Movies of games suck because?

[twiceworn]

OK so I have watched a few films of games and they all suck and what really got to me was the main reason why. they change the plot and sometimes the characters. now since the reason you make a movie out of something like say, prince of Persia is so fans of the game will watch it, its clearly a bad idea to change the plot, after all if you change the plot of a game, ITS A DIFFERENT PRODUCT!

so I want to ask and to especially ask anyone who has been in the room when the decision to change the plot of a game when making a film WHY?! what is the reason TELL ME!

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I was listening to a commentary track featuring a director and producer for a movie based on the game, and at one point during the commentary they mentioned that they changed the plot because they felt that most of the fans want to see something new from the universe that they love.

I forget which movie it was though. I want to say it was one of the "Resident Evil" movies, or maybe "Silent Hill"... but I really can't remember.

 

[Hal10k]

A. More action-focused games are difficult to turn into films because a direct translation to film would have action scenes take up about 75% of screentime. Difficult to budget, even more difficult to make interesting for an audience as an uninteractive medium.

B. More story-focused games are difficult to turn into films because they'd be unbearably long without removing anything that gave them character.

C. Nobody has really tried.

 

[ElPatron]

Even the most iconic videogames have awful stories. Or, a lot of videogames don't really translate into movies. How do you squeeze the plot of Shadow of the Colossus into a movie that isn't a live-action play trough of the game?

Bad directors.

Bad acting.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I would assume one of the reasons is the same with certain films base from a book, they can't fit it all in. I mean depending on the game itself let say the total game length is around 20 hours on average and films are usually around one and a half hours to two and a half hours. Therefore they will miss or drop some of the game stuff so they can fit it into the film.

 

[ResonanceGames]

They suck because studios don't know how to handle gaming IPs. They don't take them seriously.

Rather than develop a good story that plays to strengths of both cinema and the IP at hand, they insert characters and situations from games into generic action movie templates and hire Paul WS Anderson to direct them. Then they drop in some crappy fanservice stuff like the BFG in Doom and call it a day.

It's NOT because they change the plot. Game plots aren't necessarily going to work in a literal translation from game to movie screen. If the adaptations were more literal, they would still suck, just for different reasons.

 

[Keoul]

What Scarim Coral said

They suck because movies are about 1-2 hours long while games can last well over 30 hours, to condense all that game play into just 1-2 hours of video, a lot of stuff has to be cut out and since most directors have no clue about the game they're turning into a movie, they'll most likely cut out an important part thus initiating the rage mode of all fans.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Game movies suck because Uwe Boll makes them. Also, because most games are about the gameplay, not a compelling story. Sure, there are some amazingly detailed stories in games like Mass Effect, but the only way to know about it is to spend hours listening to the insane amounts of dialogue, and that'd make for a rather dull film.

 

[Auron225]

You didn't seriously go to see Prince of Persia and expect to watch the prince leaping around the castle by himself for 90 minutes of a 2 hour film did you? Of course they had to change it to include a little more plot - its really fun to play but much less entertaining to just watch.

It really depends on the genre I guess. Aside from that, the only film based on a game Ive seen is Silent Hill, which at least had the same concept. Only Cheryl became Sharon because Cheryl isn't common enough I assume, Harry became a woman and Pyramid Head got chucked into it, sending the meaning of his presence from deeply psychological to "He's scary". Why they do these things, I dont know - if to change anything, I thought they'd censor it but considering a particular scene involving barbed wire at the very end, that cannot be the case.

 

[DoPo]

Spoiler: snip

A. More action-focused games are difficult to turn into films because a direct translation to film would have action scenes take up about 75% of screentime. Difficult to budget, even more difficult to make interesting for an audience as an uninteractive medium.

B. More story-focused games are difficult to turn into films because they'd be unbearably long without removing anything that gave them character.

C. Nobody has really tried.

Spoiler: snip

I would assume one of the reasons is the same with certain films base from a book, they can't fit it all in. I mean depending on the game itself let say the total game length is around 20 hours on average and films are usually around one and a half hours to two and a half hours. Therefore they will miss or drop some of the game stuff so they can fit it into the film.

These two. But mainly part C. of Hal10k's post. Seeing as there aren't a lot of movies that try hard be good movies, I don't see how we expect to get good movies based on games. I think the dominant view in the film industry is that movies of games should be directed by Michael Bay to be true to the source. So they don't bother. They just make something that bares the same title as a game and has similar plot (similar to what Wikipedia can tell) and they call it a day. The fact that they go after popular franchises doesn't help. Most of the popular stuff isn't really the top in terms of plots and even if it is, film directors don't seem to care.

Silent HIll is a good example - it has a good plot but...well, SH has mostly been about the atmosphere and the whole "journey not the destination". You can't fit that into a movie. It's not possible to convay the same exact same message on a different medium. It is possible to try but you wouldn't win the masses with it.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Game stories in general are too long, too short, too nonsensical (see mario bros) or told ina non cinematic way (metal gear solid via codec). Early attempts were done when gaming was a kids hobby only so things got very dumbed down, but even today, what can really be down to resident evil to make it something other than just another zombie movie or Tomb Raider to make it something other than an Indiana Jones knock off.

