The Ugly Truth About Videogame Movies

[NecroManiac]

I think the biggest problem is the lack of enthusiasm on the writers and/or the directors half.
You clearly get the feeling watching these movies that neither have played the damn game they're basing their movie of, only trusting in a general plot outline and that the visual department will mask their lack of professionalism.
Modern game movies, like superhero movies of the past and even some films based on literary work seem to be phoned in rather than made with sincere intentions.
And while they are still making a buck out of hopeful, all-to-eager to forget fans and casual movie lovers they serve their purpose just fine.

 

[BonsaiK]

Hollywood just sucks in general, it's as simple as that. Sure, they can't make good video game movies, but they generally can't make good movies of any other kind anymore either. The best films to come out of Hollywood were released in 1939 and it's been a long, slippery slope downhill ever since with only a few exceptions.

Another problem is that video game stories are craaaap. Even the best ones. Deus Ex's conspiracy theory nonsense would be laughed out of any cinema if anyone dared make a film of it, the plot contains so many cliches it's as if the writers were having a competition between themselves to see how many tired conspiracy theories they could squeeze into one game. A film based in the Bioshock universe might work (if nothing else, the setting is mildly original) but not if the plot is anything like Bioshock's. Half Life 2 has reasonable characters (except for Freeman of course) but the plot isn't even as good as a sci-fi B-movie from the 1950s. And don't get me started on Halo. The problem with most video game plots is you always end up, in one way or another, "saving/changing the world". Even in the Thief games, the bitterly cynical Garrett somehow always ends up saving the world instead of just robbing it. And "saving/changing the world" is BORING and does not make good cinema. Think of all the films you've ever seen where the world gets saved at the end of it. They all suck, each and every one. Why? Because you know, that as soon as the plot heads in the "world needs to be saved/changed" direction, that the world WILL be saved/changed, and all other outcomes are impossible. The film becomes completely predictable. For example, you know as soon as Bruce Willis hears about the rock heading towards Earth in Armageddon, that he's going to stop it somehow. So any attempt by the director to create 'tension' or 'drama' is pointless, because we already know how the film will end about five minutes after we've started watching it. But when watching a GOOD film, you should never be that sure about what is going to happen next, or how things are going to turn out. That's a value completely at odds with video games where you want to "win", so "winning" becomes the goal, and you know what will happen, you will win (eventually, if you keep playing long enough). This is why the classic, "Academy Award for best picture"-winning movie based on a video game will not happen in our lifetimes. There would have to be a radical shift in video game design methodology for this to come about, which I can't see happening as video games are becoming more and more conservative year after year.

 

[9of9]

Another problem is that video game stories are craaaap. Even the best ones.

I can't possibly agree with you more. Many games have stories that are 'good for a videogame', but very, very few are hold any sway if looked at objectively and for precisely the reasons you state. That's not to say there aren't genuinely good stories, but you won't find them on the popular, mainstream IPs because the mainstream IPs are largely shooters and action games trying to imitate action movies. Outside of that grouping there are, I think, some good gems to be found - Grim Fandango, for one, Psychonauts (or so I'm told) and there's probably even some that aren't written by Tim Schafer, somewhere...).

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Hollywood just sucks in general, it's as simple as that. Sure, they can't make good video game movies, but they generally can't make good movies of any other kind anymore either. The best films to come out of Hollywood were released in 1939 and it's been a long, slippery slope downhill ever since with only a few exceptions.

...

Such fallacies are traditionally held by old men and overly dramatic teens. There are always people like you just as there are always the "exceptions," the fact is the only pre 1940 films that anyone recalls in any degree are the "exceptions" (ie the good ones).

Concerning plots you're also very wrong. Why are you wrong?

Transformers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers_(2007_film)]

Don't deny it, this isn't about you. Whether or not you like something has no bearing on how good it is.

 

[Sylocat]

It's a lot simpler than this explanation. You see, the producers know that fans of the game will turn out to see the movie no matter how bad it is, and Hollywood never puts effort or quality into anything it doesn't have to.

 

[mGoLos]

"Nobody's going to nominate Karl Urban for an Oscar but Doom should probably get more credit than it does for serving up a passable action flick based on one of the most famously thin game concepts to ever land on a PC."

I'm pretty sure Karl just grew few inches. Well said sir.

 

[Crunchy English]

You know, it occurs to me that at its core, a story should simply be good without qualifications. I think the Mortal Kombat movie was good because there was enough meat on the original story to produce a decent movie. I mean, the game certainly didn't have that story contained in it, but by drawing on the larger works of the universe, a decent movie got made.

Bioshock is a good story, and if you can keep people interested in what happens next, they'll watch it. Why throw in splicers and Big Daddy's for "action's" sake? Who said there had to be action? Bioshock is about the slow decay of a idealist utopian society as it is destroyed by scientific advance that was not tempered by ethical considerations and greed. It also happens to take place in a visually stunning modern Atlantis. Tell me that story isn't a thousand times more interesting than Valkyrie's "Kill Hitler" plot?

