Anyone think that tv might be the better medium for video game adaptations over film?

[Cicada 5]

Netflix's Castlevania, Arcane and Dota animated shows all seem to have turned out well. Tekken: Bloodline also has been well-received from what I have seen. Going a bit further back, the DMC anime, while having something of a mixed reception, seems to have been viewed in a more favorable light. Sure, we still get some duds like the two Resident Evil Netflix shows, but it seems video game tv adaptations are doing quite well in general. One might even say it's a better

Thoughts?

 

[BrawlMan]

Going a bit further back, the DMC anime, while having something of a mixed reception, seems to have been viewed in a more favorable light.

Only by comparison. Outside of the first few episodes, and one involving Sparda's former disciples, the show was boring and tedious. The DMC Anime is better than the Bayonetta Anime, but once the Netflix DMC show comes out, both are going to look like even more shit.

I would prefer TV adaptions of a good amount of games, but there are some games that can fit the movie format, but not all. It depends on what is being adapted.

 

[thebobmaster]

It really depends. For every Castlevania, there's a Halo. That said, I think part of it is simply a matter of run-time. Even a one-season show for, say, 6 episodes of 45 minutes each gives you a total of 270 minutes, or 4 and a half hours. Compared to a 2 and a half hours for even a relatively long movie, that gives much more freedom to work in story, characterization, and so on from the games, which can easily run at 8 hours of gameplay.

In short, having more run-time means you need to cut less.

 

[SilentPony]

I mean I don't think ANY medium is a good adaptation for video games. Take a fully immersive, interactive 10-40 hour experience, and condense it into 10 30min non-immersive, non-interactive experience. I mean look at the Avatar movie. Its the same general concept. Condensing something into a very tight time block. And what did they do? Basically narrate away the entire second season and it was hated.
Take Skyrim or Fallout. Massive immersive RPG stories with no one play through the same. How many millions of stories can be told? How can anyone enjoy some adaptation that boils it down into its base elements, a fantasy story with evil dragons?
Look at the latest Resident Evil adaptation. Roundly and universally hated because it basically has nothing to do with Resident Evil. Its just some random drama that they used the Word find/replace tool to fill in a few RE references.

Think of the phrase "the book was better". It describes the concept that even a good movie/show adaptation leave SO much out. Like the newest Dune movie basically cutting half the novel out. You're going to be getting that with every video game adaptation - "the video game was better"

 

[Thaluikhain]

I mean I don't think ANY medium is a good adaptation for video games. Take a fully immersive, interactive 10-40 hour experience, and condense it into 10 30min non-immersive, non-interactive experience. I mean look at the Avatar movie. Its the same general concept. Condensing something into a very tight time block. And what did they do? Basically narrate away the entire second season and it was hated.
Take Skyrim or Fallout. Massive immersive RPG stories with no one play through the same. How many millions of stories can be told? How can anyone enjoy some adaptation that boils it down into its base elements, a fantasy story with evil dragons?
Look at the latest Resident Evil adaptation. Roundly and universally hated because it basically has nothing to do with Resident Evil. Its just some random drama that they used the Word find/replace tool to fill in a few RE references.

Think of the phrase "the book was better". It describes the concept that even a good movie/show adaptation leave SO much out. Like the newest Dune movie basically cutting half the novel out. You're going to be getting that with every video game adaptation - "the video game was better"

Generally, yes, but then again that'd depend on the game. Mostly the answer is going to be "nope", but then again you'd get some games that are episodic enough to work as TV shows, and the odd game that has a backstory that could be a movie.

But, yeah, pick and choose the right ones, not the latest zillion dollar game franchise that gets one movie made as the first of a series and then no more ever. I liked the Warcraft movie, not great but ok.

 

[gorfias]

Yes.
For example, the DOTA adaptation just could not be done in a satisfying manner in a 2 hr. movie. Yes, TV can stumble as badly as anything else. Halo seems to be the go to property to beat up upon. But TV allows any story a scope that cannot be matched in movies.

 

[Gordon_4]

Well, if you absolutely have to adapt a video game, long form on television is arguably the better format.

 

[Hawki]

Short answer is yes, but I'd say that TV is better for adapting things in general, given the longer runtime at its disposal.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Video games usually have such poor writing, adaptations will be pretty poor.

