Could it be a game-changer? Maybe.
Do I want it to be? No.
Allow me to elaborate.
We're coming to a point when the mainstream audiences for movies, television, et al are going to either be gamers themselves (hardcore, casual, what have you) or at least grew up with video games. We're all well-aware of their narrative styles and tropes. We are poised for actual video-game elements and concepts to break into the mainstream, and gain a bit more acceptance as a storytelling medium. Scott Pilgrim is a step backwards.
I never read the visual novels, and I'll accept that some of it is probably between pretty good and damned good. But, the movie itself is stuck in a place where its only possible sustenance was puerile immaturity. Okay... I should take a breath. I didn't like the movie. I hate Michael Cera as an actor (or at least the roles he's generally cast in), and I think that the "anti-hero who's on the one hand manipulative, but just needs to be wuvved" thing is both annoying and unnecessary. Strip out the video-game elements, apparent genre savvy of the characters, and you've just got a bad romantic comedy with an unlikable hero.
At issue there is that the "satire" or "deconstruction" only works when it's assumed here. It's less about actually analyzing any of the cliches it invokes, it's about basically saying "we're much more clever than those other guys, because we know we're cliched". It's sneering, smirking, hipster idiocy.
So, can it be a game changer?
I guess. It could be that this is the first wave of movies wherein video-game concepts will not only be utilized, but specifically invoked. And, of course, since more modern (i.e cinematic, i.e "it's like a movie anyway") games already moved away from most of the more ostentatious cliches, if they want to do this, it'll have to be the way Scott Pilgrim does it: by using the cliches of old.
I just really hope it isn't.
Here's the dirty little secret: those old cliches suck (simply suck) as narrative devices. Lives and powerups are terribly difficult to weave into any kind of story (much less one in which there's meant to be any kind of suspense), and existed in a time when the plot of games was minimal at best. Would we ever accept a game (now) in which the plot was almost exclusively "take sword, go save girl"? Well... Yes. Except those games now are either homages to the olden days, (Altus has a good history of this), or have depth of storytelling unavailable or unwanted in the Zelda days of yore.
For the most part, we see the original Zelda games (even ignoring graphics, and focused solely on story and plot) a bit like the most primitive movies: focused solely on the novelty of the medium, rather than using the medium to convey a story. The earliest motion picture was just of a guy laughing (or getting slapped, I can't remember), and the sheer newness of this was enough to draw people to the theatres. Movies moved past that, and so have we. Why would we want our "game-changer" that heralds game elements in movies to be one basically akin to trying to bring elements of a Charlie Chaplin movie into a video game? Yeah, it'd be novel, and silly, and fun, but in the long term it's not a good way to mesh two mature artforms.
In a more general sense, I have to disagree with Bob on principle. First, Annie Hall only exists because Woody Allen sucked badly at making a crime drama. He salvaged something by accident when he scrapped the main thrust of the movie he originally made, and saved only the more scattershot elements of the romantic comedy. It was not a stylistic choice of Allen's, and please don't give him too much credit. But, here's the thing:
There's a difference between the narrative elements, and the mis-en-scene elements. I'm gonna nerd out for a bit, so bear with me. Bob conflates the narrative element (how Scott comes back from the "dead") with the mis-en-scene elements like the cut away to interior shots. Narrative elements are how you tell the story, the tropes about the actual plot and reality of the world you're creating. The cloud-cookoolander genki girl is a narrative element. Shaky cam is a mis-en-scene element.
The mis-en-scene can help set a mood, but is fundamentally restrained to the "how" things are presented, not that "what" is going on. Video game mis-en-scene would include the actual camera-work (for good or ill), the art style, the voice-overs, ect. Would it be interesting to make an entire war movie in the style of an FPS? Or an RTS? Yes. And those would be adapting the actual stylistic elements of games to a different form. Would infinitely respawning enemies be interesting? Yeah. Would random encounters completely divorced from the actual narration of the movie be different?
What about the narrative elements? Well, the good ones (by which I mean, the stuff that goes into the plot of a more modern game) we stole wholecloth from movies. The bad ones (powerups, lives, ect.) aren't all that adaptable.
TL;DR?
I didn't like the movie, and I don't want it to be our first attempt as gamers at influencing mainstream movies.
