# Games that would maake great movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 12, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382 "2003-06-12T17:12:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/21 "2003-06-13T00:19:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > \*\*Not a single one. There has never been anything more than a mediocre film made from a game; there is no reason to expect any game could make a good movie, let along a great one. \*\* I don’t necessarily know that there’s a large enough sample to draw that conclusion. How many movies made form video games are out there? I can think of _Street Fighter_ and _Mortal Kombat_ off the top of my head. They both sucked, but they were based on franchises that didn’t really lend themselves well to the big screen. _Final Fantasy_ wasn’t all that bad. Great visuals, plot wasn’t any stupider than 90% of the anime out there. _Dungeons and Dragons_ doesn’t really count, because they just slapped the D&D name on an otherwise generic fantasy movie. There was an animated, straight-to-video version of _Sin_, for reasons that defy mortal comprehension. Oh, yeah: _Wing Commander_. That sucked big time. Come to think of it, I’m sure there’re a plethora of Japanese cartoons based off of video games: I saw one made from _Street Fighter_ that was pretty good, although I saw it all the way back in high school, so my memory is pretty vague. I distinctly remember seeing Chun Li’s naked breasts, so it can’t have been all bad. I think that a lot of adventure games would make great movies. I’d love to see _Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis_. Maybe _Loom_, which was so short they wouldn’t even have to edit much of the plot. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/22 "2003-06-13T00:35:26Z")
Sim City!!! ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/23 "2003-06-13T00:41:50Z")
> [@](#): > > **I don’t necessarily know that there’s a large enough sample to draw that conclusion.** I believe these are the only game to movie conversions: Street Fighter Super Mario Bros. Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat: Annihilation Pokemon The Movie (and it’s sequels) Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Double Dragon Dungeons and Dragons Tomb Raider Wing Commander Resident Evil Give or take a movie. ---
**Author:** ![Labtrash](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/labtrash/32/528_2.png) [@Labtrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labtrash)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/24 "2003-06-13T00:49:42Z")
Maybe Halo or System Shock. Or the first Quake (much creepier than the robot stuff in Quake II ---
**Author:** ![nevermore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a587f6/32.png) [@nevermore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevermore)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/25 "2003-06-13T01:05:28Z")
Almost any of the RPGs made by Black Isle and/or Troika could be brilliant movies, including Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Fallout 1 and 2, Arcanum, and Planescape: Torment. I especially think Planescape: Torment could be great because it’s very story- and dialogue-driven, very original, and the story is extremely engrossing. It’s got everything–self-discovery, action, a difficult and not-disgustingly-sweet romance, and a talking skull. What more d’ya need?? Plenty of room for special effects/set/makeup magic, too, being that nothing in it looked anywhere close to reality. ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/26 "2003-06-13T01:13:55Z")
Add to **Justin\_Bailey** ’s list the upcoming _House of the Dead_, which already is obviously gonna suck (and be nothing like the game). I think the main problem with video game movies so far is that they’re either based on games that have a weak storyline to begin with (_Mario Brothers_ or _Mortal Kombat_), or they abandoned a good storyline for something cliched (_Final Fantasy_). If a game was used that had a strong storyline to begin with, and that story was adhered to, then it could be a good movie. Another one that occurred to me was Max Payne, but I’ve actually never played it… just heard that it had a good story. Does anyone think it would make a good movie? ---
**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/27 "2003-06-13T01:46:42Z")
As a matter of disclosure, let me say that I liked Resident Evil a lot, and found Mortal Kombat wildly entertaining. Tomb Raider was also fun, though admittedly a bad movie. Conversely, anyone who found the Street Fighter movie as anything other than a colossal flying turd should be immediately executed so as to minimize the chances of something that inexplicably awful from ever again being made. Whoops, too late, someone’s making a House of the Dead movie. And c’mon, a _Metroid_ movie? Yeah, let’s take a game that derives 90% of its cool factor from the fact that it’s just you, alone, on an alien world, and make a freakin’ movie about it. A movie with exactly one character will be wonderful. Or alternately, they could throw in a goofy sidekick for comedic effect. Honestly, WTF? Okay, done with my rant… Final Fantasy seems, on the surface, to be a logical choice for direct translation, until you realize that it would necessarily be a 10 hour movie in order to not suck - which, paradoxically, would make it suck, because nobody wants to watch a 10 hour movie. Alternately, you just cut out the majority of the plot and character development, in which case it would still suck. Really, the Final Fantasy movie was just FFVII edited for cinema. They even used the same ending sequence. So what would be good? Eternal Darkness, with some editing. Have a few parallel story lines going on, and cut the cast down to 3 or 4, instead of the 10 or so they had. Halo would make a decent Aliens-type action/sci-fi movie. Max Payne could make a decent movie, but that game was fun more for its gameplay than its story. Luigi’s Mansion would make a pretty entertaining cartoon aimed at kids. Half-Life, done well, could be phenomenal. Of course, since that’s such a likely candidate, that means that it would suck. They’d probably get Michael Bay to direct, and borrow the “writers” responsible for the Super Mario Bros. movie. Gun Valkyrie would likely make a pretty good movie. The backstory is pretty interesting - a parallel earth that developed space travel in the early 1900’s, with a dash of Starship Troopers mixed in. Myst, as much as I think the game franchise should burn in Hell, would probably be pretty good. Hell, the game is pretty much just a movie with some arbitrary puzzles thrown at it. Wanna go old-school? Return To Zork would be cool. Hell, any movie set in the Zork universe would seriously get my hard earned cash. In fact, name an Infocom text adventure, and you could probably make a movie out of it. (Mmmm… Leather Goddesses of Phobos…) Leisure Suit Larry could make for a fun Porky’s-style flick. And I think I’ll leave it there for now. Seriously, though, any movie producers here on the SDMB? Zork: The Movie! Seriously, go to it! Jeff ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/28 "2003-06-13T01:46:52Z")
