Everyone’s heard that Peter Jackson is making a Halo movie, that Quinten Tarantino is not making a Half Life movie (as of now), and that Uwe Boll is going to knock Postal and Farcry clear into the worst 100. At least everyone would expect Postal to make a crappy movie no matter who directed it. Our question to you is:
What’s the harm in making (Video Game) Movies?
That is definitely a double-edged question (120.0 dps with Mana Burn), the first part pertains to movies like the last two mentioned above, would many people really care if a crappy Postal or Farcry movie is made? Certainly the later is a much better game, but is anyone so attached to the generic first-person shooter haracters and plot of it that a movie practically writes itself? You can’t seriously think so, it took hollywood forty years to turn out most beloved fantasy setting into three fantastic movies (one of which being the best movie of all time). The damage comes when you touch something exquisite like Half Life, where the game played more like a movie then any other at the time, due at least partially to the introduction of perfectly executed scripted sequences. You never saw two Doom demons greet each other in the hallways beneath the martian surface, probably because when they turned to the side they became invisible. Scripted sequences added new life and narrative to a previously stale medium, but therein lies another point, if the game played so much like a movie what is the merit in reproducing that? I guess we do remake movies and tv shows enough, why not remake these in full cinematic glory?
My feeling on the topic is that everything stems from potential. Now we see the other part of this weeks inquisition; what is a franchises potential for making a good movie? If the ideas don’t translate well into the cinematic medium, then we shouldn’t give much thought to it if someone stupidly decides to make the movie. This brings me to the real kicker, that someone somewhere is working on a World of Warcraft movie. (as revealed in an old post) Certainly the vast world and millions of players in WoW support that the game has a solid foundation of story, interesting characters, and a rich setting. These all make for the potential to create a fantastic movie, but how difficult must it be to get things just right? Peter Jackson most likely sold some part of his eternal being to execute what he did so well in any one lifetime. PJ was an anomaly, a rarity, and a genius when it comes to Lord of the Rings. He’d been a fan for years, but was not afraid to change things. He brought in other people like himself, fans who also knew how to make a good movie. We would be living in a perfect world were a team like that behind every interperative movie based on a pre-existing property.
The image above is shown because of my fears and desires intermingling. Ever since I read the second Wheel of Time book I’ve wanted to experience it in a movie, but the fact that there are over nine other books to deal with deters me from thinking this for too long. The series simply has too much story potential to be pulled off in a satisfactory way, unless of course a team like Peter Jackson’s pools together a movie budget to produce a tv show, then we’ll talk business.
I leave you with the above question, and a tangent: A fascinating trailer for an upcoming movie based on a comic book (that is a fictionalization based on historical dramatizations of actual events that someone wrote about happening), I am of course talking about the trailer for 300. I’ve heard mixed things about the comic, but the trailer is downright breathtaking.
That’s the important distinction between making movies from games vs. from books: there’s almost always a heck of a lot more to work with in a book. As you point out, there’s a very loose plot in Doom, but really only as a framework for shooting stuff. Even something with a great video game plot like Final Fantasy 6(3) wouldn’t translate all that well due to how often the battles define the story.
Wheel of Time movies… been hinted before, I agree it would be difficult due to how many books there are. (Harry Potter is a rare anomaly in how many movies the American public can put up with in a series.) However, there’s so much cruft I wouldn’t mind being cut from WoT that it could make a really solid series if it focused just on the raw cool stuff.
Yea, especially considering more then half of the Harry Potter movies have been far less then stellar, in fact I hate them.
My beliefs for how we put up with the series’ length is in part due to the child-focus of the books (and therefore the movies), but also partially because of the pokemon like craze to drive kids insane and inspire obsessive behavior.
I sincerely think that the modern crop of epic fantasy novels would be better served as turning each novel into an HBO miniseries, or every few books into a season in an ongoing show. Just look at what HBO does with Rome, Deadwood, and Sopranos.
C’mon.
The problem with putting any videogame into movie format is that any good game is already delivering what many identify as a “cinematic” experience.
Halo would make an excellent sci-fi war movie, but Hollywood would want to add a love interest for Master Chief thus diluting the franchise.
That’s just a quick example off the top of my head.
Yes, the shoe-horning in of romantic interests in movies really bothers me. The biggest example for me is the Batman movies. Having a girlfriend is not a part of the Batman character- in fact, sort of opposite the whole “Bruce Ways picks up floozies to throw people off his track.”
Agreed that HBO does a great job on virtually everything. I think it’s helps a lot creatively to be able to not deal with network censors.
And a related story… George Lucas thinks the movies are dead, and Wil Wheaton weighs in:
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2006/10/moods_for_moder.html
“Halo would make an excellent sci-fi war movie, but Hollywood would want to add a love interest for Master Chief thus diluting the franchise.” This is true, but at the same time we must remember that there wasn’t any love interest in the Doom movie. Maybe they can get away with not having one in Halo.
