Why Do Video Game Movies Suck So Badly?

"Look, I don't expect the Metal Gear movie to be the next epic like Raiders of the Lost Ark."

I do.

 

If the just announced rumor is true, I am really really concerned about MGS.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=42924

Kurt Whimmer wrote Equilibrium, which was ok, notable for its great pre-Bourne hyper fight scenes, but average story. However he also did Ultraviolet which is a steaming pile of crap.  I hope when they meet with Kurt they decide to go with another writer.

 

I'd say part of it has to do with a lack of good source material. Some games do well not because they have good character depth, or an interesting plot, but rather because they're fun to play.

Case in point: Street Fighter. Plot of the game is... uh, was there a plot? You go around the world fighting people in order to fight other people so you can eventually become champion of the world, or something like that. It's been a long time since I've busted out the SNES, so my memory of why you're fighting all the dudes is a bit rusty, but the point is that people weren't playing SF2 because they really identified with Guile's character, or because they enjoyed the plot of struggling against M Bison. You played the game because yelling HADOKEN and throwing fireballs was fun as hell, and optionally to try and look up Chun-Li's skirt. How well does that translate to a movie? Well, as clearly shown, not very well at all.

Contrast this with something like Spiderman, where people read the comic because they liked how it was written, and the characters were well defined, and the plots were interesting. Any comic can be made into a movie because a movie is doing the same thing - telling a story - the only difference is it's done in a different medium.

In many cases, translating a video game to a movie involves creating a plot and character stories that weren't there before, or were at least were uninteresting/badly written.  This is part of why video game movies are often terrible.

 

Also I actually didn't really like Spiderman myself, but it's an easy to use example of a successful movie made from a comic book.

 

Honestly, to most creative writers, the ability to create a story almost completely free of canonical restraints is a blessing.

With Spiderman you HAVE to follow (at least loosely) the Spiderman storyline. With most video games there is ALL sorts of opportunity to create or recreate scenarios to make or remake the characters and plot in a way that is more suitable to the big screen.

Therefore the problem is more that the writers working on these movies are bargain binners'. Just give me a few more years and I'll be writing video game movie scrips/screenplays and we won't have this problem anymore.

 

I think video game movies tend to suck so much because there is a lot of creative liberty given to the directors and writers.  They try to break the mold and rewrite the forumla of what made the games themselves great and tend to fail miserably. 

Also, a video game movie already has the game itself to contend with.  Much like the comic book movies folks that have actually played those games already know what they should be expecting.  Take Harry Potter as an example (I know, I know it's not really a video game).  I can't name a single person I know that has seen the movies and read the books and preferred the movies.

They tend to say things like, "That's not how it went down in the book."  This is difficult to get away from and when your viewers have preconceived notions of the film and an emotional attachment with things that already happened in the game/book/comic you're fighting an uphill battle.  So as I was saying in point 1, they try to change things around and end up butchering the franchise instead. 

I'm waiting for the day that we get a movie director and a game creator in one.  Then they can create games and the movies for them with no information lost in translation making the ultimate movie and game entertainment machine which will rule the world.

 

Kyle, I want it to be epic, I just not holding my breath with expectations.  It could be one hell of a movie if done right.

Doogless.  I agree to an extent.  But good movies have been made from worse source material.  And what about Doom for example.  There was a ton of potential there for a great movie, yet they ditched the source material and cheapened it.  Mortal Kombat, is in the same vein, Enter the Dragon has a similar story, minus the whole creature/realm business.  It turned out pretty good. 

 

i liked the Resident Evil's, actually really love the setting of those swat style geared out pros vs the genetic mutant type monsters....and then the badass's who kill both of them.  i thought the most recent one, just came out on video not long ago, was pretty good even if it could've been better.  all of them were pretty decent IMO, inicluding the last one with that hot brunette who had skillz too.

Silent Hill wasnt bad either.  Altho i agree it could've been better, but really it got the job done entertainment-wise.

i think more than anything youre discounting just how difficult it is to make a good movie vs a bad one.  for every good movie there are like 10 bad ones and i think that goes for every genre of movie. 

yeah Streetfighter was kiddy and Van Damme is a ******.  I hate Van Damme.  Alone in the Dark was kind of watchable, not as bad as Doom.  Doom was just sad, it was worse than AvP in terms of that darkaction where you cant see **** but it was just a terrible movie altogether. 

only way to make them all good is to get people like Spielberg to make them which they probably couldnt afford.  most other directors are a crapshoot.  its amazing what he/they did with Transformers, would never even thought something like that would be possible and entertaining in a real person based movie. 

 

Interesting that you mentioned Transformers, when Michael Bay the director is widely considered crappy to average at best as a director. 

If your thoughts on how difficult it is to make a good movie, why then are the averages much higher for other genres?  Surely the average would be similar?  I don't think it is difficult to make good movies when the right motivation is there.

The RE's were pretty solid, I enjoyed them all.  Not perfect, but definitely watchable.

 

i just dont think there have been enough of them to reach a conclusion vs the masses of movies averaged out in the other genres.  i think video game movies are a pretty new type of phenomenon where the sample size is too small. 

my bad i could've sworn Spielberg had something to do with transformers.  i dont even know who michael bay is.

