Why do videogame to movie adaptations, on average, suck?

[Siren2011]

I've been pondering this question for a little less than thirty minutes. Here are some ideas as to why this is so.

-The game in question is so enjoyable to play, that dumbing the general idea down in the form of a lower, less complex art form lets us know how boring that story would be if we are not allowed to interact with it. (Max Payne, the anime of Viewtiful Joe, the Devil May Cry anime [which did a PISS poor job of portraying his moves. Dante didn't even juggle enemies with his weapons!], etc.) I know that when I was watching all three of them, all I could think about was "Man, I need to play Max Payne, Viewtiful Joe, and Devil May Cry."

-The game in question is somewhat enjoyable to play, but strange, sometimes downright laughable if brought to the cinema. Think about it. Constructing a two hour long story around a fucking platformer like Super Mario probably wouldn't even work for an anime of it, nor a live action film. Pac Man and the original Zelda fall into this category as well (Can you think of anything more boring than this? Cutting grass for rupies and wacka whack whaka'ing power pellets? Even a Hannah Barbara cartoon would appear like a riveting tour de force in comparison. And for those of you who are thinking "No, I could see them tying in the story with all of the different colored ghosts", just shut up. You know it would be horrible in your subconscious mind.).

Or an exceptional scenario:

-The game is so fucking awful that the idea of a movie adaptation, even if it turns out to be a turd, starts to sound like a better idea altogether, especially if that game has certain qualities that must be salvaged for better work (The Sega Genesis Sonic games converted to the Sonic The Hedgehog TV series, Sonic X a decade after that, Pokemon Blue into Pokemon the anime, etc. I'm still awaiting a cell shaded Legend of Zelda: Windwaker OVA series or movie, so I won't have to play through all of those boring fucking temples and sailboat rides. Ico, Princess Crown, and Okami could use this treatment as well.).

But why is this the case, you might ask? Why is it that the worst videogames invite a director to clean up their developer's mess and do a better job, and the best videogames make cinema look retarded in comparison? This has already been explained:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_the_ge ... /#partviii

For those who didn't click the link, the basic idea is this: videogames are the highest artform i.e. they have the potential to give the most pleasure to the subject out of all the other art forms. Consequently, a failed attempt can be so disastrous that it makes a previous art form look better. For example, comparing Spelunky to the Mona Lisa is like comparing apples to oranges, but anyone off the street with a lick of decent taste would prefer gazing at the Mona Lisa for twenty minutes to playing Spelunky for ten. But if you happen to be faced with the decision of choosing between playing a masterpiece like Bayonetta on a 80 inch plasma T.V. and surround sound against looking at the Mona Lisa?...Duh! Any high spirited soul would choose playing Bayonetta in a heartbeat. Fuck the Mona Lisa at that point, basically. One thing that all of the artforms share is aesthetic appeal. Going by this alone is sufficient in helping one to judge a painting, or a striking photograph. Good, if it has it in excess, bad if it is lacking. Instinct is very helpful in making such decisions.

Then, of course, we arrive at the problem with pacing. When you're hacking away at monsters in Devil May Cry, the action is only interrupted by a bad ass boss fight or the occasional bad ass cutscene. With the anime, you have to listen to people yapping away about their life story and shit like that, before the action bits come. And if one of the cutscenes sucks, just press start to skip it...

Could the best of anime have the potential to be made into games which are superior to the series itself? GITS: Stand Alone Complex can't keep my interest past the opening theme, but the PS2 game by Cavia, however flawed it may be, is epic and free of boring parts, for the most part (That is not a proper judgement, because I have yet to see the entire show.).

Any further ideas on the subject, and judgments of games adapted to films are most welcome.

[Blackbird]

Most games actually need very little in the way of plot. In fact, it is arguable that less plot is better, because it is difficult to meaningfully deliver plot in a way that does not arrest the action of the game (several minutes of boring exposition at the start of the game, anyone?). Writing for games is simplistic - it's a superficial framework to give context to what's happening in the game, and then you get into the gameplay itself and the plot fades into the back of your mind. From there, the (presumably entertaining) gameplay carries the plot, and the game as a whole. It's fine for the plot to be simple and piecemeal, because the gameplay compensates for any failing in the plot and fills the gaps of the story.

