Games Don't Need Movies

[blackadvent]

I'll say this- if put into the right hands, then a video game adapted into a movie would be good. Not necessary, but good.

There are a few concepts in my mind (commandments, if you will) that people who are dead set in adapting said game into said movie need to follow if they absolutely MUST make the movie. I'll also list offenders and followers for each.

-Thy movie must be somewhat faithful to thy source material's canon.
-Offenders: Doom (virus instead of demons), Resident Evil (tossup), Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter, Wing Commander
-Good Examples: FFVII: Advent Children (Only because Square-Enix made the movie)
-Questionable: Hitman (haven't seen), Metal Gear Solid (still in pre-production)

You don't need every line from the game to be put into the movie. But you need the same general characters, the same setting, and the same problems. No one saw Doom to watch zombies get killed; they went to see a guy kicking demon ass.

This especially rings true if the movie is a direct adaptation of the game. A few more liberties can be taken if the movie is a prequel, but not many.

-Thy movie must retain the general mood of thy source material.
-Offenders: Super Mario Brothers (God no), Resident Evil
-Good Examples: Advent Children (see previous entry), Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, Silent Hill, Street Fighter
-Questionable: Hitman (haven't seen)

Super Mario Brothers is supposed to be cheerful. It is not about some live-action reptilian dystopia where Bowser looks like Dennis Hopper. That lost the movie major points. Resident Evil ended up as more of an action movie than the horror movie it should've been. If the game was based on stealth, then there should be very few, if any, firefights. If the game was mostly action, don't put toilet humor into it unless it was already there.

This commandment especially applies to video game movies who attempt to put in an original plot. As ccesarano more or less put it, Silent Hill is a benchmark for this.

-Thy movie must not involve Uwe Boll
-Offenders: Postal, Far Cry, BloodRayne (both), House of the Dead I, Alone in the Dark
-Good Examples: Every video game movie not involving Uwe Boll.

This is self-explanatory. Moving on...

-If thy movie is directly connected to game canon, then fanservice shall not get in the way.
-Offenders: Advent Children
-Good Examples: None

Advent Children is arguably one of the best video game movies out there. But the plot was sligthly underdeveloped, which didn't make too many things clear for a first run. The fight between Sephiroth and Cloud at the end comes to mind.

This is more or less the opposite of the 'faithful' commandments. The directors are allowed (to a certain degree) some leeway in how things go down. I'd praise Silent Hill, but then I remember that it wasn't a sequel or a prequel (and if it is, then I completely missed that).

-If thy movie is based on a well-known franchise, then thou must consult the developers of thy source material.
-Offenders: Super Mario Brothers (directors never played the game)
-Good Examples: Silent Hill, Halo (if it ever sees the light of day)

This rule only applies to big-wig games, such as your Halos, your Metroids, your Marios. This is more or less an addendum to the 'mood' commandment. Don't give Mario's enemies any weapons other than Bullet Bills and hammers, and don't make Master Chief's guns shoot rays of rainbow sunshine.

-Thy movie must, from start to finish, involve people who have played the game from start to finish. Especially thy screenwriter.
-Offenders: Pretty much every video game movie ever made.
-Good Exmples: Silent Hill

This is as much as it sounds. The production staff need to know how the game does things, put their own spin on it, and put it on film. That isn't hard, but most films still manage to mess that concept up, especially in the screenwriting stage.

Hell, I could write a Metroid screenplay about the original game, and it would likely end up umpteen times better than anything Woo's people can cook up (scantily clad girl accompanied by random doves). Just get a fan of the game to write the script, and have him help the rest of the production crew in figuring out WTF is going on.

-Thy actors must know WTF they are doing.
-Offenders: Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter (exception: M. Bison)
-Good Examples: Tomb Raider, Silent Hill, Max Payne (Mark Walhberg?), Kane & Lynch (Willis & Thornton?)

Don't hire Z-list actors. Get people with some amount of talent (and yes, I consider Keanu Reeves to have some amount of talent, otherwise, Speed would've sucked). For that matter, don't hire actors who will never play the game, either. Take a day before filming, sit their asses down, and force them to play through parts of the game that their respective characters are in.

 

[LisaB1138]

I guess a movie from a game makes about as much sense as a game from a movie. However, what works in a game where the player is constantly engaged by gameplay is not going to work in a movie where a player is more passively engaged.

