So why are video game film adaptions uniformly crap?

[Revenant Threshold]

Good films based on video games are pretty much the exception. The obvious and general answers are usually;

- That they're being adapted implies popularity exists already, so they don't need to make a good film.
- With even the most well-plotted games, the plot sections are usually broken up with the action, which can't be replicated entirely and can easily be one of the best parts of the game.
- A lot of video games are pretty shit in terms of actual plot.
- Uwe Boll.

These are pretty good explanations (IMHO, anyway). But I would still expect more good films than there are. Is there something inherent about video games that makes them more difficult to adapt than books or plays or so on? The main difference I can think of is the interactivity, but i'm not sure that fully accounts for it. Game-based films aren't often just bad as in not-like-the-game, they're often bad in that they're just... well, bad films.

[Der Trihs]

I think you nailed the reasons. One thing I've noticed is that book adapations of videos games are much more likely to be good than movie versions. And that whomever chooses the authors seems able or willing to get authors who are actually fairly good at their jobs instead of a literary version of Uwe Boll.

There's something about filmaking culture that seems to lack an interest in good or faithful adapations from other media. Not always, but for every LOTR there's a dozen I,Robots or Starship Troopers.

[RealityChuck]

There's one more issue. A good movie has strong and interesting main characters who generally change through the course of the film.

However, in a video game, the main character is you. And you don't particularly grow or change (other than learning the game, which is trivial, or deciding you're finally bored with it).

So, ultimately, the main characters of a film made from a video game are one-dimensional. As such, it just becomes watching an adventure -- and since it's not you going along, bu rather actors on the screen, the action is unengaging.

[Someone Else's Problem]

I think a lot has to do with the most popular video games being the ones that appeal heavily to the teenage demographic. The games end up being made to appeal to teens, who generally have pretty poor taste. This may change now that the market is recognizing that the 35+ crowd plays games a lot and more mature games are being made, but a lot of the games that are made for older crowds are not the type to easily translate to a movie (i.e. Guitar Hero or Wii Sports).

[Cubsfan]

I think it's because video games and movies are both visual mediums and when an exceptional story has been told in an exceptional video game, what is to be gained by replacing the computer graphics with real life actors? Going from books to movies is different. The director could show you something that you never really thought of with his visuals. A great game like, for instance, Bioshock just does not need to be retold as a movie. It just doesn't. But it will be, and probably poorly and star Fredie Prinze Junior as Big Daddy.

[Hey, It's That Guy!]

I thought Silent Hill was a pretty creepy and cool horror movie, except for the extraneous Sean Bean exposition scenes and the mess of an ending. But it had amazing visuals and a fantastic atmosphere. I've never played any of the games, but at least I know what they're about. Apparently a second movie is in the works that will be a somewhat truer adaptation.

I'm also somewhat excited about Hitman, but because I love over-the-top gunplay action movies, and because Timothy Olyphant is badass. I've never played those games either.

[Someone Else's Problem]

I thought Silent Hill was a pretty creepy and cool horror movie, except for the extraneous Sean Bean exposition scenes and the mess of an ending. But it had amazing visuals and a fantastic atmosphere. I've never played any of the games, but at least I know what they're about. Apparently a second movie is in the works that will be a somewhat truer adaptation.

I'm also somewhat excited about Hitman, but because I love over-the-top gunplay action movies, and because Timothy Olyphant is badass. I've never played those games either.

If it's faithful to the games, there wouldn't be much "over-the-top" gunplay. Completing a level perfectly means that the only person you killed was the objective, that it was done without firing a shot, and nobody noticed your presence or raised the alarm. Of course, a movie with a guy who sneaks into a location, steals a disguise, and engineers an "accident" wouldn't be very exciting.

In the Hitman games, if you start shooting it means you screwed up and you'll probably want to do the level over.

The trailer indicates there is a love interest, and 47 seems way too emotional. 47 in the games is disturbed by physical intimacy and very emotionless.

[Mosier]

I thought Silent Hill was a pretty creepy and cool horror movie, except for the extraneous Sean Bean exposition scenes and the mess of an ending. But it had amazing visuals and a fantastic atmosphere. I've never played any of the games, but at least I know what they're about. Apparently a second movie is in the works that will be a somewhat truer adaptation.