For this reason, the writing in most games is terrible if you remove it from the context of the game and examine it as a discrete idea. There is surprisingly little substance to the plot if you remove it from the game.

Movie adaptations of games are generally failures because they had little source material to work with, and so a lot must be "invented" in order to fill the contents of a two hour movie. This is almost invariably terrible.

The adaptation of "DOOM" is a perfect example of this.

Although I said all of the above, I should note that I made a generalization, and not an absolute rule. Some games, particularly a select few RPGs, can have a deep and compelling plot which, dare I say, has actual literary merit. It seems theoretically possible to adapt the plot of an RPG into a decent movie. There might be enough plot/content there to work with. Surprised this hasn't been attempted more often, really.

Shameless opinion time: Planescape: Torment has some of the best writing in any game. Now that would make an interesting movie.

[CMoon]

I also wonder if they take their audience seriously. People still don't seem to have figured out what the demographic is for video game players (I mean, most games now are rated M, but video games are still treated like something only kids play.) I agree with all the points above, but obvious things like a God of War movie directed by Zack Snyder probably won't happen just because I don't think anyone is ready to put some serious dough behind a video game based movie.

[drauch]

I have this opinion on most movies made in these times, regardless if a game adaptation or not.

[Siren2011]

Shameless opinion time: Planescape: Torment has some of the best writing in any game. Now that would make an interesting movie.

I still need to play that one! Also, add Panzer Dragoon Saga to the list. That game is rich with enough content to fill at least a condensed, hour long feature film. It's pretty compelling, too. Although I doubt movie studios would take it on, because the fan base is so small. The Elder Scrolls, on the other hand, has almost as much mythos as J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and would attract a large group of people thanks to Oblivion's popularity. And let's face it: XIII is basically the Jason Borne films (The more recent "Unknown" starring Liam Neeson is similar, too). Grim Fandango is Casablanca with dead people.

It seems theoretically possible to adapt the plot of an RPG into a decent movie. There might be enough plot/content there to work with. Surprised this hasn't been attempted more often, really.

This has been attempted only once to my knowledge. Final Fantasy Advent Children is decent for the eye candy alone, but the story is pretty bland and nonsensical (They never explain that liquid which turned the blue haired guy into Sephiroth, and fans were too giddy to care about the reasoning behind this ridiculous occurrence. It seems to me Square Enix had no idea how to bring Sephiroth back, so they said "let's wing it!" and their worst guy suggested they do this.).

For this reason, the writing in most games is terrible if you remove it from the context of the game and examine it as a discrete idea. There is surprisingly little substance to the plot if you remove it from the game.

I totally agree.

I also wonder if they take their audience seriously.

I don't think many of them do. But before they learn to take their audience seriously, they better learn to take games just as seriously, if not more, first --because let's face it: their "audience" are a bunch of mouth breathing, "AAA" title game playing, Giant Bomb enthusiasts who take a casual approach to gaming as a whole. If anything, they should flat out ignore what they think they want and start making movies based on games which they feel confident and passionate enough about making --games that have sufficient substance in their story to span a feature length film. In other words, the director and the cast should all play through the game in question at least once before going to the drawing board, let alone before filming.

[Blackbird]

I still need to play that one! Also, add Panzer Dragoon Saga to the list.

Panzer Dragoon Saga needs a port so bad. It would be nice if more people could play this game without shelling out 200$ for a rare collector's copy. I'd love to see if it merits the hype, but the game is a little too expensive for me, haha.

[neorichieb1971]

1st/2nd parties rarely make movie tie ins. Goldeneye 64 was one successful example of a collaboration of 2nd party and admittedly old movie at the time.

Most 3rd parties that buy the tie in are usually bottom tier junk studios.