A spoiler filled summary of the Onimusha script has been posted. I see a few similaries--the most important of which is the trifecta of feudal Japan, Samanosuke, and Nobunaga. But there's also new characters and subplots that are a huge departure from the story told in Warlords. It should be interesting to see how things develop.

 

[Archaeology Hat]

As a general rule, in entertainment media, the only thing worse than a videogame based on a film, is a film based on a videogame.

 

[Geoffrey42]

-Thy movie must retain the general mood of thy source material.
-Offenders: Super Mario Brothers (God no), Resident Evil
-Good Examples: Advent Children (see previous entry), Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, Silent Hill, Street Fighter
-Questionable: Hitman (haven't seen)

I may be ridiculed for saying what I'm about to say, but it still feels relevant for me. In general, I have a distaste for videogame-based movies, for all the reasons that have been discussed here. But, for all this discussion, before blackadvent said "Tomb Raider", I had actually placed those movies in a part of my brain unrelated to the games. If you had asked me to list movies made from videogames, I would've said Super Mario Brothers, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, etc, etc, all the others mentioned here, EXCEPT for Tomb Raider. For whatever reason, I think that says a lot. They managed to make a movie out of a videogame that was good enough to stand on its own, without there ever having been videogames. Proof, I guess, that not all videogame movies are doomed, but that maybe a measure studios should use before greenlighting the film would be, "Would we be making this movie if there had never been a videogame?" And of course, vice versa for videogames made out of movies...

So, to relate it to ccesarano's original post, based off this criteria, that's when they should make a movie based on a game's IP. But ONLY then.

 

[Arbre]

As a general rule, in entertainment media, the only thing worse than a videogame based on a film, is a film based on a videogame.

It cannot beat a film made by Uwe Bolls.

 

[Copter400]

The Hitman movie should be really, really hard to screw up. You can see that work as a movie. But yeah, we don't really need, want or benefit from the movies. They tend to be screwed up to unprecedented levels. That's not gonna stop Hollywood from trying. Seeing all these unexploited game licenses must have been like looking under a stone and finding all these insects, all of which are made of money.

 

[Kieran210]

I think the only way a film of a game can work is if they actually just do exactly what everyone is saying they shouldn't - i.e taking the good ideas, poaching them, and then using them as inspiration to create new plots.

Tomb raider is a classic example of this - brilliant central character, but because it had to be an example of 'the game' on screen, it never bothered getting interested in that human connection and just went for sub-par action scenes. Hence why it bombed.

Game rely on action, good/great films rely on character. Batman Begins would be another example - steal the best ideas, run with them, leave the dross behind. It's chalk and cheese, because the game relies on visuals, but a film has to have something more than that, something deeper. But then it wouldn't be a film of the game, it would be a film.

Oh, and most game films are the worst written rubbish in the world. Shame they can't afford better screen writers, or want to talk more risks. Most game films are just made for a ready made fanbase, anyway, as a way of extracting a cheap buck from them and getting their investment back.

Oh, and to the muppet who said most films are paid for by product placement - you obviously don't really know that much about the industry. They're not. That's why it's so bad for studios when films bomb, because if they were paid for by product placement i.e pre-release income, there wouldn't be such a worry about post release income.

 

[GloatingSwine]

The only justification for movie of the game is that I don't have a cinema sized screen at home, and the Broadway only do their game exhibition once a year.

 

[TheWickerPopstar]

I especially agree with the notion of games being a medium that functions well enough beyond the scope of film. This seems to me to be the plain answer as to why the films don't need to be made. But when the films are made, and they are made poorly, I think there's more to it than just producers hoping to make a buck.

All the games that we seem to be discussing have such sweeping, epic storylines (e.g. Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid) that it seems impossible to transfer the games succesfully over to the big screen due to the extent of content. The core story of any of the next gen FF games is at least twenty hours in itself, allowing for multiple climaxes and plenty of twists. Not even the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy covers that length (though it may have felt like it). For that reason, movies simply can't cover the depth of these games, resulting in cut corners and, consequently, a poor, unoriginal experience at the theater.

Make a God of War movie. That game was what, four hours long? Plenty of action, and most of America is at least vaguely familiar with Greek mythology.