I'm also somewhat excited about Hitman, but because I love over-the-top gunplay action movies, and because Timothy Olyphant is badass. I've never played those games either.

Just wondering, but have you seen "Equilibrium"? It's maybe the MOST over-the-top gunplay action movie of all time, and if you haven't seen it I must strongly urge you to try it out.

Hitman was awful, though. There's some spoilers that follow, so skip the next paragraph if you haven't seen it yet.

The scene in the drug lord brother's place was just bad. There was absolutely NO "awesome" gunplay involved at all, just angle after angle of him holding two guns and waving them back and forth. He hides behind a pillar for a second, then turns around and waves the guns back and forth a bit more. God damn, how disappointing.

[Hey, It's That Guy!]

Just wondering, but have you seen "Equilibrium"? It's maybe the MOST over-the-top gunplay action movie of all time, and if you haven't seen it I must strongly urge you to try it out.
I'd give that honor to Hard Boiled, but I have seen Equilibrium and liked it a lot. A bit slow-paced and especially slow to get started, but the action sequences were well worth the price of admission.

[Captain_C]

I asked myself this very question when watching Wing Commander. I mean, the later games already had real live actors (Mark Hamill! John Rhys-Davies!) playing very dynamic characters in great plot-lines that didn't depend on action. Obviously the actors were willing to work cheap in those roles or the game company wouldn't have hired them. So why the heck did they need to re-cast every part and write a terrible script? Just hire on the video game writers and actors!! My mind boggles at the lost potential.

[Leaper]

*small voice* I liked the first Mortal Kombat movie...

[Tuckerfan]

It seems to me that these are ideas created by "the suits." (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=440668)

[marshmallow]

Because Hollywood is a cancer which poisons everything it touches. They don't stop to examine why a game is popular. They simply create a sallow, superficial mold to make a quick buck, only taking the surface fluff and transplanting it onto a totally different universe.

I've read some decently good books in the StarCraft and Diablo universe. One problem with attempting to convert them to movies is they assume the reader is a total dork who has bathed themselves in the game universe, which is a correct model. Why else would you read a book about Kerrigan? But for a movie it has to be a stand alone product.

[Darkhold]

You forget that the video game to movie transition is relatively new. While book to movie transitions are decades old.

It's very very rare for a good book to be turned into a good movie it usually takes someone that knows and loves the original work (or in rare cases contempt for the original work) to write a good screenplay then team up with a good director with vision and get the whole thing approved by a bunch of suits who probably never heard of the original work to begin with to back the project. If this is so hard with popular books by well known authors imagine how much harder it is for video games where it's far more likely to break down as one or more people involved probably never even played a video game.

Simple fact is we'll have to wait at least a generation before you can go into a video game to movie and say anything more than "Well that didn't suck as much as I thought it would"

[nevermore]

In my opinion it's largely because they're picking the wrong games. They're taking mostly FPS games-- shooters with a thin film of plot floating on top-- and turning them into the only things that can be logically made from them: action films with stories about as deep and engrossing as a half-assed fart.

Wake me up when they start building movies around Planescape: Torment, Fallout, Baldur's Gate... then they'll have so much plot they won't have to "fill in the blanks". Hell, even BioWare stuff's got twice as much story as Resident Evil could ever hope to.

[GuanoLad]

I don't think it's possible to take an interactive medium and change it to a non-interactive one successfully. The plot, such as it is, is deliberately written to accommodate for the interactivity; You take that out, and it doesn't work; You adapt it, and it doesn't feel like the game anymore. There's very few instances where you could get success out of situations like that.

[Lynn Bodoni]

Wake me up when they start building movies around Planescape: Torment, Fallout, Baldur's Gate... then they'll have so much plot they won't have to "fill in the blanks". Hell, even BioWare stuff's got twice as much story as Resident Evil could ever hope to. I'd love a GOOD Fallout movie. Despite Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, I think that there are several Final Fantasies that would make good movie material. 6j and 8, for instance, have a lot of backstory and character growth.

[tonedef]

I thought Silent Hill was a pretty creepy and cool horror movie, except for the extraneous Sean Bean exposition scenes and the mess of an ending. But it had amazing visuals and a fantastic atmosphere. I've never played any of the games, but at least I know what they're about. Apparently a second movie is in the works that will be a somewhat truer adaptation.

