar, Time compression, Space travel, cover Laguna's story, Lunatic Pandora, the day care, Adell, show us who Seifer & co. are, and have enough time for the battles at the end of time. Major plot elements would have to be excised wholesale. I haven't gotten into junctioning or GFs, both of which would probably have to be dumped entirely. RPG plots can sprawl so much more than movies can, so there's not much point in trying to make them into movies. Maybe a mini-series or anime season.

That's certainly true for some games. But only some, most of which are RPGs. Most action games, shooters, etc. could be very easily brought down to an acceptable running time.

I've seen a lot of people say this, but they seem to be forgetting one thing; most of that time is playtime with very little, if any, plot or character development. Halo, for instance, could cut out a lot. There is, of course, a lot of important dialogue throughout the gameplay, but simply shorten the distance Master Chief must travel and you can easily get it down to an acceptable running time. RPGs like the Final Fantasy games would need an anime series or something, or at least a series of films, but most games that clock in at 10 hours or less are comprised mostly of gameplay that could easily be cut from the film. It wouldn't be too difficult, I don't think.

 

[Veylon]

...only some, most of which are RPGs. Most action games, shooters, etc. could be very easily brought down to an acceptable running time.

That's a decent point. I can imagine a Metroid or Halo movie being easy enough. Unfortunately, as we've seen with the Mario and Mortal Kombat movies, directors and producers often seem outright embarrassed at the idea of making a movie based on a game and try everything to take their film as far from the source material as possible. Hence why the cast of Street Fighter never wore their trademark outfits. Your Halo flick might focus on a steamy romance set atop a corporate malfeasance plot. That, or they rehash Starship Troopers.

Granted, things are getting better for movie adaptations. Moviegoers are more like to be gamers at the same time that games are increasingly cinematic, so the gap's narrowing.

 

[Thaius]

...only some, most of which are RPGs. Most action games, shooters, etc. could be very easily brought down to an acceptable running time.

That's a decent point. I can imagine a Metroid or Halo movie being easy enough. Unfortunately, as we've seen with the Mario and Mortal Kombat movies, directors and producers often seem outright embarrassed at the idea of making a movie based on a game and try everything to take their film as far from the source material as possible. Hence why the cast of Street Fighter never wore their trademark outfits. Your Halo flick might focus on a steamy romance set atop a corporate malfeasance plot. That, or they rehash Starship Troopers.

Granted, things are getting better for movie adaptations. Moviegoers are more like to be gamers at the same time that games are increasingly cinematic, so the gap's narrowing.

Yeah, and that's exactly the problem I'm talking about here. People seem to regard video games as a toy that they need to build a story around rather than a fully-realized story that needs to be adapted, and that lack of respect for video games as an artwork is, I think, the main thing that gets in the way of good game-to-film adaptations. If you have no respect for the source material, you're not gonna' get much good out of it.

 

[Korten12]

any conversion from one medium can never be as good as it source material/medium its nearly a fact I'd say at this point.
Honestly I cant even think of one good one (maybe the halo books but that a big maybe)

The Fight Club movie is almost universally considered to be better than the book it was based on.

I have never see it so I cant really say anything about it but then i avoid most adaptations just in case they spoil original for me (I am looking at you halo the fall of reach)

well if you mean Halo 1, the fall of reach leads up to it and doesn't spoil. If you mean Halo Reach then it would be still fine as the game and book are very different as the book talks about the origin of the master chief, only similarity is that reach fall but only near the end of the book where it finally is under attack.

 

[RatRace123]

I agree. It goes back to the attitude of games not being quite as respected as a medium, so when they get adapted to the movies they have to make it more "palatable" for the general non-gaming public, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure the majority of the public does play games now, but that's besides the point.

Or, it could just be that most games are far too long to faithfully adapt to a film.
Remember how crappy The Last Airbender was a film? That's what happened when they tried to adapt the entire first season into a two hour movie. Not saying it couldn't be done well, but it's really damn tough.

So, I suppose I can understand why broad strokes are necessary for a game to film adaptation and I'm leaning more towards my latter theory, but I still think the former does have some merits.

Plus it would also depend on the series, like say someone tried to do an adaptation of Mario. (Something that, as far as I'm aware has never been attempted, and if anyone says that it has then they're obviously lying.) Given how many adventures Mario's had, it's fairly easy for a studio to pick and choose bits and pieces and craft a good movie from it. (Because surely any movie adaptation of the Mario series would be a thing of beauty and an award winning masterpiece, which again no one has attempted to do.)

Compare that to a game with a tighter, more defined story and then it makes sense to try be more faithful, but then you run into the second problem mentioned. So you're left with a choice, do you simply try to use broad strokes or do you try to distill a 20-40 hour game down into a 2 and 1/2 hour movie?
Either way, unless you're really really lucky, you're gonna end up pissing fans off so you've gotta go with the option that nets bigger audience appeal.

 

[Jdb]

I'd like to see a video game movie not based on a video game. How about something new taking heavy inspiration from video games? For example, it could ask the question "What would real life be like if some parts of it were like a video game?" It could be animated and take inspiration from Contra, F-Zero, Metroid, Prince of Persia, Unreal Tournament, and the Doom Comic. It would be called...

Out of This Unreal World

And it would be amazing.

 

[blind_dead_mcjones]

while you do make a valid observation, i wouldn't say it is the biggest obstacle, that would the issue of time.

2-3 hours is simply not enough time to adapt a story that tends to be stretched out over 8-10 hours, sometimes more. As of consequence large ammounts of tangible stuff that is part of universe in said game is cut resulting in the finished product being a case of 'in name only' or they try to cram as much as they can in which the final product just feels mashed together.

I believe game-to-film adaptions will always fall short due to this, unless it is tackled in a different manner, like say as a TV series, sure you won't have the hollywood budget but you get extended leeway and a reasonable span of time in which to tackle the story to a satisfactory level.

Dont make a Mario Bros movie. EVER!

bit late for that....about 20 years too late for that, give or take.