 

[blackfly01]

I agree, there should not be any more films based off games, the end result is always painful. There are many games I've played that present themselves in a realm that is different from film in that it would take excrutiating care to reproduce as any other media. Yet the games-to-film clause seems to be one of the many popular 'ideas' being produced by unimaginative dolts in the industry, no different from movie and game remakes as Yahtzee pointed out.

Why someone can't merely be inspired by an aspect of a game and then produce a completely original and unrelated working from the game into another media is beyond me. There are countless games that take inspiration from movies and books almost to the point where they blatantly rip-off said inspirations and paste it into the game (see Silent Hill 4 for example), so why not vice versa?

Also: Am I the only person here who flat out detested the Silent Hill movie? I don't mean to be a massive hate-monger sitting in the corner of isolation, but in my eyes that movie had accuracies in the game that didn't really matter (ie: fog and a stunning location). I mean I've sat through bad movies all the way through... if my buttocks could tell you the pain it went through being forced to watch Birth of a Nation for film class, that tale of cinematic repulsion would be but an old wive's tale compared to having to sit through two-hours worth of what felt like a fan-fiction nightmare that lacked the drama, epiphany and enigmatic feeling of its source whereupon the incentive to keep myself glued to my seat was my girl-friend (who soon-afterwards dumped me).

 

[MacCarth]

I find that if the movie intends to do the game justice, then by all means make it.

For example, when I heard that Peter Jackson was interested in making the Halo movie, I was thrilled. I mean, it's Peter Fucking Jackson. I'd expect amazing cinematography, great action, and a thrilling moviegoing experience.

However, casting becomes an issue as well. Just like comic book movies, you'd want to cast actors who the audience can see playing their video game characters.

Authenticity is also a problem. I doubt many directors actually play the video games they're making movies of, so perhaps a more intimate relationship between game and director is needed (i.e., the director actually playing/liking the plot of a video game instead of getting a wheelbarrow of cash to direct it).

Are movies based off video games a good idea? Yes, if it's done right.

Will there ever be a good video game movie? Maybe, only time will tell.

 

[PurpleRain]

First I'd like to say, good response blackadvent.

It's the scriptwriter and/or the directors faults for dilivering such rubbish. Remakeing a game into a movie is more or less a failed atempt at making an actual movie. Why bother going into all that effort when they could just make theeir own movies. Games put you into the protagonist's shoes and you are in the action. Movies can only make you empithise with the characters, but because it Hollywood doing it, they're to busy making crap explode and throwing money at big name actors to diliver boring lines before they blow more shit up.

Also, on the other side of the rails: Movies don't need games! It is a waste of reasorces of the industry (visa versa with movies) that they should make a movie into a game. Try and put you into the 'movie experience'. King Kong, LotR and any others you can think of... rubbish.

 

[Stella Q]

In the end, to say were going to make a film based on this game is absolutely pointless, and if it results in a loss of cash from the studio, well, thatll teach you before you think you can improve on a superior medium.

Every book that I've read that was based on a video game has been much less entertaining than the game itself. Therefore, games are a superior medium to literature.

What a ludicrous argument.

The fact is that most games, even games that are lauded for their story, have b-movie plots at best. I agree that Hollywood should stop making movies based on games, but that's because most games don't have stories worth telling on the big screen. The interactive nature of games serves only to compensate for the medium's inherent storytelling inadequacies in my opinion.

 

[TheWickerPopstar]

The fact is that most games, even games that are lauded for their story, have b-movie plots at best. I agree that Hollywood should stop making movies based on games, but that's because most games don't have stories worth telling on the big screen. The interactive nature of games serves only to compensate for the medium's inherent storytelling inadequacies in my opinion.

For certain genres, you've got a point Stella. The Mario Brothers movie that has been criticized repeatedly in this thread is in fact based on a game that doesn't have an intricate plot. More realistically, the game doesn't have a plot at all, rather, it just proposes some reasons as to why you might be jumping on some poor creatures' heads. Thus, the studio had to create the film from (basically) scratch. To take a more recent example, any of the Ratchet and Clank games don't quite have an epic story, but providing some context and motivation for using a bazillion different weapons most certainly makes the game more enjoyable.

