How Good Games Become Crap Movies

[MelFet Wart]

There's a number of big game movies coming out soon, not the least of which is Silent Hill. And it's not being directed by Uwe Boll. GamesFirst has an article (http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1254) on how a game gets turned into a movie, and why some are good and others not. Not the least of the problems is that there are squatters who buy early intellectual property rights in hopes that the rights will become big, and then sit on them waiting for people to pay them cash in order to make a movie. From the article:

"The problem then becomes that the rights are not available for some properties... More often than not, they are merely being sat upon so no one else can have them. These companies are like the bullies of the playground-- they hoard all the toys for themselves."I'm guessing Katamari Damacy is probably safe from a movie adaptation, at least... But then...

[JazGalaxy]

I've pretty much decided that no game movie will ever be good because, basically, there are two camps. In the first camp you have people who think that a videogame (or novel or comic book) movie should be a 1:1 translation of the events of the source material. They believe that the content became popular enough to warrant a movie for a reason, and that reason should be translated to the screen. Alternatively, you have the second camp who believes that a movie adaption should take advantage of the "movie" format and provide new material that the audiance has not seen before. Afterall, why go see a movie when you already know the entire story and how it is going to play out during every second of it's running time?

personally I think the people in camp 2 are idiots and I wanted to punch people who claimed taht Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone was boring because it was too close to the book. Some reviewers even rated it poorly becuase it didn't "do anything different". I get mad just thinking about it.

But at the same time, I know if I was a professional reviewer, I would have rated Sin City a solid "B" simply because it was indeed TOO MUCH like the comic books, and lacked any real sense of purpose.

So... yeah. It's hard to make a good game movie.

[Grimmjow]

honestly, almost every game movie =crap, i really think silent hill could be a decent movie out the bunch, dont get me wrong but mortal kombat was great! when i was little

[Dirty Harry]

the mk films were popcorn flicks, not bad but not good either. I really hope silent hill turns out good. I'm really really excited about it coming out on me ol bday.

[TheEpicOfTyler]

I really hope Silent Hill is good, becuase it has the potential to be sooo good.

[Stevercakes]

Silent Hill better be good to show the world how to make a good god damn game movie :)

[Citizen Philip]

I thought that Resident Evil was a decent zombie flick. Hollywood is too ass lazy to make a good movie all the time, snorting lines, and profiling yourself to get ahead are more important than any title you are assigned too.

[askheaves]

Supplimental:
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2649
The Something Awful article "Behind the Scenes: Uwe Boll and Uwe Boll's /Alone In the Dark'" by Blair Erickson from February 2005.

I know it's old and been around, but for those who haven't read, this is probably the most informative piece of text out there about the Uwe Boll moviemaking process.

[emyln]

Actually I think there lies the potential for a good game movie. What's really lacking is a good script and a good director.

Uwe Boll is a TERRIBLE director who's strength is in making B grade action/horror movies. And bad ones at that. but then that's just my opinion.

[Gideon Ransom]

I fit into the Drive-In popcorn and soda category when it comes to movies, so I really enjoyed both Resident Evil films and I think that Silent Hill will be my first theater trip in 2006.

(I passed on Slither just because I know I'll buy the DVD on the first day and I can count on bapenguin to let me know which week it will be out.)

[Dag-Sabot]

The reason so many videogames translate badly into movies is that there was little to no plot to be had in the first place.
The movie adaptation is thusly forced to improvise, usually with terrible conscequences, right Uwe?
I think they should reverse the proocess... Ladies and gentlemen i give you: "Apocalypse Now" the fps.
Say... thats not a bad idea...

[Grimmjow]

btw check this out (http://media.putfile.com/On-The-Set-Of-Silent-Hill) makes me want to see silent hill even more, COME ON look @ that, that movie is gonna be hella good

[endrom]

But i could totally see a katamari movie. have them on an island, and they get attacked by pandas that eat poisoned bagels. so they roll up the islands dairy products. thankfully i only saw one uwe boll movie and that was the house of the dead one, amazing bad. Though the silent hill movie looks Sick (good way), and the halo movie scripts got good reviews, so we'll just ahve to wait.