But the big one is lack of effort. None of these has been lovingly crafted as Lord of the Rings, and is often just a paycheck for those involved. Some like Doom I'm sure were another movie that just leeched the title. Then there's Uwe Bol and his level of crap.

 

[LilithSlave]

To be honest, the real reason is that Hollywood could care less about video games. They're competition. And Hollywood is filled with people who look at them as nothing more than toys for children to play with.

They don't know how to work with them, because they don't care. And when has Hollywood not had a superiority complex towards all media? They don't even tend to treat books with the respect they deserve, much less do they have an interest in doing anything respectful with video games.

Though I have to give them respect for some of the effort they have actually given with various horror video games. Then again, horror games are pretty tailor-made to Hollywood.

 

[Zhukov]

so I want to ask and to especially ask anyone who has been in the room when the decision to change the plot of a game when making a film WHY?! what is the reason TELL ME!

Because video game plots and characters are boring, worthless, tepid garbage written for children and teenagers that only gets a free pass due to the pitifully low standards of the target audience. Anyone trying to make a decent movie from a game would have to be clinically insane to not change the plot.

At the end of the day. you can't make trifle out of dog turds, no matter how hard you try.

Of course, the fact that nobody really gives a shit is also a factor.

 

[Aurgelmir]

OK so I have watched a few films of games and they all suck and what really got to me was the main reason why. they change the plot and sometimes the characters. now since the reason you make a movie out of something like say, prince of Persia is so fans of the game will watch it, its clearly a bad idea to change the plot, after all if you change the plot of a game, ITS A DIFFERENT PRODUCT!

so I want to ask and to especially ask anyone who has been in the room when the decision to change the plot of a game when making a film WHY?! what is the reason TELL ME!

Well first of all they do not make it for the fans. Hollywood has an obsession with using the titles of things to sell to you. How else would a movie based on the board game Battleship EVER be made.

Brands sell, and Hollywood knows this.

The reason for changing the plot is because Hollywood thinks they know better than the games and aim to make a movie that is "Accessible for all" and in doing so they change the weirder parts of a games plot.

this can also lead to situations like "Priest" where the movie had so little to do with the comic that it might as well had a different name.

So yeah fans of the games etc will get disappointed, but most people that have no knowledge of the game/series/etc might actually like the movie. I for one found Prince of Persia to be a rather fun movie to watch.

 

[twiceworn]

so I want to ask and to especially ask anyone who has been in the room when the decision to change the plot of a game when making a film WHY?! what is the reason TELL ME!

Because video game plots and characters are boring, worthless, tepid garbage written for children and teenagers that only gets a free pass due to the pitifully low standards of the target audience. Anyone trying to make a decent movie from a game would have to be clinically insane to not change the plot.

At the end of the day. you can't make trifle out of dog turds, no matter how hard you try.

Of course, the fact that nobody really gives a shit is also a factor.

on a game website and hating games... ladies and gentlemen i present to you..... THE MISSING LINK!

 

[Carl The Manicorn]

Some games of movies don't suck. Goldeneye didn't suck. I'm sure there are others but I can't rememberSPIDERMAN 2!

Yeah, that's about it.

 

[UbarElite]

Part of it is due to the time difference, another part is just how much of gaming's narrative can come from gameplay.

Film makers understand their craft (not necessarily all of them, but that's a different discussion), and game makers understand theirs. A game designer likely understands that gameplay itself can be used to tell a narrative, but to a director, that isn't an immediate connection. They are likely to focus on the narrative delivered in the way they most understand: cutscenes, and likely nothing else.

I have tried (mostly unsuccessfully so far) to watch game cutscenes back to back like a movie, and while some do it better than others, you can easily lose out on a lot about a character, scene or whatever by ignoring the gameplay. That boss isn't quite as characterized without his attacks that are both named and inspired by his personality.

 

[rje5]

They suck for the same reasons that games about movies suck and why movies about books suck. Everyone wants to put their own touch on the product, and that means changing it.

 

[TilMorrow]

DOOM: Walking down corridors with a gun in your face and barely any character interaction wouldn't interest non-gamers that much. The movie was crap anyway as the was completely different from the games'.

Resident Evil: Kinda the same reason. A person on their own most of the time, sometimes solving puzzles and always trying to peer round corners for the next danger doesn't make a interesting or engaging film.

Essentially Games + Mechanics/plot = Uninteresting Movies to everyone, Games + a plot that has been messed around with and the mechanics chucked out = A Crap Movie for gamers/something other people will watch without complaining about "Them vidjeo games are taking over our medias." Also some film directors don't give a toss about the fanbase. Look at George Lucas, his rebox of Star Wars 4, 5 and 6 and the who shot first argument.