It's contemporary and relevant. Characters like Atlas and Andrew Ryan, given powerful dialogue with the numerous supporting characters who were amazingly well developed in the game, the stirrings of a civil war as this Utopia crushes itself under the weight of its own genius. Criminal Organizations running contraband in on submarines. Jabbering mental patients on the rise thanks to ADAM. The dreadful experimental process for Plasmids. All that's just background as Ryan and Fontaine grapple with or disregard their plans for the innocent girls of the Little Sister Orphanage. Now, close the movie with disturbing images of them torturing little girls into "Sisters" and the creation of the first Big Daddy.

THAT's the movie I want to see. It's undeniably Bioshock, but it's not the game in film form. It's more important and more creative than that.

 

[BonsaiK]

Hollywood just sucks in general, it's as simple as that. Sure, they can't make good video game movies, but they generally can't make good movies of any other kind anymore either. The best films to come out of Hollywood were released in 1939 and it's been a long, slippery slope downhill ever since with only a few exceptions.

...

Such fallacies are traditionally held by old men and overly dramatic teens. There are always people like you just as there are always the "exceptions," the fact is the only pre 1940 films that anyone recalls in any degree are the "exceptions" (ie the good ones).

Concerning plots you're also very wrong. Why are you wrong?

Transformers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers_(2007_film)]

Don't deny it, this isn't about you. Whether or not you like something has no bearing on how good it is.

I'm neither old, teenage, nor very dramatic. However I would say that plenty of people remember the movies of 1939 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_in_film] and the general consensus among film buffs is that Hollywood peaked at this time. (Actually 1999 was an unusually good year for Hollywood films too, but generally speaking it's been grim pickings [http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-love-uwe.html] for the last 40 years or so.)

Not sure what your point is about Transformers. I haven't seen it, but I've heard it's great. [http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2007/07/transformers.html]

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

I'm neither old, teenage, nor very dramatic. However I would say that plenty of people remember the movies of 1939 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_in_film] and the general consensus among film buffs is that Hollywood peaked at this time. (Actually 1999 was an unusually good year for Hollywood films too, but generally speaking it's been grim pickings [http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-love-uwe.html] for the last 40 years or so.)

Not sure what your point is about Transformers. I haven't seen it, but I've heard it's great. [http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2007/07/transformers.html]

Maybe '39 was the best year for movies in movie history but that doesn't mean that the general quality of movies has been spiraling generally downward since. Your "grim pickings" link basically just moans about little more than commercialization. I would argue that the desire to make money doesn't preclude good work.

The end of a golden age doesn't mean what comes after is worse (in most cases, such as the Golden Age of Exploration the activity after is in fact better) it just means there's less. The achievements of the present may be less impressive than those of the past but only because we're amazed such simple people could do those things (give it ~50 and people will wonder how the frack such idiots made things as great as we have).

My point with Transformers is that it's held to be a great movie despite it's rather poor and cliche plot.

 

[Falseprophet]

Yes, I hear what you're all saying. (No, I don't actually, but let's just roll with it.) Mortal Kombat was nothing more than a rehashed version of Enter the Dragon. What's wrong with that? Given the relative paucity of plot in the various MK variations, it's unavoidable that some deviance (i.e., linearity) will occur. Also, since you're going to be mining the genre tropes, why not ride the coattails of the guy (Bruce Lee, ftw) that invented the freaking genre in the first place?

I think you've touched on another point here: these days most games are trying to mimic movies anyway, and most of them come across as watered-down versions of the films they're imitating. This is partly because there are a lot of crappy game writers, but also because of the nature of the medium: an interactive medium with multiple potential narratives open to the players (especially in open world games) is not going to be as cohesive as a passive story that expects nothing from its audience but to sit back and watch. Other commenters have mentioned the thin plots and characterizations of most video games.

For what it's worth, I liked the first MK film too. And to be fair to the filmmakers, the whole tournament concept a la Enter the Dragon or Bloodsport is really the only plot that lets a medley of very different fighters get into one-on-one fights that makes any sense. I found the Dead or Alive movie to be surprisingly fun as well. The game was about two things: hot chicks and cool fight moves, and the movie delivered both, but the comic banter between Tina Armstrong and her father was pretty amusing too (even if the actor playing Armstrong Sr. doesn't look near old enough to be Jaime Pressly's dad). There was even a shoutout to DOA Volleyball. By no means a great film, but there are far worse ways to kill 90 minutes.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

Good video game movies will come.

It took awhile, but comic book movies became popular and fun. Nearly a decade later, the Dark Knight arrived.

It will happen, just give it time.

 

[Ciran]

I think one big problem, and I think Doom is a perfect example of this, is that gamers want a visual walk-through. Maybe not all, and I certainly can't speak for everyone, but almost everyone I've talked to really want just that. We don't want a change in the story. That's a big reason why Mortal Kombat was a decent movie (at least the first one); It didn't have a story to follow. The first few games were pure fighting, so all you had to do was include the character's signature moves and people are happy, almost regardless of the storyline.

When you make a movie based on a game, there are of course some changes that need to be made. No one can deny that, because a lot of the "game" time will be lost. It may take someone days, weeks, or months (depending on the length of the game and how often said person plays) for someone to finish a game, but movie producers have to tell the story in three hours at most, and it would have to be a really great movie to be worth three hours.

