Games that would make crappy movies
- Thread starter Saregon
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personally, any live action concept of a video game movie would be lame and embarrassing. it would Always have to be animated.
Any game with:
Complex backstory (Metal Gear franchise)
No context (Tetris)
Shallow context and world (Monster Hunter)
Customisable main character (Mass Effect)
So that's most games. Of course there are games outside of this that wouldn't work (Zelda), I've probably missed something, but oh well.
Complex backstory (Metal Gear franchise)
No context (Tetris)
Shallow context and world (Monster Hunter)
Customisable main character (Mass Effect)
So that's most games. Of course there are games outside of this that wouldn't work (Zelda), I've probably missed something, but oh well.
Kane and Lynch, for the simple fact that the game's suck so would the movie. After some research I have found out THEY ARE ACTUALLY making a movie out of this abomination, it also is going to have Jamie Foxx AS Lynch even though he is white in the game, it's going to blow.
Most games would make horrible movies, no matter what you did with it unless you removed it so far from it's original source that it wouldn't even be worth linking it to the original game. Just Cause 2 - Too big, plot's crap and no actor could carry enough parachutes.
I used to think that BioShock would be pretty awesome if it were successfully turned into a film, but after reconsidering the idea recently, it just wouldn't work out. The thing is that the best games can only be at their brightest as video games and player interaction is a vital component of such games like BioShock. The encounter with Andrew Ryan wouldn't have nearly the same impact if you had just been a spectator.
One of the main problems with making a "military" game into a movie is Hollywood's relationship with the Pentagon. Basically speaking, Hollywood producers want to save money on big-budget productions, so, the Pentagon allows free lease of military equipment such as rifles, uniforms, tactical clothing, and even gives greatly discounted rates for Jet and Chopper flying, as long as they get final script approval. This is all handled through the Pentagon's public relations department, and they ruthlessly refuse story elements that might paint the US armed forces in a bad light.
This was in reaction to films like "Full Metal Jacket" and "Dr. Strangelove," which used the Military's resources to tell stories that cast military culture in a negative light. Previously, military equipment was considered public property, and US citizens had access to it -within reason. Obviously you could not go and check out a tank at your local base, but if an American film producer could prove that it would be handled by professionals for use in a film and agreed to cover maintenance and other various costs, then the military could spare an old decommissioned tank, rifles, uniforms, and whatever else was needed for the film.
In an effort to curb the strong criticism of the military in the eighties, the military elected to absorb the majority of these costs with taxpayer funds, as long as they got a say in the final script. On case of the military rejecting a script: the comedy "Sgt. Bilko" starring Steve Martin was rejected, even though it just poked a light-hearted fun at the military. For the production, they had to turn to private collectors for their equipment and uniforms.
This was in reaction to films like "Full Metal Jacket" and "Dr. Strangelove," which used the Military's resources to tell stories that cast military culture in a negative light. Previously, military equipment was considered public property, and US citizens had access to it -within reason. Obviously you could not go and check out a tank at your local base, but if an American film producer could prove that it would be handled by professionals for use in a film and agreed to cover maintenance and other various costs, then the military could spare an old decommissioned tank, rifles, uniforms, and whatever else was needed for the film.
In an effort to curb the strong criticism of the military in the eighties, the military elected to absorb the majority of these costs with taxpayer funds, as long as they got a say in the final script. On case of the military rejecting a script: the comedy "Sgt. Bilko" starring Steve Martin was rejected, even though it just poked a light-hearted fun at the military. For the production, they had to turn to private collectors for their equipment and uniforms.
I don't think that Zelda would make a good movie simply because their are too many of them...you would have to decide which one to use and if you decided to make an orginal plot fans would burn the movie before it got filmed...
Dead Space would make a great film think
and the mortal combat film was one of those films that falls thru the floor of bad and ends up in funny
Dead Space would make a great film think
and the mortal combat film was one of those films that falls thru the floor of bad and ends up in funny
I think pretty-much any game which takes more than two or three times the intended length of the film to play would be unsuitable for adaptation into a movie. Within that range you probably have enough story to be able to survive the compression and cutting necessary for making something which can be reasonably watched. Once you go longer, the amount of cutting needed to fit the story into the time restrictions of the film medium becomes too great and the story would either lose comprehensibility and/or become too rushed.
So, for practical concerns, this would eliminate any game with a play time longer than about eight hours. Even then, there are probably some games which can be played through within that window which would still contain too much plot to survive the compression and cutting needed to fit them into a three-hour film.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have games which are really short and which would likely need excessive amounts of padding to fit them into a film. Again, I think a factor of two is about the limit of how much you could stretch out a short game and have a film which wouldn't be intolerably slow for the story it conveys.
So, for practical concerns, this would eliminate any game with a play time longer than about eight hours. Even then, there are probably some games which can be played through within that window which would still contain too much plot to survive the compression and cutting needed to fit them into a three-hour film.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have games which are really short and which would likely need excessive amounts of padding to fit them into a film. Again, I think a factor of two is about the limit of how much you could stretch out a short game and have a film which wouldn't be intolerably slow for the story it conveys.