The amount of time between the movie release and the game is almost the same to gain hype for game/movie. But this means short development times. So crap 3rd party + Short dev time = Disaster.


Games can have good stories if its about a lonesome ninja, warrior, guy with a sword etc. When you bring in multiple characters its harder to get gameplay wrapped around the complex story. In the past movie tie ins were made with little to no thought of how to use currently existing hardware to perform any of the feats in the movie. Making it pointless to begin with.

NES Back to the future/Die hard?

[Siren2011]

Blackbird, there should be torrents of the game around the internet, in both Japanese and NTSC versions. I have roms of the original USA game spanning four burned discs. I've beaten the game more times than anyone should. If you can't find any active torrents of the game, then I can mail it to you if you're interested. I've also got rare beta discs of the entire game in the earliest phase (I need to find them first. They're somewhere in the hellhole that is my room). There aren't too many changes from the original, but it's still interesting if you're a hardcore fan. It would save you the pain of waiting, as well as shelling out the $200. That is, of course, if you're into soft modding your Saturn (The process can be described a few ways, but "hard to do" isn't one of them).

And for the record, about it living up to the hype, you bet your ass it does. It's easily one of the most unforgettable gaming experiences I've ever had.

[CMoon]

But before they learn to take their audience seriously, they better learn to take games just as seriously

Actually there has been this thought bouncing around in my head lately (mostly due to playing Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2, now Dragon Age Origins...basically games that focus a lot on story) that video games are starting to surpass movies as far as allowing the viewer/gamer to experience a narrative in a meaningful way. Just as books aren't replaced by movies, I can't see movies ever being replaced by video games, but at the moment, video games companies seem more willing to let their teams explore interesting, unique and sometimes disturbing storylines than the movie studios are. I know this isn't the reasons you had in mind, but when it gets to a point that I relate more to the story and characters in a video game than I do in anything at the theatre, maybe hollywood should take note.

[CMoon]

I have this opinion on most movies made in these times, regardless if a game adaptation or not.

Honestly I think Hollywood is suffering more than ever from the Disney problem (remember the late 90's, early 00's?) when Eisner basically made decision go through a round table discussion where it either fit the template or got chopped. I'm not saying it's wrong to be hunting for the next big Harry Potter, but what Disney started finding was that their tried and true formula was killing them. All their movies were horrible because the creativity was getting strangled by upper management. I'm sure Hollywood has gone through the real dregs before, or maybe we're just seeing our favorite periods through rose colored glasses, but I do agree that virtually every film I've really adored in the last 5 years either hasn't been from the US or has been independent (IE I consider Cohen bros to effectively be independent.)

So I'm not sure it's a matter of not taking movies serious, but maybe they're taking them too seriously. Maybe they need to give their directors more creative freedom (or maybe they need to get some new directors, and give them some creative freedom!)

P.S. Drauch, I just threw 5 gallons of beer down the drain

[drauch]

Yeah, I couldn't agree more Mr. Moon. I've been pretty bitter with the state of cinema in the past couple of years, but occasionally a gem shines through the dirt and restores a little bit of faith for the future. I've just become so stubborn with newer movies anymore to the point that I hardly even attempt such a feat. Gah, I was thinking about how much I love The Aristocats like two days ago.

Sorry to hear about your beer; that's quite a bit to go to waste!

[Siren2011]

I can't see movies ever being replaced by video games...

They already have been. More than 3/4 of America's youth must have a console by now, if not at least gotten exposed to gaming by friends. If you really wanted to, you could take all the best action and horror movies of all time and compare them to the best 2D/3D action and horror games. That should be the ultimate way of telling which medium is supreme. It would then amount to "would I rather control the actions of the protagonist, or watch him on auto pilot?" This is even more proof that simulation aims at replicating reality as much as possible. What would the highest art form be, then, if not the one where you could do anything, without doing anything at all; break laws, kill your annoying boss, save humanity from the brink of total annihilation, pilot a giant robot, save some anime chick in a bar from thugs, and so forth. Of course it goes without saying that romance films, however great they are (When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail, etc.) haven't the slightest chance of competing with great games like Breakdown, Gunvalkyrie, Zone of the Enders, and Steel Battalion --these games will always grab a man's attention more.