So let's go back to Doom for a moment. Obviously, a lot of the navigating and puzzle solving had to be cut but did they have to change the origins of the demons? No, they didn't. So why did they? For some reason movie makers try to make it different from the game for the sake of being different, and I think there is the inherent flaw. Most gamers don't want the story changed, they want a pure form of the game story put up on the big screen that includes some of the more memorable aspects (i.e. weapons, moves, characters, etc.), but that's never what's made, so we come away unhappy.

 

[Batadon]

I think one big problem, and I think Doom is a perfect example of this, is that gamers want a visual walk-through. Maybe not all, and I certainly can't speak for everyone, but almost everyone I've talked to really want just that.

Ironically(?), I think the movie that did this the best was Silent Hill, well, at least the first part (up to the whole screamy blackout stuff). It looked like it was ripped directly from the game... even the tricycle was in the same place.

 

[Valiance]

I remember actually liking the Wing Commander movie.
I remember the Doom movie being terrible.
Resident Evil was okay (only saw the first one.)
Mortal Kombat movie was mediocre except for the fight scene with the trees, if I recall.

Duke Nukem, Mechwarrior, Zelda, I could run off a list of games that could be awesome movies.

The problem is that the directors and actors haven't played them, haven't seen them, haven't heard of them, and therefore only see the character motivation as generic..and only portray it as generic.

 

[ChickDangerous]

It's a lot simpler than this explanation. You see, the producers know that fans of the game will turn out to see the movie no matter how bad it is, and Hollywood never puts effort or quality into anything it doesn't have to.

Sad but undeniably true. I am 100% guilty.

I didn't mind the Doom movie to be honest, I went in with very little expectations and therefore was pleasantly surprised that the few I did have were actually met.
I liked Mortal Kombat too, there wasn't a hell of a lot to it but there didn't need to be. The games didn't have a whole lot to them either, they were just fun.

 

[thegrandtaco]

the main reason video game movie arent ever good is becuase you take the experience out the gamers hand. and expect to give the fans the same experince but failing to do so.
what the film people should do is make the good movie instead on trying to make it a video game.

Chronicles of riddick did an excellent job.
but im going to say look at the resident evil movies. first one was good(in my opinion) cause it made it a different formula then the games and paid tribute to the fans when it was necessary . but they ruined the 2nd resident evil movie because they tryed to make it a video game and made it a fan boy movie which it turned into shitty movie

 

[BonsaiK]

I'm neither old, teenage, nor very dramatic. However I would say that plenty of people remember the movies of 1939 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_in_film] and the general consensus among film buffs is that Hollywood peaked at this time. (Actually 1999 was an unusually good year for Hollywood films too, but generally speaking it's been grim pickings [http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-love-uwe.html] for the last 40 years or so.)

Not sure what your point is about Transformers. I haven't seen it, but I've heard it's great. [http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2007/07/transformers.html]

Maybe '39 was the best year for movies in movie history but that doesn't mean that the general quality of movies has been spiraling generally downward since. Your "grim pickings" link basically just moans about little more than commercialization. I would argue that the desire to make money doesn't preclude good work.

The end of a golden age doesn't mean what comes after is worse (in most cases, such as the Golden Age of Exploration the activity after is in fact better) it just means there's less. The achievements of the present may be less impressive than those of the past but only because we're amazed such simple people could do those things (give it ~50 and people will wonder how the frack such idiots made things as great as we have).

My point with Transformers is that it's held to be a great movie despite it's rather poor and cliche plot.

Basically, we agree re: Hollywood.

The general consensus of the Transformers movie is that it is in fact pretty average when you take an aggregate of opinions [http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_the_movie/]. The problem with it is probably Michael Bay, who is not exactly known as a name associated with quality filmmaking [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/michael_bay/]. He's kind of like a A-list Uwe Boll if you ask me.

 

[teknoarcanist]

You know what we need to do? Pick a game that sucked; had an incredible story, but terrible game-play because of it's inherent focus on storytelling in a cinematic style. Indigo Prophecy. Mass Effect. Final Fantasy 9 (although I didn't completely hate Spirits Within, so what good is my opinion?).
In the hands of a good director, certain games that indulge in stylistic minimalism could be done well also. I'm thinking Portal, the newest Prince of Persia, or Shadow of the Colossus (did that just scream Miyazaki at the top of its lungs to anyone besides me?).
But of course the games which take risks and expand the art-form tend not to do well historically, and since the studios do the picking and all the good directors aren't interested in videogame adaptations, it tends to ensure that only the shlockiest, most action-packed, most sequel-heavy empty-industry-hype-fueled franchises will ever be adapted to the screen.
Although Assassin's Creed offers an interesting opportunity, by being narratively strong, stylistically minimalist, AND having been extremely commercially successful to boot.
And Sly Cooper. Come on. That practically BEGS to be made into a film-noir homage by Pixar.

 

[DND Judgement]

i think if it hadn't been max payne and given us expectations of it, it would have actually been a half way decent film...