The problem with making a film out of a game is the simple reason that is 99.9 percent of the time you can't fit everything in to the script. Condensing a 10-20 hour single player game in to a 2-3 hour film would be impossible without making radical changes and cutting parts from the script. This is a double edged sword, this gives you the option of making outsiders to the series able to immerse them selves without having to have to look up characters and basic plot elements but stabbing themselves in the foot by alienating fans from the film by making what they call making a mockery of their beloved franchise, even if you made the perfect adaptation let's say Mass Effect it would still be shot down by a majority of fans who just nit pick.
What I mean by this is that they would pick on something else e.g yes the film captivates the story well but this character acts different from the game or this character has a different design from the game, I myself make an exception if the film is interesting and actually good. You can't perfectly replicate a game world there is always something that get's in the way e.g setting, difficult costume design, the fact that it's impossible to replicate it without expensive CGI and most importantly being it's own thing. You can't have a shot for shot remake of a game it needs to have original ideas and then because of these ideas they get blasted to the moon by every fan boy on every Mass Effect forum in the world!
And yes I do ramble on about design of characters and settings a lot, but can you Imagen the pain in the arse to adapt a film out of a final fantasy game, it would only work in animation because of the cost to perfectly replicate the environments and characters in detail to how we are accustomed to as well as weapons and story arks, and do you remember when we did get an FF film? they were so careful trying to avoid backlash from FF/Square Enix fan base complaining about the quality of the adaptation, so they just decided invent a new story and slapped on the Final Fantasy logo and a subtitle, hell without having the final fantasy name/brand on it you would not even think it was related to a series of JRPG's about young warriors saving the world every game, and then they still blew it because the fans felt like it was not even worthy FF film and it lost billions on at the box office and bust Squares film company, but at least it looked nice!. And this is why they should avoid making video game films like it was the black plague.
What I mean by this is that they would pick on something else e.g yes the film captivates the story well but this character acts different from the game or this character has a different design from the game, I myself make an exception if the film is interesting and actually good. You can't perfectly replicate a game world there is always something that get's in the way e.g setting, difficult costume design, the fact that it's impossible to replicate it without expensive CGI and most importantly being it's own thing. You can't have a shot for shot remake of a game it needs to have original ideas and then because of these ideas they get blasted to the moon by every fan boy on every Mass Effect forum in the world!
And yes I do ramble on about design of characters and settings a lot, but can you Imagen the pain in the arse to adapt a film out of a final fantasy game, it would only work in animation because of the cost to perfectly replicate the environments and characters in detail to how we are accustomed to as well as weapons and story arks, and do you remember when we did get an FF film? they were so careful trying to avoid backlash from FF/Square Enix fan base complaining about the quality of the adaptation, so they just decided invent a new story and slapped on the Final Fantasy logo and a subtitle, hell without having the final fantasy name/brand on it you would not even think it was related to a series of JRPG's about young warriors saving the world every game, and then they still blew it because the fans felt like it was not even worthy FF film and it lost billions on at the box office and bust Squares film company, but at least it looked nice!. And this is why they should avoid making video game films like it was the black plague.
They said the same thing with comic books.
Any game CAN be a good movie. All that you have to do is be motivated to make a good product for the purpose of artistic pride. Yes, it is that easy.
Instead we are getting motivations based solely on greed and making quick easy money.
EDIT: As a Mass Effect fan, I almost find it offensive how many times I'm seeing it's name appear in this thread. It is one of the most cinematic story driven games I have ever played. If anything it would translate very well to film.
Any game CAN be a good movie. All that you have to do is be motivated to make a good product for the purpose of artistic pride. Yes, it is that easy.
Instead we are getting motivations based solely on greed and making quick easy money.
EDIT: As a Mass Effect fan, I almost find it offensive how many times I'm seeing it's name appear in this thread. It is one of the most cinematic story driven games I have ever played. If anything it would translate very well to film.
Make it a gritty re-imagining where only one man is left alive in a world where mysterious green creatures that have risen from the ground have killed every human everyone alive except this one said man, and he must mine to the core of the earth to find an ancient time machine made of diamond to travel back in time and stop their creation. Okay film company you can pay me in pounds or red bull it's up to you.ThePenguinKnight said:
Yes every video game film has to be a gritty reimagining of a not so gritty game. It sells okay....
Yes most of the video game movie business is based on greed, the scripts are written by people who have not even played the game, in stead they opted for reading the wikipedia article and writing something hardly related to it with a few elements borrowed from the series and then slapping the brands name on it selling it to groups of fans expecting it to be the best thing ever but in stead leave feeling as if they got a dead puppy for Christmas.Bocaj2000 said:
Edit: Bocaj2000 you have to look on a lager scale, yes a Mass Effect film would translate easily in to a film script on paper and it would be good but their are other problems e.g faithfully recreating the world of mass effect along with characters and it would take a big budget that not many people would shell out for. Also seeing as Commander Shepard is the protagonist and to be honest a different person for each fan who played the game making a perfect balance of paragon and renegade Sheppard would have fans debating for years on how faithful to the game he was portrayed by the actor and so many more reasons that would make the film not work at all.