...but at the moment, video games companies seem more willing to let their teams explore interesting, unique and sometimes disturbing storylines than the movie studios are.

I think they're just about equal in that department. As for grotesque images and brutality, there's always going to be the occasional Tarantino flick. For games, stuff like Dead Space and Siren 3: Blood Curse. For so called "risks", movies have Inception (which probably alienated half of Nolan's fans due to his unique way of storytelling), and games have Bayonetta and Sin & Punishment 2: Star Successor. There aren't that many of them, that much is certain. But the mentality of "dollar signs > innovation" is poisoning the best part of the industry there is: Japanese gaming. It's the "Japanese Gaming is Dead" thread all over again.

I relate more to the story and characters in a video game than I do in anything at the theatre, maybe hollywood should take note.

It's funny that you mention that. I usually relate more with well written anime characters (Guts from Berserk) than gaming heroes. Though there have been gaming icons who I have looked up to and thought they were cool (Ryo Hazuki, Segata Sanshiro, etc.)

[Drachenherz]

Why do videogame to movie adaptations, on average, suck?

Because of Uwe Boll....

[Blackbird]

@ Siren - I'll probably get around to getting the game when I'm loaded with cash =P. As much as I gripe about it, I'm more opposed to emulating the game than overpaying for it. I prefer to have a real cart/disc first before emulating "backups" whenever possible, just on principle.

@ CMoon - No, it's not just you. Hollywood is actually the subject of broad criticism now for being extremely safe and complacent. There was a study a little while ago that found something like 90% of the new movies were sequels, remakes, or adaptations of other popular media (comic book adaptations). Very few genuinely new ideas are being produced right now.

[MX7]

Why do videogame to movie adaptations, on average, suck?

Because videogames and films exhibit completely different narrative conventions and generic paradigms. They are largely incompatible. Consider how the story to ICO is told. Through player agency, and largely dialogue free interactions with characters and environments. Much of the narrative is conveyed not through conventional filmic exposition (cut-scenes), but through the tactile experience of holding R1 to call out (paralinguistically), and to hold the hand of your companion. These are narrative devices that in some ways reinforce existing narrative theory (the princess/hero/villain/helper etc archetypes fit neatly into existing morphological analysis), but largely, it's a completely separate way of telling a story.

It irks me greatly when people say (to pick out a random example but there are plenty more) that Metal Gear Solid is cinematic. No, it's not. Aside from numerous intertextual nods to cinematic genre conventions, Metal Gear Solid could not be less like a film. The narrative is told through player agency, and there are numerous aspects that could never be replicated in cinema. So why was there so much buzz about wanting to make it into a film? Because of the cinematics, and the emphasis on dialogue. However, this further differentiates Metal Gear Solid from films. What action film would have so much expositionary dialogue? Would have so much of its story told by two conversing mug shots? None. It reads like a particularly sparse radio drama. In fact, the genre it most resembles is that of the visual novel, which delights in such dense prose based exposition. And, of course, a visual novel is a genre of videogame.

So why do film adaptations of videogames generally suck? Because to the untrained eye, videogames resemble films. We can pick out key iconagraphic features from Metal Gear that seem to be a recipe for making a great action film. Futuristic weapons, washed out and bleak mise en scene, dynamic cinematography, rich dialogue, eccentric performance, postmodernism and intertextuality... Shove all these in and surely you'll have an authentic Metal Gear film?

No. The ingredients are there, but it is through narrative conventions inherently exclusive to the videogame that Metal Gear, ICO, Silent Hill and any number of supposedly 'cinematic' videogames are so compelling. These are games that perfectly understand the formal, visual, narrative and generic conventions that make a videogame, and they stick to it religiously*.

Making a film of any of the games I have mentioned, or indeed any game, would require making a completely separate media product, and one that should be considered on its own merits, i.e as a film, rather than how successfully it emulates narrative conventions from another media.





