Video Games and Movies: The Curse

[Holy Paradise]

We all know that movies and video games have thus far, had quite the fail of a relationship. Such "Oscar-worthy" movies as Postal, Alone in the Dark, and BloodRayne have all died a well-deserved death as terrible, God-awful movies. (Interestingly, all of which were directed by the infamous Uwe Boll, who is quite possibly the worst director of all time.)

Looking at recent video game news, I have come upon what I believe could possible believe a whale of a failboat of video game-based movies. Here is a list of some of the games that are planned for adaptation (They may or may not come to fruition):

The Sims
Wait...the Sims? Yes, the Sims is currently being worked as a live-action drama film.

A film based on a game based on real life...the only thing I think that could possibly make this seemingly inevitable flop would be if all the dialogue was spoken in Simlish.

Pac-Man
Wakka, wakka, wakka, wakka, wakka, blip, bewbewbewbew. Yes, Pac-man is in production as a live-action movie. Live-action? Please, just...kill me.

Mass Effect
No. There is no need. This game is too good to be made into a movie. Please, don't kill it.

But, wait...the man tagged to produce the movie is none other than Avi Arad, the man who brought us such films as Iron Man, the X-Men trilogy, and the Spider-Man trilogy. Maybe there's hope for this project.

BloodRayne III: Warhammer
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Sorry I had to share these horrors with you, but it was necessary.

[The Romulan Republic]

A more interesting question is why games tend to make bad movies.

[Holy Paradise]

A more interesting question is why games tend to make bad movies.

I was leading into that. I think video-game based movies could be awesome, but only morons like Uwe Boll seem to have a monopoly on them.

[Holy Marsh]

It has to do with idiocy. Too many times, you see a shitty story in a game being followed line by line despite all the idiocy, and other times a game that has decent story and characters is discarded for a variation of the story and new characters.

Take Resident Evuil. Now, my God, I am not saying the story is good in the games. But it is better than the movie and has better characters than Alice "I-Am-A-Mary-Sue". If they followed the plot closer while not being a total slave to it, they would have had a good movie.

Then the next two movies blew ass.

Seriously, I enjoyed Degeneration more, and even that...

[Mauvasia]

A more interesting question is why games tend to make bad movies.

The most interesting part of a videogame is generally the problems you, the player, must solve. I.e. defeating a really difficult monster, solving a puzzle, escaping a locked room, retrieving a MacGuffin, things like that.

In a movie, the viewer participation bit is removed. Thus, the characters on screen defeat the difficult monster and solve the puzzle and the like without your input, removing much of the interest and leaving only the character development and plot and actual story elements -- which, in an average videogame, tend to be mediocre at best and just an excuse for the player to do things at worst.

A comparison would be a bottle of rum (or brandy, or gin, or whiskey, or wine, or hard cider, or... er... where was I again?) that has been drained of its contents. The bottle may be designed to be very pretty to look at; it may have facets that catch the light in diverting and pleasant ways and a label inscribed in beautiful script; but the reason it was designed, the thing it was made for, is missing. Only a few video game movies avert this, and I've never seen any of them.

[The Romulan Republic]

The most interesting part of a videogame is generally the problems you, the player, must solve. I.e. defeating a really difficult monster, solving a puzzle, escaping a locked room, retrieving a MacGuffin, things like that.

In a movie, the viewer participation bit is removed. Thus, the characters on screen defeat the difficult monster and solve the puzzle and the like without your input, removing much of the interest and leaving only the character development and plot and actual story elements -- which, in an average videogame, tend to be mediocre at best and just an excuse for the player to do things at worst.

Then again there are games that actually have decent stories, or at least decent settings. In fact, perhaps the most important thing about a game to me is weather the setting is interesting, complex, and plausible enough.

A comparison would be a bottle of rum (or brandy, or gin, or whiskey, or wine, or hard cider, or... er... where was I again?) that has been drained of its contents. The bottle may be designed to be very pretty to look at; it may have facets that catch the light in diverting and pleasant ways and a label inscribed in beautiful script; but the reason it was designed, the thing it was made for, is missing. Only a few video game movies avert this, and I've never seen any of them.

If I were a director hired to do a video game adaptation, I would throw out trying to stick too closely to the details of the game, since so many things are the way the are not because it makes sense or makes a good story, but due to game mechanics. I would find a game with a good story, or at least a detailed, original, and interesting setting, and then write either a very loose adaptation of the game's story or a sepperate, related story in the same setting.

[North Avayu]

There is ONE good movie based on a game
Minesweeper: The Movie

Maybe a Pac-Man movie could beat this ...

[Bluth Corporation]

(Interestingly, all of which were directed by the infamous Uwe Boll, who is quite possibly the worst director of all time.)

He's no Ed Wood...

[New Genoa]

Movies from video games suffer from a lot of the same problems. Crappy directors, crappy actors, and just bad efforts at transitioning the genre. Remember alot of content in video games is done in an exploratory way. For example, major plot points in Mass Effect involve meeting new main characters. Is there enough time in a movie to spend diddling around meeting new characters before jumping into the meat of the story? I guess you could approach it the same way you approach lengthy books, but still you actually need good directors, writers, and an actual effort to make it good which companies don't seem to give a rat's ass about. Games like Mass Effect and Bioshock both have good enough stories to be movies, but I doubt the proper amount of effort will be made to make them actually good.

[Something new thats cool]

hey guys, watch Detective Pikachu and The Sonic Movie, they broke the curse.

[New Visayan Islands]

Good day!

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Thanks!
NVI