Video Games to Movies

[Hero]

Hey guys. I am doing a research paper for uni in regards to Video Game brands being made into movies and am looking for all sorts of opinions on it.

I'd love to hear what various Hubbers think in regards to games being made into movies.

Ripping into Uwe Boll is optional as long as it is constructive

===HERO

[Gav]

Movies based on videogames are terrible - videogames based on movies are terrible.

Best example of a videogame made into a movie - Crank. It's just perfect. The ultimate action movie based on games like GTA/Saints Row.

[Andy Turnbull]

May 12, 2008 14:06:29 GMT Gav said:

Movies based on videogames are terrible - videogames based on movies are terrible.

Except GoldenEye on the N64. That was all kinds of amazing!

Andy

[Deleted]

I second that Andy, Goldeneye was a fantastic game unlike every other James Bond game made by EA afterwards.

I can't actually think of a good movie based on a game. Super Mario Bros. - forget it, Mortal Kombat - almost as bad, Street Fighter - getting Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue to star in a film together is just asking for trouble.

There was a film in the late eighties based on something Nintendo based but I can't remember the name of the film.

[Hero]

Cheers for the input you guys

Zudobug, I think the film you are talking about is The Wizard.

[Jaymz]

The first Mortal Kombat is great. Best videogame movie, even better than the animated Street Fighter II.

[Cullen]

Uwe Boll should die in a fire.

I quite like the first Resident Evil film but yeah, in general movies based on games suck balls. Not so true the other way around though. I find that games that are released at the same time as the corresponding movie are, 99 times out of 100, utter, utter trash. But games based on films that aren't released at the same time as the movie at least have a chance of being half-decent. Goldeneye and a number of Star Wars games fall into this category. I guess when there's no pressure to get the thing out the door on time more effort is put into the development process.

[Stomski]

Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. WTF?

Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Hrm... Not seen it, but I hear it's good. Does that count?

Pokemon The Movie: 2000 > j00.

[Deleted]

May 12, 2008 21:07:46 GMT Hero said:

Zudobug, I think the film you are talking about is The Wizard.

Yes it was. I at first thought the name of it was called Captain N; The Game Master but then I remembered that that was a cartoon series and not a movie.

[Jaymz]

May 14, 2008 9:15:45 GMT Stomski said:

Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Hrm... Not seen it, but I hear it's good.

It's not particularly good. Looks nice, and it's good to see the characters again, but the story is a bit poo. Worth watching at least once if you're a fan of the game.

I did enjoy the Last Order OVA that comes with the 2 disc special edition DVD though. It's a 30 min anime episode that focuses on Zack and Cloud.

[jameso]

The Silent Hill movie was pretty good, the Dead or Alive movie was fine if you go with it and don't expect a masterpiece. I really enjoyed the most recent Resident Evil movie. I'd put Final Fantasy Advent Children in the positive category.

And Mortal Kombat movie is brilliant!

Over time, like John says, there have been plenty of decent games based on movie properties, just not that many good straight adaptations.

[jameso]

Also, Doom movie was ok. I didn't see the Hitman movie, but that looked to be roughly competent from the trailers.

[Andy Turnbull]

Oh yeah - Mortal Kombat is a very fun film I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thought it did make me disappointed that Johnny Cage was such a shite character in the first game.

Andy

[legios]

"Mortal Kombat" was one of those films that I found enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. Much like "Doom" - "Doom" didn't have any features that redeemed it in my eyes except for the fact that it was inadvertantly hilarious.

On more serious note, I think one of the issues with translating a computer game to a movie is that the different media have completely different narrative demands. The way you go about telling your story in a computer game is entirely different to the way that you would go about it in a film. Many computer games boil down to being just a show-reel of set-pieces , with a minimal narrative (if that) to hold them together. For example "Everyone is fighting in a martial arts tournament for different reasons" is enough to hold together a beat-em-up. Or "you are stuck on a island full of mercenaries and transgenic monsters" might be the premise of a shooter (and indeed is). Even games with more developed narratives - "System Shock 2", "Deus Ex" leave much of the actual storytelling in the hands of the player. Why do you struggle so hard to stay alive in a spaceship full of bio-engineered monsters in "System Shock 2"? The game doesnt say, just that you do. It is up to you, the player, to provide the narrative rationale for why you are doing what you are doing. Likewise in "Deus Ex", the game is open enough that the narrative can be somewhat different each time you play, and why you do what you do is left as an exercise for the player. A film however needs a much stronger structure to hold together its set-pieces however, and needs to make decisions about why its protagionists act in the way they do, and then communicate that information to the audience.

As a result a movie that feels like a videogame isn't going to function properly as a movie. Likewise, a videogame that functions like a movie might not work so well as a videogame.

Of course, this is without getting into the fact that videogame movies have a tendency to attract second-string production teams and casts due to a certain degree of stigma, so this is likely to reduce the likely quality of the output in any event.

Karl

[Benn]

What about the FPS Aliens games? Trilogy, Resurrection, Vs. Predator.... full of win.

[Deleted]

There was a minor film made a few years ago that I think was maybe only a fan film or something but it was big in America. It was called A Fistful of Quarters and centered on some people breaking the high score record for the Donkey Kong Arcade game.

[Dave]

^I rented that. It was quite good.

I seem to have seen quite a few games turned movies but I don't like many of them. Street Fighter II animated is great and the first Mortal Kombat was OK - though I've only seen it once when it was at the cinema. Only other thing I can think of is DOA. Never played any of the games but the film was so-bad-it's good.

I agree with this:

May 13, 2008 13:40:01 GMT Cullen said:

But games based on films that aren't released at the same time as the movie at least have a chance of being half-decent. Goldeneye and a number of Star Wars games fall into this category. I guess when there's no pressure to get the thing out the door on time more effort is put into the development process.

Another good one is Blade Runner - the PC one that came out in the mid-90's.

[Deleted]

Out of all of the DOA games I've only played two of them. The first was DOA2 which I thought was far too short and had almost no content to keep me interested. The second was the eye candy fest DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball which started off quite well and had quite a few things to do in it but it started to cheat as soon as you got good at it.