*Though these conventions are played with and subverted in all of these games. Metal Gear's explicit reference to the player, and even the relationship between the player, console and TV, most notably in the Psycho Mantis fight. Silent Hill too also goes some way to satisfactorily explain the presence of identical monsters, health packs, bosses, and other generic paradigms that generally go unexplained in other games. ICO is of course an homage to, among other games, Zelda, and it adopts the narrative conventions that go along with this. Unlike in Zelda however, the princess is rescued at the beginning of the game, and the rest of the in game narrative is structured around protecting her, and forming a bond between the player and the princess though holding her hand and guiding her through the castle. In my opinion, it is when conventions are so assured and robust that they can be subverted played with that we can truly appraise a media as being mature. And in this sense, it is clear that the videogame has reached maturity some time ago.

[burgerkingdiamond]

I don't know why they suck.. I thought that the Resident Evil movies totally blew. I think it would be cool if they followed the first movie with the mansion. And tried to make it creepy and shit, instead of just mindless action.

A tomb raider based on the first game would be cool I think too.

[Skykid]

Same reason movies, on average, suck.

[CMoon]

Siren2011> Just to clarify a few points I think you might have misunderstood...

"I can't see movies ever being replaced by video games..." What I mean here is that I don't think movies are going away. I actually DO think video games are serving very much the same role of delivering narrative and characters that formerly was exclusive to movies and books. I think movie studios should very much pay attention to this, because I'm wondering if movies are becoming a bit of a dinosaur. My quote however was to indicate that I don't see movies going away--but don't be surprised when a day comes when kids don't want to watch movies anymore, because they're soooo boring. I mean, you can't even control the characters...

(When) "I relate more to the story and characters in a video game than I do in anything at the theatre, maybe hollywood should take note." I had to bring this up because you accidentally quote-mined me. Personally I think we should relate more to the characters and story in books and movies than in video games, which hopefully is more about gameplay, but I think lately we have seen a number of games emerge with strong characters and stories, where hollywood can't seem to come up with good characters or stories to save their lives. This should be a red flag to hollywood execs, and maybe it is.

[CMoon]

Interesting. A hollywood friend of mine e-mailed me regarding this issue we're discussing here, and he makes the point that financially hollywood is doing pretty well, or rather, that things like Transformers 3 are making shit-tons of money. So my comparison to late 90's Disney may be a grave mistake. Their formula broke down and stopped working for them. Seems like the big hollywood cash machine is fine though.

[greg]

The licensing for these video games are cheap, so wannabe directors take up these projects to try to establish themselves and build some experience. They don't take the demographic seriously, nor do they really care about the titles. That's why we get Caucasian girls playing Chun Li (complete with flashbacks to her childhood as an actual Chinese girl) and terrible Uwe Boll stuff that has nothing to do with the actual game title (like Alone in the Dark).

[Specineff]

I found the first Mortal Kombat movie to be fairly decent.

Unlike the stuff that the director kept on churning out afterwards.

[xris]

Light on story, heavy on action.
It's a difficult task to try and capture the sense of adventure that games bring when presented in a third person narrative, you will always feel left out when you are watching an experience that have participated in, causing your brain to react in an almost depressive manner.
Good game movies have happened, kinda.. Silent Hill, Dead Space: Downfall, Resident Evil: Degeneration
I would like to say that the recent Mortal Kombat web series had some rather high points, but suffered from a lack of over-all narrative.
What you guys didn't like Uwe Boll's version of Postal? Nah, I kid, the movie is a travesty, but is probably a decent game adaptation when compared to the source material.
I think there is potential for a Mass Effect movie as long as they are very protective of the property.
There are a couple semi-crappy movies that look better if you acknowledge that they were very influenced by games, quick examples- Ultraviolet, Ghosts of Mars
Look how long it took for comic book movies to fall into shape, go ahead and watch the ones from the '90s, then compare them to the ones now. It's just a matter of trial and error, and time.