Doom was a stupid game with no plot or character which is why it didn’t have a chance of making a decent movie. It wasn’t ruined by Hollywood, it was just a shoot’emup.
Well, I never said Doom was a good movie. I was just saying that Hollywood doesn’t Always add a love interest. Just most of the time. And if they added one to Halo then yes, it would ruin the movie.
I will, however, maintain that Doom was a good game in its day. Many, many days ago.
Keep in mind that Joshx0rfz is (I assume) not equating a stupid game to one with no plot or “character”, whether this means overall charm or actual characters that do actual things.
Naturally games lacking these things would make for terrible movies, such as Tetris, but also the game’s lack of development in the character/plot area may actually make it easier to make a good movie based on it, giving the movie company more leeway to create a good story and interesting characters without destroying the franchise. I haven’t seen Doom yet, but from what I hear it didn’t do this. My point is that it -could- have.
Oh, and why is everyone forgetting Cortana and Master Chiefs torrid love-affair? Port f#$king ftw?
I now want to see someone make a tetris movie just so that we can redifine the word “failure”.
Bartoneus is right, while Doom was fun, it was still a stupid game.
I’d really like to see someone take a war movie approach to some of the sci-fi war games that go on, but that is probably some crazy dream. Apocalypse Now w/lasers please!
“I’d really like to see someone take a war movie approach to some of the sci-fi war games that go on, but that is probably some crazy dream. Apocalypse Now w/lasers please!”
Silly man, we got that movie with STARSHIP TROOPERS! It may not have been a game, but combining the teenage drama of Saved by the Bell while butchering a Sci-Fi classic…. C’Mon!
NPH as a pyschic? COUNT ME IN!
Yeah, I realized that after I wrote it but I would like you to realize there is a distinct lack of lasers in that movie.
Starship troopers was an awful movie because Denise Richards is a……… and only has a mouth suited to ………… also, she can’t act.
Note how that movie had a really lame love interest.
Was that book actually good? I never bothered reading it.
So, how about I want a GOOD sci-fi/war movie.
Hmmm
Battlefield Earth is a no-go too?
After I take a screenwriting class, I’ll get to work on “Tetris: The Movie” and “Snakes on a Plane in the Future”
Not to be confrontational or anything, but Doom was definately not a stupid game. I mean, using the same logic (no plot or character = stupid game) would mean that classics like Super Mario Brothers, Metroid, Legend of Zelda, Defender, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, and hundreds of other older games are just “stupid” games. Now by today’s standards of what a game should be, then yeah, a lot of older games (almost all of them, actually) would be stupid, or bad. But I think that you have to judge a game by the standards of its day.
And Doom, as any historian of videogames would know, is one of the most influential video games of the past 20 years. It virtually defined the FPS genre – for years after its release in 1993 other games that we now call first person shooters were at the time simply known as “doom clones”. Even though Wolfenstein 3d was the first ‘real’ FPS, it was Doom that defined the genre more than any other game.
Quoted directly from Wikipedia: “Doom dominated the genre for years after its release. Every new game in the genre was held up against id’s masterpiece, and usually suffered by comparison.” You can read more about why Doom was not a ‘stupid’ game here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter#History
Admittedly, there wasn’t a lot of plot in it, but the same could be said of other games released around the same time. Players didn’t really start demanding plot from their first person shooters until the late 90’s and early 2000’s (Half life was released in 1998, Deus Ex was released in 2000).
Now I agree that a FPS with an in depth plot and/or character development would definately make a better movie. At the same time though, that doesn’t mean that Doom, which lacked these things, was a bad game.
I think the Sultan is probably right. Games in that era were about coming up with a marginally-satisfying certainly-contrived means to thrust you into gameplay. Aside from a few notable RPG exceptions (mainly from Square) I’m pretty stumped to come up with a game from that time that had compelling story attached to it. It’s only today that we have the luxury of excellent gameplay wrapped in compelling stories.
You yourself maintain that “Doom was a good game in it day. Many, many days ago.”.
Fine, it is a ‘classic’. The labeling of something as classic does not free it from its faults however. The same goes for other ‘classic’ games. This is why there is progress (in some vague direction) in all forms of art and such.
I never found Andy Warhol’s art very compelling, but it is very influential. This seems to be more a matter of taste.
I’ll admit that my using the word ‘stupid’ may be a bit acerbic but I was more meaning a poor choice of video game to be turned into a movie. I would maintain that any of the classic games you listed would probably make poor movies unless they had a rich backstory which needed to be read. Keep in mind the frame of reference of all these posts – video games to movies.