[Rifter]

I can't think of many good game to movie translations. I think that Mortal Kombat took a game with very little story, and fleshed it out nicely. It was a good martial arts flick. MK2, sucked. Wing Commander was ok. There were a lot of individual pieces about it, I liked... but as a whole, I don't think it did a very good job. Tomb Raider was ok. Not great, but Ok. My wife likes it.

Can anyone come up with a list of good movies, based on games? What about just a list of movies based on games?

Tron (? I don't remember if the movie was based on the game, or the other way around)
Mario Brothers
Street Fighter (shudder)
Double Dragon
Mortal Kombat 1/2
Wing Commander
Resident Evil 1/2
House of the Dead
Tomb Raider 1/2
Silent Hill
Blood Rayne
Alone in the Dark
Final Fantasy (Kind of. Has the same name) :-)
Doom

I guess I am trying to go for live-action, or near live action. I think that Final Fantasy almost straddles the line between live action and animated.

[Dirty Harry]

yeah i saw a scene there with a "shambler" and it convinced me this movie is gonna be fucking tight.

[Derwin]

Here's a real thinker:

If Uwe Boll developed video games, would he make movies based off of his own titles? Would their combined quality just be too much suck for one entity and destroy the universe?

[Dirty Harry]

Here's a real thinker:

If Uwe Boll developed video games, would he make movies based off of his own titles? Would their combined quality just be too much suck for one entity and destroy the universe?
superman III anyone ;).

[askheaves]

Here's a real thinker:

If Uwe Boll developed video games, would he make movies based off of his own titles? Would their combined quality just be too much suck for one entity and destroy the universe?

Don't make me recurse this close to the end of the day.

[Citizen Philip]

Tron (? I don't remember if the movie was based on the game, or the other way around)
Mario Brothers
Street Fighter (shudder)
Double Dragon
Mortal Kombat 1/2
Wing Commander
Resident Evil 1/2
House of the Dead
Tomb Raider 1/2
Silent Hill
Blood Rayne
Alone in the Dark
Final Fantasy (Kind of. Has the same name) :-)
Doom

I guess I am trying to go for live-action, or near live action. I think that Final Fantasy almost straddles the line between live action and animated.

Tron was a movie that spawned a few games, some quite recently: Tron 2.0: a nice title IMO. The rest, to my knowledge were games first

[AspectVoid]

Let's see, which ones have I seen?

Mario Brothers (That was god awful. Whoever thought that up should be shot)

Street Fighter (Actually, I enjoyed this, as I found it perfect MST3K material and spent the whole movie making jokes with my father)

Double Dragon (Even worse then Mario)

Mortal Kombat 1 (A fun B-movie romp. I still watch this on occasion)

Wing Commander (It would have been MUCH better if the Kilrathi had FUR. EDIT: Or, even better, just take all of them FMV from Wing Commander 3, add some space battles done in good CG, and I would have put it up as one of my favorite all time movies)

Resident Evil 1 (A nice little zombie action flick)

Tomb Raider 1 (Decent enough, though my opinion could be skewed since I saw it for free as a friend of mine worked at the theater)

Final Fantasy (It should NOT have been called Final Fantasy. It should have been called 'Generic Sci-Fi Movie Done in CG)

I've really been lucky since the one's I've seen aren't all that bad, except for a couple of exceptions. Still, I'm very much looking forward to Silent Hill. I love the franchise, so here's hoping the movie will be good.