I'm also somewhat excited about Hitman, but because I love over-the-top gunplay action movies, and because Timothy Olyphant is badass. I've never played those games either.
I really liked silent hill. It felt like the game.
As for hitman it loots pretty good. I'm glad they didn't end up going with Vin Deisel.


*small voice* I liked the first Mortal Kombat movie...
I didn't mind that. I also thought the series was ok.

[Revenant Threshold]

Hitman's a good example, in that it's actually a reasonable film. It's just a reasonable film that's pretty considerably removed from the source, like SEP says. Mr. 47 with a love interest? Ha.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Yeah, after looking at the trailer, my interest in Hitman: The Movie is pretty much nil.

[Equipoise]

Hitman's a good example, in that it's actually a reasonable film. It's just a reasonable film that's pretty considerably removed from the source, like SEP says. Mr. 47 with a love interest? Ha.I know zip about the video game, but I saw this last night (hey, it was filler between Margot At The Wedding and I'm Not There) and it's the weirdest love interest plot line that I've ever seen. They don't have sex (he specificlaly avoids it) and the only way you can really tell that he cares for her is that he saves her life and helps her get away. There's an implied "happy ever after" ending where they might get together, but it's not shown and is easily disregarded. I thought it was kind of refreshing myself.

While definitely my least favorite of the 4 movies I saw yesterday (the 4th was Enchanted), I enjoyed it. But then, I really like Timothy Olyphant, so just watching him was a treat. The show was sold out in a large theater, btw.

[Talon Karrde]

I'm not interested in the Hitman movie at all, but the trailers have made me interested in the games. How well have they aged?

[Least Original User Name Ever]

I've only played the most recent one. It was good and fun. I'd recommend it if your curiosity is piqued.

[Hostile Dialect]

I heard the guy who modeled Hitman for the game was turned down for the movie role. Stupid fuckers.

I'm not interested in the Hitman movie at all, but the trailers have made me interested in the games. How well have they aged?

Very well. They are hard, though. And you have to remember not to let the kill-everyone instinct from conventional FPSes take over--your goal is to attract as little attention as possible. Once you get to the point where you can kill a stage actor during a play (yes, you have to do that), you're a badass.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

I heard the guy who modeled Hitman for the game was turned down for the movie role. Stupid fuckers.



Very well. They are hard, though. And you have to remember not to let the kill-everyone instinct from conventional FPSes take over--your goal is to attract as little attention as possible. Once you get to the point where you can kill a stage actor during a play (yes, you have to do that), you're a badass.


I liked to kill him in his dressing room. It's always good to leave that objective for last and see if you can't take him out with the pistol from the balcony and hop out the front door to victory.

[9thFloor]

I think its cuz the movie is made from a branding point of view rather than from an artistic one. Same reason wrestling movies aren't any good. Branding, branding, branding. All commerce and no art makes Johnny watch a dull movie.

[Gorsnak]

The most recent game is really quite recent. The first one is showing its age, but I think the middle two (Silent Assassin and Contracts) stand up pretty well. At one point you could download free demos of two levels from Silent Assassin and one from Contracts - assuming they're still available, you could see what they're like. The levels in question are reasonably representative.

[Gorsnak]

I liked to kill him in his dressing room. It's always good to leave that objective for last and see if you can't take him out with the pistol from the balcony and hop out the front door to victory.
Oh come on, the most entertaining way to complete that one is to swap the prop pistol for a real one, then drop the chandelier on the other target when he runs down after realizing the guy was really shot.

[Agent Foxtrot]

...about as deep and engrossing as a half-assed fart.So can we consider that a one-cheek sneak? :D

There's talk of a God of War movie in the works. I'm a huge fan of the games yet I'm underwhelmed by the idea of a movie. No one would ever be able to emulate Kratos, and furthermore, his badassery is of too great a magnitude to be contained in a live-action format. :)

...Despite Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, I think that there are several Final Fantasies that would make good movie material. 6j and 8, for instance, have a lot of backstory and character growth.I think I love you.