By the time the Doom movie came around the “demons from hell” theme had been rehashed three times by the same company in the same very uninspired format.
Quick example of a game with a good story (or at least an attempt at one) that was released in 1990 – Wing Commander. Most of the games created pre-1994 with good stories were RPGs because the tools to tell a good story within a different framework weren’t really in place.
Finally, why do you think people are beginning to make video games into movies now and not in the past? It’s because they finally have some decent writers writing for the industry wheras before they had hardly anyone. Also, money and clout, but anyway, this has turned into a rambling post.
Oh, no you didn’t just go after Andy Warhol, now it’s on! 🙂
I think that, when moving from any medium to any other medium, massive changes need to be made to fit the format. I think the laziness of Hollywood comes in when they mine other media for source material (video games as well as comic book movies) and just say, “Let’s take this idea and pad it out to make a movie. Throw in some SFX and The Rock. Done.” As opposed to “Let’s write a good movie, based on this interesting concept.”
Part of the reason Lord of the Rings was so sucessful was that it didn’t try to take the books and just throw them on the screen, they wrote a good movie that used a lot of the ideas. Of course, this can lead to cries of being unfaithful to the original material, which doesn’t usually bother me. There are exceptions, like straying from a core theme or telling a completely different message- that’s not transfering from one medium to another, that’s making a new story with a new name.
Bartoneus just pointed out that the Wing Commander movie was pretty awful – that was more to point out that there were games back then that were attempting to tell interesting stories along with good gameplay.
Unfortunately Joshx0rfz didn’t know about the Wing Commander movie which came out in 1999, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131646/ I’ll admit it’s not completely terrible, but it’s definitely no gem of film-making genius. This doesn’t mean he was wrong about the game, just that people recognized it and quickly drove it into an early grave also.
I maintain that calling something “stupid” because it was made in the past and does not hold up to current day standards (something very hard to achieve) is a bad move. I tend to make statements like that too though, so I definitely don’t hold it against him.
Games being made today that are arguably better graphically and conceptually then Doom can still be considered crap because the standards have changed so drastically.
Holding the past to modern standards is something that really irks me because it can completely devalue the past. I mean, can we have a good President before the Emancipation Proclamation? Before Women’s Suffrage? Before the end of Segregation? Context is a crucial.
Can we have a good game from 5 years ago? 10 years ago? Will we have even have played a ‘good game’ according to the thinking 40 years ago?
I say yes, but an overly relativist person from that time would laugh.
I’m not devaluing the past, but I’m also not ignoring its flaws. Should the context of Jefferson being a supporter of slavery be ignored? I think not.
I didn’t bother reading any of the discussin, I just wanted to push the comments # up to 23 for The Game (as it is his favorite #)
This is like some kind of massive vehicle pile-up on 95!
My two cents: I think it will become less and less relevant as the years go by for filmmakers to translate video games for the masses. As video games themselves become a more mature art form, and more cinematic in themselves, it seems movies would become a moot point. Some plots are designed specifically to be revealed over the course of long, long hours, spent in countless enviornments.
Then again, maybe the point of a movie is that you are able to share the experience, real time, with other viewers, which is something that a book really can’t do, and, while in multiplayer mode on some games you can achive this, I can attest that it’s useless to play two player Final Fantasy, unless you have a gameshark and are really loopy, trying to get to the world of ruin in 3 hours.
Not that I’ve done that.
So, I guess I have a follow-up questions: Gaming movies: will they become obsolete, or will they live on, sucking the cash out of 18 year olds everywhere for eternity?
While joshx0rfz and I could probably go on forever about our differing viewpoints on how older games should be viewed, I think in the interest of keeping this thread focused on its original topic, I’m willing to simply state that we agree to disagree on that little side topic that we got on (which really deserves its own separate thread).
In light of that, I have to say that I agree completely with The Game’s comments regarding Hollywood and in particular The Lord of the Rings. LOTR was a masterful movie, not a masterful book translated into movie form. Even in instances where there were significant differences between the movies and the books, in almost every instance I found that Peter Jackson had a good reason to make the change.
If only PJ, and not Uwe Bol, were directing video game movies, we might actually see a few good ones!
Going along with my last post, if you want to see the worst video game movie ever (and one of the worst movies ever produced), check out Uwe Bol’s inagural film: House of the Dead. TheMainEvent will agree, its absolutely terrible!
The thread that will not die!
Those of you hoping for a good video game movie in the form of Halo produced by Peter Jackson might be dissapointed. Looks like the studios backed out of the film:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/20/133205&from=rss
Does anyone actually think that Halo is the video game to be a breakthrough crtical hit (ha!) of a movie?
You could always just film Metal Gear Solid and lay people would think its great while gamers would be like, “I played this game and the movie is identical.”