What's Your Take On Videogame Movies?

[Seil]

And I guess I'll broaden this a bit by including comic-book movies, as there seem to be a lot of those going around, too.

Having not yet seen RE: Apocalypse, I can safely say that the first two movies entertained me. But that doesn't mean that I respect the Resident Evil label they've slapped on to them. Bleeeh. I just don't like how the movie gets credit for being related to the game, yet has nearly nothing about the games in it. There's news of a Watchmen, a World Of Warcraft, a Dungeon Seige, and a Metal Gear Solid flick, and I wanna go see them all - but I betchya that I'll have one or two scathing reviews for all those movies.

I'm beginning to really enjoy comic book movies, simply because they're getting to be more accurate. Check out Sin City and Batman Begins. I know all about having only 60% of the true source material in your flick, but.. come on! The reason we go to films is to see our heroes be put through the same adventures we read about, but only on a different medium.

And I know that Immuna receive flak for this - yes, I know that all movies can't be perfect to their source material, and I know that you can't fit an entire videogame/comic book series into two hours, etcetera, some movies are doomed to begin with, and yeah - I know. I just want there to be a slew of great fan service movies,

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Comic Book Movies, I like. Blade, X-Men, Batman and even those League of Extrodenary Gentlemen movies that some find so cheesy, I really get a kick out of.

But Video Game movies...I have yet to see very many ever entertain me. Worse, most Video Game movies are done by a handful of people who don't even seem to care about the games, but just seem to want to capitalize on the success of the games and turn those profits into DVD sales (through the long process of box office media hype and slander of who they get to play the parts). And don't evwen get me started whenever these perticular movies are based off of Japanese games...

There has only been a couple of exceptions. And only because they decided to drop everything and just make them different. A good example is the Doom movie. A lot of people hated the thing because they were either expecting it to be a 'good' movie on its own or be totally true to the gaming series. I on the other hand saw it for what it was. A movie just dropping everything and trying to be enteraining, with a basic plot 'like' the games and a 'feel' of the game. Complete with a first person romp of blasting aliens and 'two guys go in, one goes out' arena battle finish.

It was actually rather ok for a gaming movie in this way and didn't fail for all the reasons a gaming movie usually does. Including trashing over gaming canon (that I could see) or producing horrible acting or following up with 3 sequels that interfear with the games timeline or 'hollywood' a gaming series until you don't even understand what you are watching. And I thought the movie should have been 100% made for the Halo/Doom/Unreal audiance...but I guess not.

[Tendronai]

I refuse to believe that all video game movies are impossible of being good, but most of them seem like cheap attempts to cash in a franchises popularity rather than an actual movie. Of course, this schmuck (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0093051/) hasn't really helped things out.

Comic book movies can also be really good, like Spiderman or Batman Begins, but that's because they've had directors who actually know what the franchises are about. If we could get people like that making video game movies, I think the quality would also improve.

[Seil]

I think that too, but it's hard to find the good amidst the bad. For instance, Spidey 1 and 2 were pretty good - but 3? Icky.

[NonCon]

Ah, video game movies... Resident Evil 3 was good, but has very little to do with Resident Evil. Silent Hill was good. Period. The Super Mario Bros. movie would have been good if they hadn't tried to pretend it had anything to do with Super Mario Bros. Hitman looks cool. Mortal Kombat was a good movie. The first one at least. I liked both the Final Fantasy movies.

Anyway, that kind of rambled on. The problem is that most people don't respect the source material, and like everyone is saying, just want to make a quick buck. Some could have been great, like Doom, but they just changed things so much that it pissed off the fans, and there weren't enough non-video game players interested in these movies to make them succesful. You want to make a good movie, know your audience. If you are making a video game movie, your audience is going to be video game nerds who will nail you to a cross if you change too much stuff.

[Seil]

Silent Hill was good. Period.
I agree - I did like Silent Hill. I liked seeing all the monsters up and around. The Janitor guy - Colin, I think - was pretty neat. But it seemed like they tried to put three games into one movie. And Alessa at the end? Bleh.