[Grey area]

Wake me up when they start building movies around Planescape: Torment, Fallout, Baldur's Gate... then they'll have so much plot they won't have to "fill in the blanks". Hell, even BioWare stuff's got twice as much story as Resident Evil could ever hope to.
I would pay good money to see a Planescape movie. People might think it's a "Memento" rip off though, when it very well may be the other way around.

[Strain of Thought]

I am a huge fan of the Metroid series, but I am still mature enough to know that a literal translation to film would mean a girl in a Robocop suit with no supporting cast, running around in The Cave, by the director of The Blair Witch Project and the scriptwriter of A Cry In The Wild. A non-literal translation would just end up being the 1998 Lost in Space movie. I don't want to see either film.

An Idiomatic translation of a story from one medium to another requires aggressive adaptation. For film this means a skilled scriptwriter and a skilled director who are intimately familiar with the source material and medium AND know how to work hollywood. Oh, and adequate special effects to compensate for animated media not needing a pyrotechnics budget. The reason there are so few good video-game-to-film adaptations is not because no one really tries, but because they are incredibly difficult to make well, on every level. One of the reasons hitman was so quick to get adapted was that the setting and events are well-trodden ground for Hollywood; the obstacles were pared down to Hitman's essential videogameness, and that alone was still enough to deal the film a heavy blow.

Check out Terry Pratchet's Comments On Tomb Raider (http://news.ansible.co.uk/a173.html) for another example of what I mean.

Once, just for kicks, me and some friends sat around pitching Tetris: The Movie to eachother. It was kind of like a live-action Creature Anime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Creature_anime_and_manga) set in the house of Thir13een Ghosts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thir13en_Ghosts). (Remember that shrinking room in TOYS?) It also starred Anthony Hopkins as the crazy russian inventor who had built the collapsing house.

[tetris theme]Doooo-Doooo Doooo-Doooo Doo Doo Doo Doooooooo[/tetris theme]

Tim! You've got to use your long straight piece to complete the line! You're the only one who can do it! Hurry or we'll all be crushed!

[GuanoLad]

Check out Terry Pratchet's Comments On Tomb Raider (http://news.ansible.co.uk/a173.html) for another example of what I mean.
That's a pretty good summing up.

I like lots of things about the Tomb Raider movie, mostly because it feels like they tried hard to make Lara's character, and the way she handles each 'puzzle' and confrontation, pretty much an exact copy of how the game does it.

My biggest problems with it are the additional characters, who are just horrible to watch (all the bad guys, the extraneous and science fictional Father, her servant and assistant), and the stupid supernatural plot that doesn't make a lick of sense. But, having said that, the performances and the supernatural elements used in the game are similarly cheesy.

So Pratchett is right - it's so close to the game and not separated enough from it to be a good movie in its own right. But if you do separate it too much, then it no longer feel like the game, and so you'll have complaints along the lines of "It's a totally unrelated movie with just the brand name stuck on the front".

[ArizonaTeach]

I know zip about the video game, but I saw this last night (hey, it was filler between Margot At The Wedding and I'm Not There) and it's the weirdest love interest plot line that I've ever seen. They don't have sex (he specificlaly avoids it) and the only way you can really tell that he cares for her is that he saves her life and helps her get away. There's an implied "happy ever after" ending where they might get together, but it's not shown and is easily disregarded. I thought it was kind of refreshing myself.

While definitely my least favorite of the 4 movies I saw yesterday (the 4th was Enchanted), I enjoyed it. But then, I really like Timothy Olyphant, so just watching him was a treat. The show was sold out in a large theater, btw.Yeah, I thought it was good fun. Anyone who thinks there's a love story in here is sadly mistaken...he injects her rather than sleep with her when she's drunkenly crawling over him naked, for heaven's sake, and no straight man without issues is gonna do that to her.

I liked the touch at the beginning where the woman in the bar is all over him, and walks away to read his book on understanding women. Hitman in a nutshell. And there is a nicely overcomplicated assassination deal (with T-Bag from Prison Break!). Solid movie, for the genre.

[Revenant Threshold]

Oh come on, the most entertaining way to complete that one is to swap the prop pistol for a real one, then drop the chandelier on the other target when he runs down after realizing the guy was really shot. The best way to complete it is to dress up as the executioner, take the real gun and kill him yourself right on stage. Need to time it right with the music, though.