 

[MrCalavera]

There's no objective artform that's better for adaptations than the other. Anything can be adapted into everything. The results may vary.
Though yes, if you want the adaption faithfully cover more lore or character-rich stories, a series seems like a better choice.

I mean I don't think ANY medium is a good adaptation for video games. Take a fully immersive, interactive 10-40 hour experience, and condense it into 10 30min non-immersive, non-interactive experience. I mean look at the Avatar movie. Its the same general concept. Condensing something into a very tight time block. And what did they do? Basically narrate away the entire second season and it was hated.

You just argued in favor of tv being a better medium for video game adaptations, than movies. A typical, multi-season tv show could easily cover 10-40 hours of material.

Also, bringing interactivity into this discussion is mostly pointless. It's one thing that makes games special(that and in some cases, competetiveness). At that point it's akin to discussing adapting video games... into video games.

Video games usually have such poor writing, adaptations will be pretty poor.

The thing about adaptating is that it involves script too.

 

[BrawlMan]

I mean I don't think ANY medium is a good adaptation for video games.

You know that is full of shit.

MK '95, SFII: The Animated Movie, SF: Assassin's Fists, Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic SatAM, Sonic OVA, Sonic Boom (TV), Castlevania, Arcane, the first two Fatal Fury anime movies, the Animated MK Movies, and Warcraft all say hi and "HAHAHAHA.....NO!".

Look at the latest Resident Evil adaptation. Roundly and universally hated because it basically has nothing to do with Resident Evil. Its just some random drama that they used the Word find/replace tool to fill in a few RE references.

Capcom just does not care anymore when it comes to adapting any of their games in to movies. I still find it funny that Dog Soldiers is still the best live-action RE movie ever made. Double Impact is still the best Double Dragon movie ever made.

Think of the phrase "the book was better".

And there are plenty moments where the book is worse, not as good, about the same level of quality as the adaption (good, bad, or mediocre depending on what it is), or only better by comparison.

 

[Gordon_4]

Think of the phrase "the book was better". It describes the concept that even a good movie/show adaptation leave SO much out. Like the newest Dune movie basically cutting half the novel out. You're going to be getting that with every video game adaptation - "the video game was better"

You mean the movie that opens up by presenting itself as 'Part One'? Yeah no wonder there was stuff not in it; it wasn't supposed to be there at all.

Also the book is not always better: Jaws is a lurid potboiler about organised crime in a small town full of complete shitheads; and the shark attacks are making waves in that aspect. Or the original Godfather which is acknowledged as being a trashy, disposable airport novel. Fuck not even James Bond is safe from this shit; the novel for Moonraker is one of the most boring things I've ever read in my life and for all the goofy shit that happens in the movie, it at least is entertaining.

 

[Cicada 5]

I mean I don't think ANY medium is a good adaptation for video games. Take a fully immersive, interactive 10-40 hour experience, and condense it into 10 30min non-immersive, non-interactive experience. I mean look at the Avatar movie. Its the same general concept. Condensing something into a very tight time block. And what did they do? Basically narrate away the entire second season and it was hated.
Take Skyrim or Fallout. Massive immersive RPG stories with no one play through the same. How many millions of stories can be told? How can anyone enjoy some adaptation that boils it down into its base elements, a fantasy story with evil dragons?
Look at the latest Resident Evil adaptation. Roundly and universally hated because it basically has nothing to do with Resident Evil. Its just some random drama that they used the Word find/replace tool to fill in a few RE references.

Think of the phrase "the book was better". It describes the concept that even a good movie/show adaptation leave SO much out. Like the newest Dune movie basically cutting half the novel out. You're going to be getting that with every video game adaptation - "the video game was better"

People generally only say that when an adaptation is bad.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Do people really care about the Dota animated series? Can't say I've heard anyone really mention it.

I do think a series allows more room for an adaptation than a movie, but I think more important is the videogame itself - I find the more abstract a game is in its characterisation and visuals, the easier it is to translate it to the screen. Both Castlevania, League of Legends, and Sonic the Hedgehog are good examples. And while something like Resident Evil isn't necessarily realistic, it is more realistically defined. But then The Witcher seems to be doing fine with people liking that, so I don't know.

 

[Gordon_4]

Do people really care about the Dota animated series? Can't say I've heard anyone really mention it.