The Super Mario Bros. movie would have been good if they hadn't tried to pretend it had anything to do with Super Mario Bros

=3

...That movie was interesting... if you had drugs on you at the time.

Hitman looks cool.

...Okay. I'll admit. This does look cool. I just have a problem with 47 - not the right body type.

Mortal Kombat was a good movie. The first one at least.

I liked both - just for seeing the characters. It was a great movie - I mean, it had more plot than I expected a video game movie where the source material was a 2D fighting game with characters who shared the same sprites with 3 other characters would have.

Doom, but they just changed things so much that it pissed off the fans

...How could it not, though? I mean, if you have a game where you shoot stuff until really big stuff comes and you have to shoot it lots, the only character development is the main character bleeds when he gets a fire-ball to the face, and you really have no idea why you're fighting demons on Mars... it's kinda hard to make a decent movie out of that.

[NonCon]

I was thinking more of a Doom 3 storyline, and I have assumed that the story of the previous two were similar. You know, portal to Hell, imps that actually throw fireballs, and they just could have had more monster types overall, but they didn't and it was lame. Doom 3 actually had a storyline, not a deep one, but it wasn't terrible, and it was a lot more interesting than watching the director try and hypnotize the audience into being against genetic research/stem cell research or whatever.

[CelesJessa]

I'm perfectly fine with videogame movies, mostly because I'm a nerd and it always amuses me to see my favorite characters/settings in other mediums. For example: Final Fantasy: Advent Children. I'm not a big fan of FF7, and by a writer's standpoint, it's plot was pretty terrible (especially for anyone who hadn't played the game) but damn if it wasn't cool to see all of these characters in action. And I've always been a fan of random action scenes.

Even if it's cheesy and doesn't stay "true to the game" or whatever, I just have always found it fun to see what they do with it in a movie.

[Mirai Gen]

Comic book movies are a perfectly fine medium - lots of bad ones, a few good ones, a handful of outstanding ones. Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Begins, Superman 1 and 2, (I say) Superman Returns, Sin City, etc. It's a great medium because it's taking something that is already a short story arc and putting it into a real-time film.

Video game movies can be absolutely abysmal, though. I have yet to see one that exceeds simply "Good", and god willing Hitman will be the first. The only one I like is Mortal Kombat, and even then it was just a really good B-movie.

The problem is translation - you can't keep things faithful to the original because, by definition, games don't have to have a good plot. Sure, it helps, but there's no reason. For example, Devil May Cry, God of War, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia, all have fantastic plots. Hitman has potential because the source material was all about "Kill someone in this mission, it helps progress the overall plot." Sounds like a movie to me.

Then you can take Soul Calibur 3, Street Fighter, Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, even Metroid. The plot just doesn't work. Here the plot is just a tenuous grasp on getting from point A to point B, where you engage in fighting of some kind.

That might work for an action movie, but even then people would hate it because it won't get the attention it deserves.

Even beyond the plot, how do you represent some of the sillier concepts that appear, even more so in Nintendo titles? The Mario Bros movie makes perfect example of this: The use of the mushroom and fire flower and jump shoes was terrible: It basically amounted to the old King, a flamethrower, and a pair of hydraulic shoes that probably didn't even work anyway.

I mean the movie Super Mario Bros was a decent concept, but the execution was so terrible it makes a blight on Mario Bros as a whole. Yes, even worse than that one for the Virtual Boy.

[NonCon]

One video game that I think would make an excellent movie is Rule of Rose. The game had an great plot in my opinion, and even though there isn't a lot of action, what bosses and monsters there are are cool looking and just plain neat. This could translate into a movie very well in my opinion. I am hoping Silent Hill 2, the movie, is good. I haven't played through the game, but a lot of people seem to say it was their favorite, although I personally want the second movie to be about Silent Hill 4, I loved that one for the freakiness and the plot.

