any good movies based on video games?

In My Humble Opinion
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…which is what I’ve heard from other folks, and I’ve got no problem with that. Pretty cool, in fact.

But either I’m on crack or I can swear I’ve seen said Chocobos and Bahamuts and Cure III in several of the games, which is why I thought that the games were related in that way. Different plotlines entirely (different worlds too), but the same basic engine.

If I want to see a giant yellow Chocobo, I’ll watch Sesame Street.

Regardless, the trailer has sucked me in and I’m going to see it opening day. :slight_smile:

42

Original question:
Any good movies based on video games?

Answer:
No.

To quote Dennis Miller (he’s dicussing a different movie, but I’m using it to relate to all the movies mentioned above, except Final Fantasy):

43

LNO, you are right that there are no Chocobos or magic in the Final Fantasy movie. Chocobos I understand but I have to admit I was a little let down(like, a year and half ago) when I found out that it’s a Sci-Fi movie instead of a Fantasy.

I also think the movie will let down the general audience. I hope to eat those words, but I doubt it. The plot is too weird, with reincarnation and serious drama for a lot of it.

Sadly, due to the advertising, most people are expecting The Mummy Returns and Titan A. E. combined into one great animated Sci-Fi film. These poor saps will be let down big time.

Remember when Eyes Wide Shut was coming out? People who knew it was a Kubrick film knew what to expect(weird psychological craziness). People who had no idea and just saw the trailers for it thought it would be some sort of romantic intrigue movie.

And those who knew and loved Kubrick’s work loved the movie. Those who went based of the fact it was Nicole Kidman andTom Cruise hated it.

Same with this. Those who know what this film is will love it. Those who don’t will hate it.

I doubt it will make back the $120 million dollars it cost just with its American release. It will need international release(especialy Japan) to make it back.

44

Sorry, nope. Tron was a movie first. It was, however, clearly inspired by video games – the tank sequences were souped-up versions of Atari’s Battlezone, the light-cycle duels were glorified versions of Surround, and the disc-tossing was a fancy version of Pong.

45

Well, surely there are certain things that are carried over between the games, just because the designers (and customers) liked them. There was a “Bahamut” in the very first Final Fantasy game (he was king of the dragons). As for the spells… well, jeez, there’s not much variety you put for a spell that “cures” you.

But those particular aspects are immaterial to the overall plot… it’s just a nifty little gimmick that’s fun to see. Like Moogles. Any game with Moogles is a good game.

46

What I meant was the specificity in Cure I, Cure II, Cure III, and on. Yeah, there’s no real difference in the end result of any cure spell in any game, but given that the names were identical, I assumed (from my limited sample) that all the games were that way.

(compare to Latumofis in Wizardry, Neutralize Poison in a D&D game of your choice, etc)

Still, it frightens me to realize that Big Bird is a chocobo.

47

Big Bird isn’t a Chocobo. He lost his membership when he refused to climb aboard the airship in the long-lost Final Fantasy 2.5.

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Ya know, in Japan that was called FFV . . . (Not a joke, but an incredible simulation!)

The FF movie is a bit of an exception. Not only is it being done by the game company, Square has been accused of making movies that pretend to be games for a long time now. Sure it’ll probably be fomula, but their games have always been formula, just with good charactorization and settings.

On the other hand, there was a Final Fantasy anime several years ago, (loosly based on five) that was just awful.

the Street Fighter anime had great fight scenes, dispite the dub (the voice acting wasn’t that bad, but the dubed over flavor of the month grunge soundtrack was horrible, especially considering how good the original soundtrack was) though as a movie, there wasn’t much else to it, and it did have arugably the worst ending ever. (“TEASER!!” I’m not kidding. A worse ending than Snake Eyes) SFV was entertaining, though not much more than that.

The Fatal Fury movie and the second OAV were fun, though. (skip the first one) O’bari still does the best high powered fight scenes of anyone, dispite his breast fetish, and the FF games always had terrific character designs.

slortar mentioned (shudder) Samurai Shodown, though. In it’s defense, it was a cut-and-paste job from a TV show. On the other hand, by all accounts the TV show is just as bad. Though for some reason, I found the Jack Palance-esque voice actor playing Galford hysterical . . .

Though Planescape: Torment would make an awesome animated series . . . the Fallouts could be done live action without seeming cheesy, though.

The real question, though, is which is worse . . . hollywood movies based on games, or games based on holywood movies? (Live action movies based on cartoons are in a badness class all their own)

The thing is, most games, even console RPGs, which as a group have the most complex plots of all game types, tend to have simple plots. It’s, as with the FF games, characters, settings, and atmosphere that gamers get attached to, and the Hollywood process just can’t leave that alone. Everyone, starting from the actors up, has to put their own stamp on everything, and what you end up with is something totally different.

And popular games tend to be in generes (sci-fi, fantasy, martial arts) that holywood has perticularly bad records of producing . . .

And that’s ASSUMING that the production team has any respect for the original, nine out of ten times, they’re just going through the motions. I mean, everyone knows that computer games are stupid anyway, right? If they act like they take it seriously, they’ll end up looking stupid.(The “Lex Luthor” effect)

–
“He’s like the Russ Meyer of Japan . . .”

49

Saw most of Street Fighter at a friend’s house yesterday. It was part of “Van Damme Week” on the USA Network. (Wish I’d known sooner so I could have recorded it.)

Well…it wasn’t great. But it was watchable and I never got bored, which is two up on some really bad anime VG movies I could name (esp. Art of Fighting, which provided arguably less entertainment than a blank tape played for 45 minutes). I wasn’t concerned at all about it being “non-canonical”; I knew that beforehand. Still, it’s by far the most incredbly cheesy movie I’ve evern seen, and I’ve seen Date With An Angel and South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. I was astonished by how it practically wallowed in its silliness (right down to the “control panel” taken right from a Super Street Fighter 2 machine, the game this movie is…ahem…based on). The plot…well, I’m not sure where they draggged it from, but it doesn’t resemble any fighting game plot I’ve ever encountered. I won’t even start on the characterizations; it’s almost as if the writers decided that they were going to be totally off no matter what, so why fight it.

There were some nice touches, like M.Bison’s levitating platform and the highly advanced watercraft. Overall, though, the effects are every bit as cheesy as the plot. The blaster battles in the Star Wars movies were about a hundred times more realistic than the firefights in SF.

Most of the actors are actually pretty good, despite not having much to work with (no Shoryukens, Sonic Booms, or Barcelona Drops, obviously), and the dialogue, while it could have been better, didn’t leave me retching (like in AOF…or SS, for that matter). Raul Julia, in particular, is surprisingly convincing as the psychotic megalomaniac, and he had the best lines in the movie. As for the fights…well, they were short, and that’s the best that could be said for them. And I liked how the movie spread the wealth, not focusing too much on any one fighter (not even Guile, although he’s obviously a pivotal character)

All in all, this was your typical breezy summer fare; action-packed, cheesy, largely pointless, and more or less forgettable.

But it really is too bad that it had to be anyone’s last movie. Yeesh, talk about bad timing.