I do think a series allows more room for an adaptation than a movie, but I think more important is the videogame itself - I find the more abstract a game is in its characterisation and visuals, the easier it is to translate it to the screen. Both Castlevania, League of Legends, and Sonic the Hedgehog are good examples. And while something like Resident Evil isn't necessarily realistic, it is more realistically defined. But then The Witcher seems to be doing fine with people liking that, so I don't know.

Well in the Witcher's defence, the games is itself adapted from a series of fantasy novels. So that just makes the TV show yet another vector of adaptation.

 

[Piscian]

Idk, some movie adaptations are so terrible theyre better than the official ones

 

[Agema]

Depends on the computer game.

Action games should be films, and RPGs should be TV series. You're not going to get to a happy place stretching the limited character and plot of the former beyond a couple of hours, nor condensing the depth of the latter into as little as a couple of hours.

Broadly, I think a massive caveat about computer games is that they are traditionally not scripted by storytellers. As a result, they tend to have serious shortcomings if you take away the gameplay dimension and turn them from being interactive into passive spectation. This isn't necessarily a problem as you can just hire a good scriptwriter to create something. But after you've done that, you've almost created original media rather than adapted a game.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

This isn't necessarily a problem as you can just hire a good scriptwriter to create something. But after you've done that, you've almost created original media rather than adapted a game.

A lot of times it would be better to just create a brand-new "in the world of" entity, encompassing the general ideas but written specifically for the format.

 

[Kyrian007]

I mean I don't think ANY medium is a good adaptation for video games. Take a fully immersive, interactive 10-40 hour experience, and condense it into 10 30min non-immersive, non-interactive experience. I mean look at the Avatar movie. Its the same general concept. Condensing something into a very tight time block. And what did they do? Basically narrate away the entire second season and it was hated.
Take Skyrim or Fallout. Massive immersive RPG stories with no one play through the same. How many millions of stories can be told? How can anyone enjoy some adaptation that boils it down into its base elements, a fantasy story with evil dragons?
Look at the latest Resident Evil adaptation. Roundly and universally hated because it basically has nothing to do with Resident Evil. Its just some random drama that they used the Word find/replace tool to fill in a few RE references.

Think of the phrase "the book was better". It describes the concept that even a good movie/show adaptation leave SO much out. Like the newest Dune movie basically cutting half the novel out. You're going to be getting that with every video game adaptation - "the video game was better"

It probably doesn't work as well for Resident Evil (telling a different story in the world of RE), but that method is exactly how you adapt something like Skyrim or Fallout. A TV show about the Hero of Kvatch, or the Courier, or the Dragonborn, or the Lone Wanderer... isn't going to work. The fans would say "That isn't MY Dragonborn" and then the fanboy pissing and reviewbombing begins. But; if you just adapt the setting only, you can tell a story in a setting people enjoy. And then fanboy rage will only descend if it is too "woke" or inclusive or whatever gets up their collective crybaby snoot. I guess the example might be something like Fallout: Nuka Break. It was just a fan adaptation, but it was definitely peak fan-made content. And even as low budget as it was, you could tell they "got" Fallout. They understood the setting. That and some good writing... a "setting only" adaptation could easily succeed where a more "direct" adaptation would (like you point out) leave way too much out.

 

[Gordon_4]

It probably doesn't work as well for Resident Evil (telling a different story in the world of RE), but that method is exactly how you adapt something like Skyrim or Fallout. A TV show about the Hero of Kvatch, or the Courier, or the Dragonborn, or the Lone Wanderer... isn't going to work. The fans would say "That isn't MY Dragonborn" and then the fanboy pissing and reviewbombing begins. But; if you just adapt the setting only, you can tell a story in a setting people enjoy. And then fanboy rage will only descend if it is too "woke" or inclusive or whatever gets up their collective crybaby snoot. I guess the example might be something like Fallout: Nuka Break. It was just a fan adaptation, but it was definitely peak fan-made content. And even as low budget as it was, you could tell they "got" Fallout. They understood the setting. That and some good writing... a "setting only" adaptation could easily succeed where a more "direct" adaptation would (like you point out) leave way too much out.

I agree, and it’s why if they ever make the mad decision to make a Mass Effect film, the only logical thing would be to make a movie about Captain Anderson, Saren and their meting when Anderson was a candidate for the Spectres. Thats a piece of more or less static lore that informs the original game but by and large can be told in a few different ways without fucking much up.

Plus it means the only cameo of a squad character would be Wrex. And it would be awesome.