There was a previous thread on this which I can’t locate; there were some good ideas in there. I think _Space Quest_ could be fun. Probably some of the other adventure games too, but I never played them. Coincidentally, I just bought _Super Mario Bros._ on DVD tonight. I agree that it’s a really lousy film, but I enjoy looking for all the inside jokes, like Snifits. I thought _Resident Evil_ wasn’t bad, you know, for a horror film, and I liked _Final Fantasy_. _Tomb Raider_ was pretty bad, though. I once read a review of _Street Fighter_ that I unfortunately can’t find anymore, but I believe it said, “In order to avoid the bad publicity from this movie, Raul Julia did the only thing he could - go into a coma and die.” ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/29 "2003-06-13T01:51:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by nevermore \* > \*\*Almost any of the RPGs made by Black Isle and/or Troika could be brilliant movies, including Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Fallout 1 and 2, Arcanum, and Planescape: Torment. I especially think Planescape: Torment could be great because it’s very story- and dialogue-driven, very original, and the story is extremely engrossing. It’s got everything–self-discovery, action, a difficult and not-disgustingly-sweet romance, and a talking skull. What more d’ya need?? Plenty of room for special effects/set/makeup magic, too, being that nothing in it looked anywhere close to reality. \*\* Planescape Torment would work but you’d have to cut out a big chunk of the plot(or at least the backstories. It’s taken me a couple hours just to wade through all the dialouge in some of the early sections. Not that I’m complaining) to make it work. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/30 "2003-06-13T01:53:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stonebow \* > **I’d love to see a Final Fantasy movie actually based on any one of the games. I had high hopes for the one they released, but was seriously disappointed, as the story was nothing like anything ever.** \*\* You’re kidding, right? **Final Fantasy: The Spirits withen** borrowed Numerous elements from Final Fantasy 7. The Giant Space Cannon was very much like the sister ray, the Meteor, the huge glowing thing at the end that looked like the Lifestream from FF7. I’m guessing there are elements from FF8 in there as well, but I haven’t played that one yet. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/31 "2003-06-13T01:58:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElJeffe \* > Myst, as much as I think the game franchise should burn in Hell, would probably be pretty good. Hell, the game is pretty much just a movie with some arbitrary puzzles thrown at it. I’m sorry. You think Metroid would be a bad choice because it has only one character, but Myst, which has zero characters, would be good? ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/32 "2003-06-13T02:03:53Z")
\*\*Pong \*\* ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/33 "2003-06-13T02:11:03Z")
The problem with the FF movie was that it was light on the “fantasy.” One of the coolest aspects of the games is how they throw together sci-fi and magic and industrial-revolution-era building designs and whatever else they can think of. _The Spirits Within_ was, for the most part, just a CGI version of any generic Hollywood sci-fi action movie since _Aliens_, with a little bit of an environmental message thrown in. And a character named Cid. As for the OP, it’s kind of a paradox. All the best games would make lousy movies, because usually what makes them good games is the opposite of what makes a good movies. What makes _Half-Life_ so cool isn’t the setting, it’s the fact that you _are_ the protagonist. Part of what makes the _Final Fantasy_ series cool is that they have enormous worlds that take hours to see. So you’d need a game with a cool setting but lousy gameplay. Which is, IMO, _Crimson Skies_. I liked it overall, but didn’t think it was fun – what sold me were the voice work and the setting and backstory. ---
**Author:** ![Wolfian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/34 "2003-06-13T02:11:51Z")
Max Payne maybe Metroid. The problem is it would just be one girl in storm troooper armor shooting things for 90 minutes. It would need a great script. Maybe have Samus talking to an advisor via watch communicator or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Fibber\_McGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a6a055/32.png) [@Fibber\_McGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibber_McGee)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/35 "2003-06-13T02:17:09Z")