I will argue, however, that many genres function with incredibly detailed stories. I already mentioned the FF series in a previous post, but many other RPGs by Square, Atlus, etc., also have surprisingly captivating stories, provided the player has an imagination capable of empathizing with such a dramatically different world. Honestly, I'd even be willing to say that some Medal of Honor or Call of Duty games resemble some WWII flicks.

Summary: The storyline of a game serves to create context for the player's activity, but I don't think that this demerits the plot, nor does it suggest that the story is inherently sub par.

 

[Stella Q]

Summary: The storyline of a game serves to create context for the player's activity, but I don't think that this demerits the plot, nor does it suggest that the story is inherently sub par.

I agree with you that stories provide the context for games, and that stories aren't inherently bad just because they are told through a certain medium.

The author is arguing that video games are a superior storytelling medium to film, thus explaining why movies based on games have been and always will be vastly inferior to the games themselves. I just don't agree with that. Film is, in my opinion, a better vehicle for communicating all of the subtleties, intricacies, and complexities of a great story because the focus is on the story, not on the gameplay. The camera angles, lighting, pacing, etc. can be chosen solely on the basis of what communicates the writer's vision more clearly with no regard for how it would effect gameplay. Why do most games choose to tell the bulk of their stories through cut-scenes?

I'm not saying that stories in games cannot be good, simply that the medium is not optimal for telling those stories.

If you had an amazing story floating around in your head with a complex plot and complex characters, would you rather it be told through film or a video game? Which would have the greatest potential to communicate to the viewer/player exactly what you want? Even though I don't have enough time right now to expand on this topic any further, the answer should be clear.

 

[TheWickerPopstar]

If you had an amazing story floating around in your head with a complex plot and complex characters, would you rather it be told through film or a video game? Which would have the greatest potential to communicate to the viewer/player exactly what you want?

It seems to me that arguing for the superiority of a video game or a movie in telling a story is a moot point--akin to a similarly oriented debate about film and literature. Obviously, each medium has its flaws, yet each still has some quality that allows it to render itself useful. I won't compare each because that's a thread for an entirely different forum, but what I'm driving at is that games can do things that movies can't do and vice versa.

One example that is sticking with me is the option of choice. When viewing a film, the production staff is thrusting this product at you. As is. You view it, you respond to it. With a game however, one is not simply the viewer. Rather, the passive relationship with the world is replaced with an active role, albeit a synthetic active role, which allows for an individualized experience.

Now as I said, I'm not interested in a debate about superiority. I bring up this point to suggest that some stories are enhanced because of this interactivity and some movies are enhanced because of the passivity. I believe the decision lies in which medium fits the type of user/viewer experience that will best reveal the themes and ideas of the story. Sometimes it will be games, sometimes it will be movies, and yes, even in the twenty-first century, sometimes it will be a thick paper book (thank goodness).

What excites me most is that in comparison to film (and especially in comparison to literature) video games are a very new medium to convey deep story--roughly twenty years (I'm sorry, but Pong does not count as an epic) compared to over one hundred. Think about how far film has come since Chaplin's Modern Times. Who knows what will be out there in twenty years.

 

[the_carrot]

If anyone in the media had any good new ideas they'd be using them.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

If anyone in the media had any good new ideas they'd be using them.

Never underestimate Hollywood rejecting good new ideas for Shooter 37.

 

[hickwarrior]

Maybe if some people are willing to give time for a movie based on a game or a game based on a movie, to get it actually to be good.

Which usually is never the case, that's why i think movies based on games or the other way around are crap.

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

Trying to make a video game into a movie is like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. The only way to do so is to brute force it, or shave off parts, and the end result is less than desirable.

Most of the time Hollywood can't even adapt a book to a movie without dropping the ball, and those adaptations have the advantage of both being passive storytelling mediums while video games are interactive.

On top of that most video games don't have very good stories to begin with because video games are not meant to tell stories. Look up the definition of game, and you won't find anything telling you games tell stories. Sure video games can have good stories, but these instances are so few, and far between they become shinning examples people hold in awe ten years after being released.

No format is superior. Books, movies, and games all have their own strengths, and weaknesses when it comes to telling stories, and when a story attempts to cross over between the mediums something is always lost in the translation.

Games don't need movies, and game to movie translations are nothing more than shameless cash ins on a built in audience. This might change, but not until someone in Hollywood begins taking games seriously, and understands them as well.