[ElectricMonk]

alright i'm not sure if anyone here actually read the linked article but...

i don't think the guy who wrote that article fully 'gets it' either. something like a movie has to be a collaboration between several creative people to turn out good. if everybody relied only on the creative inputs of the writers movies would also be dull. every person's creative input is just a single dimension, and if you have everything done by one person you end up with a one dimensional movie. see the embarrassing ego trip trainwrecks of Vincent Gallo.

i think any adaptations of anything nerdy will always be a failure to someone. people complained about oblivion and how the compass and quick travel prevent that 'lost and confused' gameplay that made morrowind so special.

[TheHulk]

I think the main problem is that the suits running Hollywood have no idea about the source material other than what they hear on TV. I saw a show last night where Kevin Smith was doing Q&A with different colleges, and one story he told was when he was writing a script back in the late 90s for a new Superman movie. The producer told him he wanted three things from the script: no costume, no flying, and a fight with a giant spider near the end. How someone would ever think to make a Superman movie even without the first two is just crazy. I think the suits are the ones primarily responsible for how bad most of our movies are today. They're just out of touch with the source material and what would make a good movie.

[holysin]

Why are there crappy movies based on games?

Isn't it obvious? The games that were made into movies didn't have a rich story in the first place.
Geez, how can you expect a good movie from fighting games (face it, they might have stories, but it's just there to fill a void) or a game about a vampire killing nazis?

Just face it: movies are made just so they can make more money. And the simple fact that the game it's based on is popular is enough for them to make money, the movie doesn't have to be good at all.

I suggest everyone just fucking stop watching movies based on games, that's the only way they'll get a hint. If you watch a movie just for the hell of it, even though you know it's bad, then you're just helping them.

I think the main problem is that the suits running Hollywood have no idea about the source material other than what they hear on TV.

I beg to differ. The problem is that the source material isn't good in the first place. Mario? Street Fighter? Tomb Raider? Mortal Kombat? Bloodrayne?
They might be good games, but they certainly didn't have a story good enough to make a movie.




Final Fantasy (It should NOT have been called Final Fantasy. It should have been called 'Generic Sci-Fi Movie Done in CG)



Then the game should be called 'Generic CRPG made for Sony'

[destoo]

Thanks for the link G35TwinTurbo. Really really makes me want to see it.
A few general spoilers, but still worth watching.

Tanya Allen is hot (gotta be the hair..)

Christophe Gans is working on a Rahan movie, also due for 2006. (my childhood comic book hero, along with Tintin and Asterix)

[Mozain]

I for one think that anyone who knows anything about Street Fighter knows that the story line is a great one. The problem with the movie is that they decided to base it on the character who isn't the right character to base it on. Everybody knows Street Fighter is, to a greater extent about Ryu, throw in some Ken (and for Gods sake keep orgin stories the same damnit! Blanka I'm looking at you....) and you have a movie. Guile.... Well it boils down to "its an American movie so of course it has to be about an American "Hero"" (Hehe Gi-Joe costumes...)

[Lizard Dude]

Whatever happened with this (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407989/) ? This is about the only videogame movie I've had hopes for.

[AversionFX]

Whatever happened with this (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407989/) ? This is about the only videogame movie I've had hopes for.

agreed!

As for video game movies...

Tomb Raider was bound to fail, solely because Indiana Jones is the quintessential/epitome of the adventurer. Tomb Raider was plain and cliche. Indiana Jones? Brilliant in every regard.

The first Resident Evil movie was pretty decent. I mean, at least it had "plot." The second RE movie was just abyssmal. Dressing like Jill Valentine does not make you a badass. And WTF, Milla Jovavich facing off against a Nemesis the way she did? A part of me died inside.

If they made an adapation of Resident Evil 4, I would cry tears of joy.

I would personally like it if game companies / their parent companies, or whoever is responsible for the rights of their games, to not sell said rights to Boll. I mean, c'mon. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Boll couldn't direct his way out of a wet paper bag.

[Heretic Machine]

Pac-man The Movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473377/)

What can save it? Samuel L. Jackson.

We got ghosts in a motherfucking maze, people!