There’s really no need to adapt video games into motion pictures. With only a few rare exceptions, video games based on movies range from mediocre to putrid. As has already been pointed out, there has yet to be a video game movie that actually _felt_ like a true film in its own right, rather than a weak attempt to bring the interactive experience of a video game to the non-interactive venue of the movie screen. The fact is, there’s a lot we put up with in video games that many of us won’t put up with in a movie _because_ video games are interactive. Because we nominally control the action (and for other, more complex and less easily described reasons), we as gamers will forgive and even ignore things like weak plots and non-existant character development that we would decry in a film. Imagine sitting through a 30+ hour movie with the exact storyline of Final Fantasy VII, then come back and tell me what a “great” game it was. I think the reason video game movies have failed is because games, by nature, are not - or at least have not been in the past - a storytelling medium. So far, every attempt to bring games to the big screen have tried too hard to recreate the experience of the game in some fashion and that is where they fail. If video game movies are to be made, and I think they will continue to be so long as gaming remains a big money industry, then I say, take the core characters, abandon all else and start from scratch. Approach it as a film featuring fictional characters that just happen to be from a video game, rather than as a video game movie. Attempting to recreate the experience of playing a video game in the medium of film will never produce anything but a mediocre product, so they should stop trying to do that and just make a damned movie! All that said, I think The Secret of Monkey Island would make a fantastic animated film. ---
**Author:** ![Fibber\_McGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a6a055/32.png) [@Fibber\_McGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibber_McGee)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/36 "2003-06-13T02:21:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SolGrundy \* > \*\*The problem with the FF movie was that it was light on the “fantasy.” One of the coolest aspects of the games is how they throw together sci-fi and magic and industrial-revolution-era building designs and whatever else they can think of. _The Spirits Within_ was, for the most part, just a CGI version of any generic Hollywood sci-fi action movie since _Aliens_, with a little bit of an environmental message thrown in. And a character named Cid. > \*\* I agree. It also doesn’t help that the plot was almost totally incomprehensible. They spent an insane amount of money on that film and it flopped. I’m _glad_ it flopped. It was nothing more than an extended FMV sequence. I personally find the FMV sequences in the post-SNES FF series as obnoxious as they are pretty, and I found the notion of an entire film along the same lines super-obnoxious. The Spirits Within suceeded only in driving home something I’d already known about the games: the plots of every FF since VII make no sense. ---
**Author:** ![Rabid\_Squirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Rabid\_Squirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabid_Squirrel)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/37 "2003-06-13T02:29:16Z")
While I would like there to be a BG1/2 or Fallout 1/2 movie, they’ll probably end up as derivatives of generic fantasy or Mad-Max. Come to think of it, all the good games seem to borrow plot devices heavily from the movies. Perhaps movies based on crap games then? We could have The Sims movie, which consists of people trying to cook only to set themselves on fire, running madly to the toilet in vain and repairing lights in a puddle of water. There was some talk of a Doom movie, but last I heard they were trying to make it PG-13 [shudder] I thought that the Perfect Park game on the N64 would make a good action-adventure movie. Come on, high tech gadgets, guns, tight clothes, what isn’t there to like? Diablo could be made into a great movie, massive battle scenes against the legions of Hell, plenty of CGI candy, the Barbarian cracking heads, the brooding Curse Bitc - I mean Necromancer, the yummy Amazon and Sorceress… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/38 "2003-06-13T02:33:38Z")
Sorry, but _Max Payne_ would make an awful movie. Why? Because the game went to great lengths to simulate a really, really bad movie. It’s a parody of every half-assed, hard-boiled “cop on the edge” crap film ever made. This makes it brilliant as a video game, but translating it back into a movie would just be a big reel of suck. I don’t think _Metroid_ would work very well for the same reason a lot of other games wouldn’t translate: Seamus has no character. This works in a game, because the player projects his own personality onto the character, but that’s going to screw anyone who tries to adapt it to a movie. Whatever personality they come up with for Seamus is probably going to disappoint most the game’s fans. To be a good prospect for being turned into a movie, a game needs a distinctive character to build the movie around. ---
**Author:** ![Fibber\_McGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a6a055/32.png) [@Fibber\_McGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibber_McGee)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/39 "2003-06-13T02:41:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Miller \* > \*\*Sorry, but _Max Payne_ would make an awful movie. Why? Because the game went to great lengths to simulate a really, really bad movie. It’s a parody of every half-assed, hard-boiled “cop on the edge” crap film ever made. This makes it brilliant as a video game, but translating it back into a movie would just be a big reel of suck. > > \*\* I think you’re giving the game way too much credit. (Don’t get me wrong, loved the game, great fun to play.) The plot _was_ an amalgam of every hard-boiled, one man against a corrupt system, noir action cliche in the book, but it took itself far to seriously to possibly be an intentional parody. And it it _was_ an intentional parody, then frankly they were just a little too subtle. It’s like making a really crappy movie and then afterwards it was an intentional attempt to send up bad movies. I don’t buy it. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382/40 "2003-06-13T02:55:28Z")
As an addendum to my list, here’s a bunch of games to movies that are in various stages of development/filminmg/finished: **Finished** Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life House of the Dead **Advanced Development** Resident Evil: Apocalypse Mortal Kombat: Domination **Early Development/Development Hell** Crazy Taxi (I shit you not) Max Payne Metroid Spy Hunter Grand Theft Auto Doom Duke Nukem Deus Ex Devil May Cry Street Fighter II [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-that-would-maake-great-movies/181382.md?page=3)