 

Spielberg I believe may have had some production credit, Bay, while he did do Armageddon and the rock, also did the island, pearl harbor, etc.  He is known as style over substance in the movie world.  Big explosions, action, eye candy, which detracts from his weak directing/plots.

 

ah ok thx for the explanation.  i had no idea he did all of those, but i guess it goes to show how little i know about movies these days.

 

Final Fantasy the Spirits Within was a revolutionary game movie that paved the way of special effects in many of the most up-to-date films you see and enjoy today.

Stop assuming that game related titles are a genre, it's all relative. Slither, need i say anymore. Yes, actually.

Though i would assume that the reason why most game title film releases don't do so well is because games are constructed in a completely different mannerism to audience than a regular film. Let me be the first to say that story line isn't the center of attention in 99% of games either the game play and interaction is of the utmost importance.

When a fan comes out to reproduce a game into the film industry it is very rare that they will deviate from the games storyline as you have an equilibrium that needs to be balanced; the fans of the video game, the film buffs and everyone else. Movie directors have a very tricky job in this Bermuda and very few come out successful.

As a bi-product the fans come out expecting more though heaven forbid had the story line changed they would have been disappointed anyway!

The film buffs come out wondering why they sat through the whole thing knowing full well it was the adaptation of a game plot.

And everyone else just goes on with life.

This is called the uses and gratifications theory in which we the audience draw what we need from the media. In other words we go in with preconceived ideologies and emotion, coupled with expectations and everything else that is life to extract what it is we want from this particular.

One mans junk is another mans gold.

I therefore have always found it hard to label something with a genre, it's such a loose term, be careful.

 

Revolutionary game movie may be a slight stretch.  Revolution in graphics sure.

You mention Final Fantasy and its greatness, yet note that fans dont like deviation from the game.  The think with FF was, as per every single FF title, it wasn't based on specific game, and was a totally independent story.  So not all gaming movie properties need to be direct game to cinema ports to be accepted by the games fan base.

 

Didn't specify content wise how revolutionary it was or how close it was to its ancestors, however;

BECAUSE the director deviated from the original to bring a more cinematic storyline it was more successful.

BECAUSE less people played FF1 due to it a being only available in Japanese for a long period of time so the story line was more of a mystery.

BECAUSE of how great the graphics were.

What i'm trying to say is, Game films aren't a genre. They are sub-categories that fall into places with much broader categories. And it would be silly to tar them all with the same brush :>

 

I don't think it matter much if they are their own genre or not.  I think he pointed the fact quite well that even standing alone against movies overall their average rating is sub par, even when you don't compare it to action flicks, horror flicks, etc. 

The interesting thing about the FF movie, even it was good by video game standards, it still falls short of being rating a classic/highly touted movie in general.

 

Its simple really, from a directors point of view you are in a constant search for your next blockbuster or you next sleeper project. Not all the major motion picture studios are chasing you down but you hear of a project that with your views and some hard work could be transformed into the next big thing.
I mean **** .. theres already a marketing plan and fan following with the video game.
Hahaha just wait next year they are releasing WOW the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4436119/
And they're already in talks with Christopher Lee. LOTR


Most of these directors con their way into convincing people that they love the material and have been a fan since creation bla bla bla. They just have no idea what the story is about to begin with and they adlib plots and character creation along the way. LOL at the idiots checking my fake imdb link. If only I could hear them "WTF!!11@!1, nothing here you liar!!1" haha w.o.w iz 4 nerds.

Anyways, a comic can be translated onto the big screen a lot easier simple because all the hard core details and plot / background story has been written with the dotted i's and crossed t's.
Games become movies out of popularity like others have posted. And just because a game is good docent mean it will make a good movie. I personally thought Hitman Sucked and could have been a whole lot better. Never living up to my expectations. They shouldn't have rushed the writing and spent the budget on actors and special effects.

End Rant

 

Making movies out of games is like writing a book based on a movie.  It's a step backwards in terms of the amount of story you can create.

 

I think that really depends on the game.  There are certainly epic, and deep game story lines that are out there:  Half Life, Metal Gear, Bioshock, etc.  Did street fighter have the most detailed story to be ported to a game, no probably not. 

But you can't tell me something to the effect of Hitman couldn't have had a great story and churned a good movie.  There are a plethora of solid assassin/hitman related films with less of a story then Agent 47.  It all comes back to how they are adapted, and who directs them. 

I don't agree with the lack of story aspect.  Hell most of these directors make loads of creative differences as it is, what would it hurt to add to the story.

 

I liked the lighting/artwork in the third resident evil. ^^

I think that video games movies are sort of hard to do right. Generally the stories are poorly paced for a theatrical experience which requires sweeping plot rewrites, yet there's desire to stay "true" to the source and it's all very contrast-y for keeping a decent narrative thread. You also get this clunky feedback loop where you've got games which are trying to be theatrical in the first place and you're adding a level of recursion as you convert these back into movies.

I'm pretty psyched for Alice no lie though.

 

I liked the idea of wes craven on board to direct, but now that he is gone I am not sure.  The new director was ok in the Texas Chainsaw remake, but he is no wes craven.

 

silent hill was a great movie imo. but everything else sucked yeah