Edit: As for the Hitman thing, they set him up as someone interested but with no experience of women. He shouldn't even have the book, really; he just doesn't care about that kind of thing. Also he should've been older, but eh.

[jackdavinci]

I saw Hitman and it was.. ok. At first I had thought it was going to be based on the comic book lol. The trailers really emphasized the whole secret religious organization that bar codes lost youth and trains them to be assassins angle, so I thought the story would focus on that - but that was really a blip in the plot and didn't seem to actually factor into the story at all (granted I was nodding off a bit during the last 15 minutes, maybe they addressed it then). He really could have just been a hitman without the elaborate and unused backstory. It was nice seeing Desmond from Lost as the lunatic brother of the main target.

I did like Tomb Raider and it's sequel for some reason. Silent Hill was fairly cool. In general I think video game movies suffer for the same reason that all adaptations do.

[dotchan]

I'd love a GOOD Fallout movie. Despite Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, I think that there are several Final Fantasies that would make good movie material. 6j and 8, for instance, have a lot of backstory and character growth.

But who would be cast as Kefka? And would they use the game soundtrack?

:D

[Anne Neville]

I don't think it's possible to take an interactive medium and change it to a non-interactive one successfully.

I think that's the problem. A video game with one single coherent plot is usually not going to have much room for the player to affect the course of the game through their actions, which makes it much less fun. But one single coherent plot is exactly what you need to make a movie.

Going the other way, making a video game based on a movie, usually doesn't work that well either. I think the incompatibility between a good movie story and a good video game story is one of the reasons.

[jayjay]

I think it's entirely possible to make an excellent Warcraft (or World of Warcraft) movie. There's enough backstory to make it work, and Warcraft III (and the upper levels of WoW), at least, already feels like a cinematic experience. Whether the rumored production that's supposedly currently being organized is going to be an excellent Warcraft movie is another story entirely, of course.

[Hostile Dialect]

That's exactly what I need: more stupid Warcraft bullshit for my friends to beg me to spend money on. That shit must be like heroin, sex and chocolate cake all rolled up into one.

[jayjay]

That's exactly what I need: more stupid Warcraft bullshit for my friends to beg me to spend money on. That shit must be like heroin, sex and chocolate cake all rolled up into one.

:p

[DigitalC]

I think it's entirely possible to make an excellent Warcraft (or World of Warcraft) movie. There's enough backstory to make it work, and Warcraft III (and the upper levels of WoW), at least, already feels like a cinematic experience. Whether the rumored production that's supposedly currently being organized is going to be an excellent Warcraft movie is another story entirely, of course.

Theres nothing rumored about it, it was officially announced over a year ago.

[Love Rhombus]

Hey, I thought DOA was brainlessly entertaining!

[Agent Foxtrot]

But who would be cast as Kefka? And would they use the game soundtrack?

:DI think Willem Dafoe would be fantastic as Kefka. And they'd have to use the original soundtrack, but arranged and orchestrated, lest FFVI fans riot in the streets. :D

[jayjay]

Theres nothing rumored about it, it was officially announced over a year ago.

:smack:

I'm too busy playing to pay attention to the buzz... :D

[Odesio]

I think a big problem is that most video games have a fairly weak plot that's simply designed to facilitate game play rather than stand alone as a genuine narrative. Before I get pounced on by the FF VII fans I'll admit that I'm sure there are exceptions. I love Half-Life, Doom, Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Hot Shots Golf, etc., but most of them have pretty weak stories though they have good game play.

I do like the idea for the Tetris movie. I also thought Mortal Kombat was a decent action movie.

Marc

[Odesio]

I think a big problem is that most video games have a fairly weak plot that's simply designed to facilitate game play rather than stand alone as a genuine narrative. Before I get pounced on by the FF VII fans I'll admit that I'm sure there are exceptions. I love Half-Life, Doom, Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Hot Shots Golf, etc., but most of them have pretty weak stories though they have good game play.

I do like the idea for the Tetris movie. I also thought Mortal Kombat was a decent action movie.