[Bells]

Spiderman 2 showed me how to make a Decent Comic Book movie, It had it all... but it didnt require a "nefarious" Origin or a "Ominus" setup for the next movie, and that WORKED.

But most Video-Game movies just suck... mostly because they really dont work on a "realistic" medium...

Really, Maybe Bio Shock or Half Life could pull out decent movies (But they would Screw Dr Freeman, and that would suck) but there are very few that CAN do that...

Most video-game movies just go AWAY from the source material (resident Evil, Bloodrayne, even X-men)

[NMR]

I'm in a grey area about all of this. Some movies are good, but others suck so bad I really would rather die. My personal favorite was the original Mortal Kombat. I owned it when I was like 5, and watched once a week, just to see the fight scenes, cause they were pretty good for their time. The first two Spidey's have been good, though I hear the third isn't all the rage.

Video Games, as they really should be more careful on how the do it. pick a good one, with a above average plot. Not the one one that currently has the most sales. Then we will see a craptacular SSBB movie that everyone will see, and everyone will, because damn, who wouldn't, and then it will lead to sequals. Scary...

Which brings me to an idea. They most do a Shadow of the Colassus movie, cause man, if it was done right, it would give me some many wet dreams it is not funny. I wonder if anyone would brave that movie...

[Lord of Joshelplex]

The problem is that video games are too long to fir a plot into a 2 hour movie, that and they pick games with bad ones.

[Lumenskir]

Comic book movies work, or should work, because comic books are basically storyboards of action. Unless you're a cartoonishly fat producer, possibly with a monocle or two and a constantly half-smoked cigar, who ignores the source material and hires the cheapest hack writer, comic books translate very well to the medium of film. Heck, the main reason for Sin City's fan-love is the precise fact that the director used the comic book as the story board, basically recording live re-enactments of each panel.

Video games, however, are not made this way. They are, naturally, all about interaction and involvement, the only passive moments being uncontrollable cut-scenes designed to shove any lingering exposition out of the way so the player can actually play. That being the case, movies based on video games are appealing directly to the laziest video game player, the ones who relish the cut scenes over the action.

I'm not sure that video game films can ever truly make the artistic jump that comic book films did. Spiderman and X-Men and the Superman films were made by comic book lovers who tried to take the visuals they loved and give them motion. Even the most ardent video game fan will basically have to detract from the real meat of his fanaticism in order to bring it to the big screen.

I really wouldn't mind if no video game films were ever attempted from here on out. Even the ones made so far could have easily passed as 'original' stories with the slightest of name and setting changes.

[NonCon]

I think the best way for it to work, would be to take an epic video game and turn it into a trilogy. I know that trilogies are cliche, but for some video games that are just freaking long, you don't have much of a choice if you want to stick to the plot. Or, like FF7:AC create a whole new plot.

[Frostatine]

The only reason some comic book characters wouldnt really work is probably due to presentability.

When you have samuel L Jackson playing Black Panther it's one thing. But with a character like Iron man, who is so rarely out of his suit that he will be a CG for most of the film, there are some marketing issues.

Aside from that, I beleive that using an excerpt from a well written comic as a movie is probably the best idea hollywood has had in ages.

On the topic of video game movies, it is my personal beleif that Silent Hill has been the only good one so far, but maybe that has more to do with the fact that Silent hill already plays out like a movie.

A very fucked up movie in which you die a lot.

Anyway, there has to be a potential to make "movie magic", and no game or comic book hero is immune to that.

Not even Pre-Revolution Superman.

[Seil]

On the topic of video game movies, it is my personal beleif that Silent Hill has been the only good one so far, but maybe that has more to do with the fact that Silent hill already plays out like a movie.

Not if you're a fan of the SH plotline. (>>;;;)

[NonCon]

Did it vear off the storyline hardcore? I know pyramid head wasn't in the first, but I don't know enough to know if it ignored major plot stuff.

