No Right Answer: Worst Videogame to Movie Adaptation Ever
- Thread starter Firefilm
- Start date
Final Fantasy Spirits within wasn't supposed to be an adaptation, it was another entry into the franchise: new setting, new characters, etc. It kept the traditional things like Cid, Chocobos, hell, it even had a videogame like quest structure: travel to various locations to collect things. I think people are just still upset because they were going in expecting to see Cloud or something.
I don't think Mortal Kombat is getting enough love here.
Complaints about a storyline don't make much sense when talking about a video game that just gives a cursory back story before throwing a number of entirely fantastical characters into a punching kicking fireball game. If anything, their attempts to have a rolling back story kind of blew up in their face with MK3.
Anyway, you introduce these characters, establish their motives for being in the tournament, then have them punch, kick and fireball each other for an hour and a half. Mortal Kombat delivered exactly what the franchise was able to provide. Now, Mortal Kombat: ANNIHILATION... THAT belongs in the discussion.
Similarly, the way you described the Final Fantasy movie - the name, one guy named Cid, and a chocobo - is exactly the way you can describe every Final Fantasy game from 7 onward. Even the first six have no real story ties to each other but at least were mostly traditional fantasy titles. But where do giant sword-gun-thingies belong in Final Fantasy? Or Underwater Stupidball? See my point? Spirits Within captures perfectly the absurdly tenuous nature of the "connection" between Final Fantasy titles.
And however bad you think these other movies are (and for Raul Julia to go out on Street Fighter after a career like his is criminal), Super Mario Bros wins that debate every time by default, first for being a bad movie, and second for adapting arguably THE quintessential video game franchise.
The crowning moment of this failure was when they took a running gag about how all the people in Dinosaurland drive static-contact cars with no brakes - basically, real-live bumper cars - and are constantly stopping by crashing into a car already parked (how did the first car on the street park?). Time and again: no brakes, crash, no brakes, crash, no brakes, crash. Okay. Established. But then, release the tiny wind-up irony device Bob-Omb into the crowd, watch them flee in terror as it wanders into the street, where a passing cabbie goes wide-eyed, screams "BOB-OMB!", and... slams on his... brakes?... to avoid hitting the Bob-Omb.
I am very good at suspending disbelief (studios may call that "gullible") but if your plot hole is so big that even I can see it... you have a horrible movie.
And I think I'm going to agree with the others who call this the best ever because a). the title card running gag made me smile and b). the Kryptonian Hypersleep line actually made me laugh. So there's a left-handed compliment if ever you heard one, but well done you.
Complaints about a storyline don't make much sense when talking about a video game that just gives a cursory back story before throwing a number of entirely fantastical characters into a punching kicking fireball game. If anything, their attempts to have a rolling back story kind of blew up in their face with MK3.
Anyway, you introduce these characters, establish their motives for being in the tournament, then have them punch, kick and fireball each other for an hour and a half. Mortal Kombat delivered exactly what the franchise was able to provide. Now, Mortal Kombat: ANNIHILATION... THAT belongs in the discussion.
Similarly, the way you described the Final Fantasy movie - the name, one guy named Cid, and a chocobo - is exactly the way you can describe every Final Fantasy game from 7 onward. Even the first six have no real story ties to each other but at least were mostly traditional fantasy titles. But where do giant sword-gun-thingies belong in Final Fantasy? Or Underwater Stupidball? See my point? Spirits Within captures perfectly the absurdly tenuous nature of the "connection" between Final Fantasy titles.
And however bad you think these other movies are (and for Raul Julia to go out on Street Fighter after a career like his is criminal), Super Mario Bros wins that debate every time by default, first for being a bad movie, and second for adapting arguably THE quintessential video game franchise.
The crowning moment of this failure was when they took a running gag about how all the people in Dinosaurland drive static-contact cars with no brakes - basically, real-live bumper cars - and are constantly stopping by crashing into a car already parked (how did the first car on the street park?). Time and again: no brakes, crash, no brakes, crash, no brakes, crash. Okay. Established. But then, release the tiny wind-up irony device Bob-Omb into the crowd, watch them flee in terror as it wanders into the street, where a passing cabbie goes wide-eyed, screams "BOB-OMB!", and... slams on his... brakes?... to avoid hitting the Bob-Omb.
I am very good at suspending disbelief (studios may call that "gullible") but if your plot hole is so big that even I can see it... you have a horrible movie.
And I think I'm going to agree with the others who call this the best ever because a). the title card running gag made me smile and b). the Kryptonian Hypersleep line actually made me laugh. So there's a left-handed compliment if ever you heard one, but well done you.
I laughed so hard when they just kept on rolling the credits, well done!
It used to be FF Spirits Within, but now it's DOA. I mean, WHOA!!!! Made me want to tear out my eyes, because that'd been slightly faster than finding the remote....
It used to be FF Spirits Within, but now it's DOA. I mean, WHOA!!!! Made me want to tear out my eyes, because that'd been slightly faster than finding the remote....
I'm kind of surprised that Silent Hill, Bloodrayne, and Prince of Persia weren't mentioned... oh well.
I'm not sure I could just leave it like that. If you, for a while, forget that it's supposed to be a movie connected to the Super Mario games, it's actually not that bad. Completely unrelated to the games, but OK as a weird Science Fiction movie.
Also, I quite liked Spirits Within. While it was pretty cheesy at some points, it definitely wasn't bad. Sometimes it can be a good thing to just drop all ties to the source games.
Really good game->movie adaptations might work if their storylines just happen to take place in the same universe, maybe with some of the known characters showing up occasionally, but not getting too involved.
Pretty much like the good Star Trek games did it. Most noteably Starfleet Academy, where you had several characters (I can remember Sulu, Chekov and Kirk) as academy instructors, played by their original actors, because back then people still accepted the fact that live-action movie sequences tend to look better that computer-generated ones.
Also, I quite liked Spirits Within. While it was pretty cheesy at some points, it definitely wasn't bad. Sometimes it can be a good thing to just drop all ties to the source games.
Really good game->movie adaptations might work if their storylines just happen to take place in the same universe, maybe with some of the known characters showing up occasionally, but not getting too involved.
Pretty much like the good Star Trek games did it. Most noteably Starfleet Academy, where you had several characters (I can remember Sulu, Chekov and Kirk) as academy instructors, played by their original actors, because back then people still accepted the fact that live-action movie sequences tend to look better that computer-generated ones.
I also liked the original Street Fighter movie (the JCVD/Raul Julia one) - it was campy, but it was the GOOD kind of campy. Honestly, I'd put it in the running for best game/movie adaptation just because, unlike almost all the others, it's generally fun to watch.
As for the worst... if I had to choose one, I'd go with SF: Legend of Chun Li, just because it should have known better. You'd think that by 2009 they would have learned from the examples of other crappy game/movie adaptations, or from the previous SF movie (which at least turned a nice profit at the box office), or would have benefited from someone with rational or coherent thoughts (since it was made by an actual studio, and not Uwe Boll.) None of these things happened.
As for the worst... if I had to choose one, I'd go with SF: Legend of Chun Li, just because it should have known better. You'd think that by 2009 they would have learned from the examples of other crappy game/movie adaptations, or from the previous SF movie (which at least turned a nice profit at the box office), or would have benefited from someone with rational or coherent thoughts (since it was made by an actual studio, and not Uwe Boll.) None of these things happened.