Video Game Movies
 

Today on our podcast we talk about the history of video game movies and why they tend to suck. So let us know what are your best and worst video game movies, and what games you think can be successfully adapted into a game.

https://youtu.be/60D_GmOxXxw

Re: Video Game Movies
 

Good podcast. I would say the best movie game movie is also Mortal Kombat, and the worst one is MK: Annihilation. I'm surprised you didn't pick that as the worst :). Because if you compare that to Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros. is Citizen Kane compared to it.

I actually thought that Max Payne was a decent video game movie, and better than I expected, but am I alone on that one?

Damn, we completely forgot about Max Payne.

Re: Video Game Movies
 

I haven't seen every video game movie, but I'll rank Max Payne as the second best I've seen, after Mortal Kombat.

Re: Video Game Movies
 

Interesting point near the end of the video saying a game based on a subject that has already been a movie, meaning it can work as an adaption. The example you gave being the post-apocalyptic thing and The Last Of Us.



Problem with it though is you'd end up with a clone of an existing movie.
Someone would take The Last Of Us, and simply re-purpose the script from something like Stake Land.




I think all videogames could be great movies... but you hit the nail on the head with the "Hollywood thinking".
This game has fans... let's make a movie and attach the game's name to it to sell tickets.


Also, Resident Evil is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine but the thing with the movies is it was WS Anderson using the series as a payday for his wife.
Simple as that.


I'd love to see olde games get the overhaul.
Ghosts 'n' Goblins and the sequel Ghouls 'n' Ghosts.


Make it a cross between LOTR, Warcraft and Game of Thrones in aesthetic... using the time-tested kidnapped Princess story.
Lace it with comedy, not slapstick or goofball stuff, but humour.
There's also room for expansion with the stories with the Maximo and Demon's Quest spinoffs too.

Re: Video Game Movies
 

One video game that might be able to be adapated into a comedy movie, is Toilet Tycoon maybe.

I like the Real Player One Movie.

Re: Video Game Movies
 

The paradox with videogame movies is that games are meant to be actively played rather than passively watched so most of them don't have particularly deep plots in the first place (and the ones that don't tend to have extremely dense plots that are difficult - if not impossible - to adapt to film), meaning that most of the time filmmakers have to make up new ones for better or worse (e.g. the Doom movie ripping off Aliens because a group of space marines is more engaging than a single one who never talks). Conversely, adaptations that pride themselves on being faithful to their source run the risk of getting too caught up in that commitment and struggling to actually make the games' plots work (e.g. Assassin's Creed leaning into the game's framing device more than it needs to). The reason Mortal Kombat is often cited as the best is because the original game already had the very simple plot of "Enter the Dragon but magic" so there was very little room to go wrong with it.

That being said, I do think that Super Mario Bros. and the Resident Evil movies work because of how they go wild with their adaptations - the former realises how silly it is to try to make a live-action Mario movie while the latter is just Paul W.S. Anderson doing his own variations on the zombie movie that also show an awareness of the videogame movie's limitations (one of the movies even takes place in a secret lab with a bunch of stock locations to simulate the arbitrary nature of level-by-level progress). As for the idea that videogame movies do just seem like mediocre movies with game brands slapped on them is that the games that were already imitating movies in the first place tend to be the worst hit. What really made Max Payne stand out as a game was how it turned The Matrix's bullet-time effect into an actual gameplay mechanic all the way back in 2001, a mere two years after The Matrix came out. Meanwhile, the Max Payne movie came out in 2008 (almost a decade later) and just looked like every other Matrix wannabe out there.

Regarding which game I think would make for a good movie - hard to say for all the reasons outlined above (and without cheating by saying I'd be interesting in seeing Gore Verbinski finally get to make his own version of BioShock) because you have to think about why it would make for a good movie. The last title I had this thought about was Shadow Man, which would arguably play as a voodoo version of Constantine.

The first RE is a personal guilty pleasure of mine also. I don't much care at all for anything that followed, but that first one was pretty fun IMO.

I might disagree here. I mean, running around a world full of demons in heart-patterned boxers just kind of screams goofball stuff! ;) I can see it playing out like a high production of Army of Darkness, or something. I'd get a kick out of that. I do think that would be a good, fun movie. Loved that game so much as a kid!

:D

Re: Video Game Movies
 

Would anyone like to see them try Super Mario Bros again?

Re: Video Game Movies
 

Not really. I think that Super Mario Bros. is just one that doesn't translate well into a movie, unless we can be proven wrong.

Re: Video Game Movies
 

what about the mass effect trilogy ?

Re: Video Game Movies
 

Oh!
One my favourite games of all time... Tenchu.
Stealth Assassins
Birth Of The Stealth Assassins
Wrath Of Heaven


The rest of the games were kinda crap though.



Ninja movies have always been hokey at best, but sticking a decent director at the helm of the Tenchu stories might actually pay off.

Re: Video Game Movies
 

Would Wreck it Ralph qualify as a video game movie, if so that is the best I have seen till date. Truly came of nowhere in the early 2010s.

Re: Video Game Movies
 

What defines a "video game movie" to me is that it has to be a direct adaptation of an actual video game that takes place entirely within the world of the game. Wreck-It Ralph or Ready Player One are not only based on fictional video games but they also establish a world outside that of the video games themselves.

Re: Video Game Movies
 

Another video game movie which had a lot of fans at the time was Silent Hill (2006), and I thought it was well made until the last act, which I didn't like, but is that a good one with most people?

Agreed

Heard a lot of people say that its really good,we'll have to check it out.

I re-watched Silent Hill last year and I can definitely see how you can make the case for it being one of the better video game movies out there (if not the best) - it's faithful to the games while being aware of how to provide a satisfactory horror movie (which also meant that it distinguished itself from other game movies being action-oriented, even Resident Evil). That being said, it still has its fair share of flaws - the most prominent one being the studio-mandated sub-plot for Sean Bean's character to make up for the fact that the film's principal characters are predominantly female (especially the ones who are actively involved with the supernatural events in Silent Hill as opposed to Bean being on the sidelines for the entire film).

Re: Video Game Movies
 

I never played the Silent Hill game to compare, but I liked the movie up until near the end, where they had to give an explanation as to why the town was haunted, and I felt that the explanation just didn't add up, and left me with more questions. I felt maybe it would have been better, if they just didn't explain it maybe instead. But was that explanation twist, also in the game?