[Seil]

Well, to avoid spoilers, click here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hill) to learn about the Silent Hill plot. The film added in a few characters and didn't stay true to some other characters.

In 2003 a motion picture based on Silent Hill was officially announced, with French director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) attached. The film was released in April 2006.

While incoporating elements from the first four games, as well as original material, the film adaptation generally follows the plot of the original 1999 video game. However there were significant changes such as a role reversal for the prime antagonist, and a religious cult resembling Christian fundamentalists rather than devil worshippers.

Harry Mason was replaced with Rose Da Silva (played by Radha Mitchell), a married mother. Rose's adoptive daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) wanders and cries out "Silent Hill" in her sleep. Against the wishes of her husband Chris Da Silva (Sean Bean), Rose takes Sharon to find the elusive town of Silent Hill, in hope of finding the source of Sharon's nightmares. On the way Rose encounters a police officer, Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden), who is suspicious of the distraught mother and her actions. Cybil follows Rose into Silent Hill where they are caught in a living nightmare, and encounter a religious cult connected to Sharon's nightmares.

[Xaeta]

okay, my take on video games becomming movies is as follows:

It's a good idea to make a video game into a movie. HOWEVER, as the gamer who loves that game, you have to realize that you shouldn't judge the movie BASED on the game. You need to judge the movie as a movie and not actually as if it were the game itself. That's where I think that so many video game movies start to go wrong because the fans of the games watch the movie like its the game when it's a movie - it MUST be made differently because it's a movie.

[Smarty McBarrelpants]

Pretty much a bad lot.

Video games typically make atrocious movies because videogames are about things like continual and often diversionary fights which does not make a movie. I agree that the best one so far has been Mortal Kombat but that's only because it basically Enter the Dragon with supernatural stuff added. And Enter the Dragon is spectacular.

Comicbooks movies don't have to be inherentely bad (though comic books often have more of an action focus than books which I don't personally find appealing in movies). But they seem to be continually poor. I liked Superman 1+2 (except for the end of superman 2....wtf!) but most of the other ones I've seen were pretty poor. Couldn't stand X-men, Spiderman or Batman begins which have often been touted as pretty good. I don't know, they all seemed way too superficial and cartoony.

But all of these are better than the videogame movie game. I'm looking at you Streetfighter: The movie: The game.

[NonCon]

Yeah, but usually the plot for the movie is worse than the game, and the movie would have been decent if it had been closer to the original plot.

[Xaeta]

hmm....true.

If they wanted the true essence of a game to a movie, you'd think that they'd hire one of the games writers instead of 'consulting' with them to write the script for the movie....

[Lord of Joshelplex]

A perfect example is Resident Evil. They dont capture the style of the games (well, the kinda captures 4's a bit) and in order to make it good, it must be true to the source material.

[Seil]

Look at Silent Hill - instead of making the first game into a movie, and then - if you wanna get chronological on us - the third game as Silent Hill II, they put all four games into the movie. At once. And expected half of it to make sense.

[Frostatine]

I've only played 2 and 4.

And the demo of 3.

I thought it made a little sense, but overall it was an entertaining movie

And, I dont think anything from four was incorporated at all, there was a lot of 2 and 3 but I really dont recall that much of 4.

Sorry ahead of time, maybe I just dont pay attention.

And in reply to Xaeta, there usually are some people associated with the game involved with the movie, the problem is that, they, like most people have jobs, and cant always ensure that every project turns into gold.

[pictish]

I find I enjoy videogame movies about as much as I enjoy movie videogames.

The transition of either into either just doesn't work too well for me, I guess partly I dislike the idea that there's cashing in on a franchise that was a videogame/movie before the videogame/movie is out, regardless of actual merit.

[Xaeta]

And in reply to Xaeta, there usually are some people associated with the game involved with the movie, the problem is that, they, like most people have jobs, and cant always ensure that every project turns into gold.

Hence the extreme disappointment/disapproval by fans.