Marc

[Lynn Bodoni]

I think Willem Dafoe would be fantastic as Kefka. And they'd have to use the original soundtrack, but arranged and orchestrated, lest FFVI fans riot in the streets. :D Yeah, he'd be good. Or possibly Tim Curry, if he's not too old. I don't think we can count on FF fans rioting in the streets, not after FF:TSW. I mean, if THAT didn't do it, what would?

[Just Some Guy]

I also thought Mortal Kombat was a decent action movie.
Mortal Kombat was better the first time when it was called Enter the Dragon.

[Hostile Dialect]

How about the Pac-Man movie (http://youtube.com/watch?v=fWL6j0SvqV0)?

[Ferret Herder]

Since we're talking about the Hitman movie, the commercial for it bothers me - muscles in my chest start aching just listening to that sustained note that the female vocalist sings. I'm going to start diving for the remote if they keep playing the commercial at the frequency they'd been doing.

[Bryan Ekers]

I kinda liked the Wing Commander adaptation, on the strength of various supporting performances like David Suchet's.


Well, I didn't hate it....

[smiling bandit]

[QUOTE=MGibson]I think a big problem is that most video games have a fairly weak plot that's simply designed to facilitate game play rather than stand alone as a genuine narrative. Before I get pounced on by the FF VII fans I'll admit that I'm sure there are exceptions. I love Half-Life, Doom, Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Hot Shots Golf, etc., but most of them have pretty weak stories though they have good game play./QUOTE]

I've ben thinking about this.

I don't think it's accurate. Consider, for a moment, a good action movie. How much plot does it need? The hero/es need to:

1) Discover that there is a bad thing happening. This often happens in the first five minutes.
2) Face terrible challenges in stopping it.
3) Discover whom the bad guy is, which also often happens in the first five minutes.
4) Stop the villain.

Everything else is extra.

It's the adventure of following along as they battle through the minions and figure out how to stop the evil plan which is fun and exciting, and some movies here, like Half-Life and Doom, are almost plot enough in and of themselves. We don't NEED to know too many details about the how or why the villains will take over earth. It might well be better NOT to know - scarier that way. If the hero is all alone in a Mars station, surrounded by terrors from Hell, and not very sure what to do, it can really bring home the fear. The sheer uncertainty.

Then he can discover what to do, figure things out, and find a way to catch up to the villains and deliver the punishment.

A game like Final Fantasy couldn't be done easily. Final Fantasy 6 would take a whole miniseries on its own. Something like Planescape: Torment? Would be incredible, but at the same time it would require a director with a lot of chops and talent to bring to life. You'd have to introduce the audience to a world they've never imagined, something which makes Narnia and Middle Earth look like the suburbs in comparison. And it could not be done in a two-hour movie. The only advantage is that some scenes have been written brilliantly already, and you could gloss over the specifics of 'multiclassing' as you show the Nameless One becoming more and more powerful in every battle. In fact, the biggest problem is not knowing which awesome ending to choose!

pst spoiler:

I love the one where the claims his true name, declaring that HE IS as well as fully understanding himself, uniting himself with his other self, nearly a deity in his own right. In another, he convinces his other self that their mutual life in unacceptable, that they are slowly dying anyway, and that reuniting will bring them both peace. His other self declares his eternal hatred for the Nameless One, and the N.O. replies that he will be happy then, because they will face trials and torments in the days to come.

[smiling bandit]

OK, my post sort of vanished.

[Hostile Dialect]

Wtf?

[smiling bandit]

I wrote a big long post, which appeared without any text. Here's the gist of it:

I think that good video game adaptations could be done. Let's take a look at Doom. For those not in the know, this is a game about demons emerging from a gate to Hell found in outer space. In the games it took place in varying locations such as Io, Phobos, and Mars. It tapped into the Alien mythos of "in space no one can hear you scream," etc by isolating the character without even the hope of aid.

Now, the actual Doom movie canned this by adding a full squad of marines, numerous random scientist characters, a weird plot about an evil genetic code, and random mutant demon people. And it sucked. They lost the entire point of it: you weren't just being attacked by big ugly monsters, but by freakish demonic agents of destruction hellbent on the obliteration or enshalvement of the entire human race if ever they were loosed upon earth. Space was a hostile, scary empty void filled with waiting terrors, fiends beyond the capacity of man to comprehend. And the movie totally botched it.