Do I want it to be? No.
Allow me to elaborate.
We're coming to a point when the mainstream audiences for movies, television, et al are going to either be gamers themselves (hardcore, casual, what have you) or at least grew up with video games. We're all well-aware of their narrative styles and tropes. We are poised for actual video-game elements and concepts to break into the mainstream, and gain a bit more acceptance as a storytelling medium. Scott Pilgrim is a step backwards.
I never read the visual novels, and I'll accept that some of it is probably between pretty good and damned good. But, the movie itself is stuck in a place where its only possible sustenance was puerile immaturity. Okay... I should take a breath. I didn't like the movie. I hate Michael Cera as an actor (or at least the roles he's generally cast in), and I think that the "anti-hero who's on the one hand manipulative, but just needs to be wuvved" thing is both annoying and unnecessary. Strip out the video-game elements, apparent genre savvy of the characters, and you've just got a bad romantic comedy with an unlikable hero.
At issue there is that the "satire" or "deconstruction" only works when it's assumed here. It's less about actually analyzing any of the cliches it invokes, it's about basically saying "we're much more clever than those other guys, because we know we're cliched". It's sneering, smirking, hipster idiocy.
So, can it be a game changer?
I guess. It could be that this is the first wave of movies wherein video-game concepts will not only be utilized, but specifically invoked. And, of course, since more modern (i.e cinematic, i.e "it's like a movie anyway") games already moved away from most of the more ostentatious cliches, if they want to do this, it'll have to be the way Scott Pilgrim does it: by using the cliches of old.
I just really hope it isn't.
Here's the dirty little secret: those old cliches suck (simply suck) as narrative devices. Lives and powerups are terribly difficult to weave into any kind of story (much less one in which there's meant to be any kind of suspense), and existed in a time when the plot of games was minimal at best. Would we ever accept a game (now) in which the plot was almost exclusively "take sword, go save girl"? Well... Yes. Except those games now are either homages to the olden days, (Altus has a good history of this), or have depth of storytelling unavailable or unwanted in the Zelda days of yore.
For the most part, we see the original Zelda games (even ignoring graphics, and focused solely on story and plot) a bit like the most primitive movies: focused solely on the novelty of the medium, rather than using the medium to convey a story. The earliest motion picture was just of a guy laughing (or getting slapped, I can't remember), and the sheer newness of this was enough to draw people to the theatres. Movies moved past that, and so have we. Why would we want our "game-changer" that heralds game elements in movies to be one basically akin to trying to bring elements of a Charlie Chaplin movie into a video game? Yeah, it'd be novel, and silly, and fun, but in the long term it's not a good way to mesh two mature artforms.
In a more general sense, I have to disagree with Bob on principle. First, Annie Hall only exists because Woody Allen sucked badly at making a crime drama. He salvaged something by accident when he scrapped the main thrust of the movie he originally made, and saved only the more scattershot elements of the romantic comedy. It was not a stylistic choice of Allen's, and please don't give him too much credit. But, here's the thing:
There's a difference between the narrative elements, and the mis-en-scene elements. I'm gonna nerd out for a bit, so bear with me. Bob conflates the narrative element (how Scott comes back from the "dead") with the mis-en-scene elements like the cut away to interior shots. Narrative elements are how you tell the story, the tropes about the actual plot and reality of the world you're creating. The cloud-cookoolander genki girl is a narrative element. Shaky cam is a mis-en-scene element.
The mis-en-scene can help set a mood, but is fundamentally restrained to the "how" things are presented, not that "what" is going on. Video game mis-en-scene would include the actual camera-work (for good or ill), the art style, the voice-overs, ect. Would it be interesting to make an entire war movie in the style of an FPS? Or an RTS? Yes. And those would be adapting the actual stylistic elements of games to a different form. Would infinitely respawning enemies be interesting? Yeah. Would random encounters completely divorced from the actual narration of the movie be different?
What about the narrative elements? Well, the good ones (by which I mean, the stuff that goes into the plot of a more modern game) we stole wholecloth from movies. The bad ones (powerups, lives, ect.) aren't all that adaptable.
TL;DR?
I didn't like the movie, and I don't want it to be our first attempt as gamers at influencing mainstream movies.
