Don't Film These Games!

[Fordo]

YES! Someone else who agrees that MK trailer thing looks horrible. I swear to god! Where have we seen a fighting game where the crime fighting good guys go after the bad guys? That's right, Street Fighter...the worst movie ever.

So, I guess the rule of thumb is: don't make movies based on games that already have weak, derivative, or overdone stories to begin with?

Winner!

Why do we need to make movies of a video game anyway? Why can't we let them stay on the media we know they do best on? I guess I can't see the logic...I mean, I really like watching Kobe Bryant play basketball so I bet it'd be just as cool to watch him play soccer!

At the end of the day there are great movies, mediocre movies, and bad movies...I think video games can always feel confident to fall into one of the two last catagories. If that's good enough than fine. Go spend money and watch the halo/uncharted/tomb raider movie. As far as I'm concerned, a video game movie is two notches above a girls gone wild movie. Before you even buy your ticket you know what to expect, and how the story will end, and any theme the story may try to offer.

boring.

 

[duchaked]

it was pretty solid until the end
not saying that I would disagree with page 2, but his arguments there seem to be a bit weaker

one-note badasses and douche-bags do make it into movies as main characters unfortunately...

 

[solidstatemind]

Personally, I think the problem with VGs being translated to movies is not one necessarily a problem of content, but an issue with mentality. Video Games are an interactive experience, and, as such, the story is shaped to facilitate that.

Movies are a passive experience, so the story is much easier to set up, because you can drag the audience where you want to and they can't say 'boo' about it.

Think of it this way: the type of video game that would translate the most directly to movies? A rail-shooter. That's what a movie is: a rail shooter. The Tomb Raider video game as a rail shooter? YAWN.

So what we have is movie people attempting to apply a rail-shooter mentality to FPS or action games. It just doesn't work.

You know what we need? We've been repeatedly subjected to the people in the movie business adapting video games-- why not flip the script? Let's get a video game maker to make a movie?

A lot of them do pretty fucking well with their cutscenes...

OH, and I don't see why so many people think Nathan Drake is a tool. I found him to be highly entertaining, and I really have to agree with the poster on the first page who suggested that Nathan Fillon would be a fantastic Nathan Drake. That movie needs to get done.

 

[Danz D Man]

MovieBob, have you read the Halo books or researched the backstory at all?

If it isn't in the games why should it count?

Because it adds to the Halo story, which is what would be in the movie.

 

[rddj623]

If Christina Hendricks dons a Power Girl costume I can die happy!

Also I can agree with everything you said, save the PS about not liking the new Mortal Kombat. It could be pretty sweet to see it turned into a mano a mano pyscho killer Bloodsport redux. And I like the actors they have for Jax and Sonya.

 

[AgentBJ09]

P.S. Yes, I've seen that Mortal Kombat Rebirth thing, and I think it looks like ass. Yeah, the MK franchise could use some improvement. Y'know what improvement doesn't look like? A Saw knockoff.

Thank you, MovieBob. Glad to know people are seeing that trailer for what it was.

 

[goliath6711]

Didn't Ed Boon (Mortal Kombat co-creator) say that he wanted the next Mortal Kombat game have the same visual style as the Saw movies?

 

[ManInRed]

I think the over all theme to Movie Bob's list was: Don't make a movie based on a game that already exist.

My theory on the old notion that "No movie based on a game is good, no game based on a movie is good" is that good movies for games already exist, they just were never intended to be based on each other or advertised as such.

There would be too many examples if I listed out good horror movies being basically the same premise as a particular horror game, so let me pick a game series that is less obvious: Final Fantasy.

A good Final Fantasy movie does exist, it's called "The Fifth Element." Think about it, four magical stones of the elements assisting an ancient being and a team of heroes, which include an ex-soldier, a bard, a priest, and a young fool, to stop an evil being, taking on the form of a moon like asteroid and aided by a greedy villain, from destroying the world. Oh, and there's an opera scene. Sort of calling the head scientist Cid and naming the air ships after Chocobos or summons, the movie is probably the best union of elements form every Final Fantasy game one could hope to create.

Maybe if movie makers stopped trying to do tie-ins and just focus on doing the best creative work they could, they would incidentally create all of the movies based on games you like to see ...eventually. And if not, well at least they could pull off something that could stand on its own, without carrying all of the baggage that comes with trying to make a 2 hour film contain the plot and characters of a 60+ hour game.

 

[ThePants]

The "Shadow Of The Colossus" part is a good example that some games are perfectly fine as just being games.