Why it is so hard to make a good video game movie?

[QuantumSingularity]

Well guys, i just watched Resident Evil: Welcome To Racoon City and the most i can give it is 3/10. Which got me thinking - why it is so hard for the directors to do a proper game-based movie. Talk smack all you want about W.S Anderson's movies, but they followed a clear story and the first movie is one of the best Sci-Fi horrors ever made. The atmosphere of it is still spinetingling. Even the so hated Doom movie wasn't bad at all (i really have no idea what people have against it).

Unfortunately those are just 2 drops in a see of disappointment. Why when tasked with adapting a game to the big screen it is so hard, when there is tones of lore to explore and represent?

I feel like if there was a Half-L:ife movie, Morgan Freeman would be driving his car to Black Mesa, not taking the monorail, not jumping into his hasmat suit and aliens appear while he eats his burger in the dining hall. And jsut to be in touch with the times, he'd be clean shaven, fighting global warming. 

[TetraSky]

It's all because the directors, writers and others like them, all want to put in their own "creative vision" instead of taking wholesale the entire thing that's already written and choregraphed in the game.

All because they feel like they have something to prove... even though nobody ask them that.

This result is shlt most of the time, because it deviate so much from the original that the fans don't like it and doesn't explain things enough for non-fans to get into it.

 

Also doesn't help when they've obviously never touched the source material save for maybe some youtube clips for inspiration.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Part of it is simply going into it with expectations already set for basically all aspects. People who watch films based on books that they've read often have the same reaction, while those who haven't seen/played the source material often enjoy the film a lot more. 

 

There's also the fact that a lot of them have just been complete trash, but not all. Certain liberties do have to be taken as not all things translate well from gameplay to film. 

[Radium_Angel]

12 minutes ago, QuantumSingularity said:

when there is tones of lore to explore and represent?

Dear Originial Poster.

Please go to YouTube and search for the talk that Kevin Smith gave on the time he was asked to write a Superman script.

I assure you, it is both worth your time and will explain everything on why Hollywood can't make movies. 

[IPD]

If you watch a "making of" on the Super Mario Bros movie, you will pretty much know all you need to know about why these movies typically are spectacular duds.

 

There's a lot to be said for the thin line between fans and non-fans.  Disney Star Wars failed to navigate this line.  Uwe Boll tends to make shite movies as well--and he's had a hand in many a stinker.  I had high hopes for Postal--and was unsurprised at the crap result (although, to be fair, the Postal 2 source material isn't a rich tapestry to draw from in the first place).  Mortal Kombat (1995) was probably the best of all in the genre, but the soundtrack had a lot to do with that as well.

 

I see it as a 2 way street, as games based off movie franchises usually are duds as well (Goldeneye N64 being a notable exception).  I would venture a guess that a story that plays out well on screen doesn't necessarily play out well in a game, and vice versa.  Even TV shows don't translate well to the big screen--which is why the 4 TNG movies all sucked compared to the series.  ST:TMP would have made a great TV episode (or 2 parter) but felt plodding in the theater.

 

The only good way to make a game off a movie or a movie off a game--is to be deeply entrenched into the sets/lore/geography/characters that make the source material as appealing as it is.  Rare did this with goldeneye by studying the movie sets and trying to recreate them accurately; objectives were an afterthought and shoehorned in afterward.

 

On the other hand, you have stuff like Warcraft--that would have been best served to start with an origin story...rather than diving into the deep end of "Orcs Vs. Humans".

 

And yes, there's a lot to be said for appropriate creative license.  Super Mario Bros shows what can happen with bad artistic license.  Deadpool shows what happens when you have good artistic license.  Mandalorian is another good example.  But execs are butthole pucker factor 9000 over messing up their "license", so they really get persnickity when it's a big budget affair.  That means rule by committee--and that destroys the product (eg. star wars episode 7-9).  Meanwhile, when it's a license that few care about and most have written off--you can have the smash success of an R-rated marvel superhero movie because you let a singular, talented person with a deep emotional concern for honoring the source material--to run the show.

[LogicalDrm]

Video game stories, just like most books, don't translate that well into classic movie format. The movies can be good, if they understand to just take basics of story or get inspired by the world created. There are couple of movies based on games which I think are watchable. Maybe not as good as they could be, but not really, really bad either.

 

The first Super Mario Bros is one of them. Loosely tied to games, its action comedy style. First Mortal Combat is also pretty ok. That one lacks in story, and tries to rely combat scenes more. Acting is bad, but overall its way better than live-action Tekken. From where we can jump to animated Tekken. Similar to Mortal Combat, but imo storytelling works bit better. Next up Max Payne. As action flick, it works. Don't expect more and you are all good. My favorite is Prince of Persia. I haven't played any of the games which might help. Its very nicely working action-fantasy film. It set quite high hopes for Assasins Creed movie which was flop imo in comparison.

[RageTester]

Comedies with elements from games can work, like Pixels 2015.

I find most video games themselves trashy, movies based on them would insta put me to sleep.

 

[Heliian]

The movie had a budget of 25 million but most of that series is pretty bad. 

 

Google gives 5.2/10. I have not seen it. 

 

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

The easiest answer is because most video game stories are just terribly written and you just don't notice because you're having fun with the gameplay. Most games barely have a plot at all and if they do, there's little to no actual development of said plot between all the gameplay going on. If you really think about the stories that the games you play tell, the motivations of the characters and the events they go through, there's often not a lot there. And if there is, it's usually nicked from movies to begin with, so it'd make little sense to make an inferior copy of something that already exists.

 

And lore isn't what makes a story great. Lore is what makes it easy for nerds to catalog stuff. But the Lord of the Rings isn't great because of all the ancillary stuff, it's great because it's a good story with well developed characters. Games usually don't do that. And if they do, they're usually light on spectacle or gameplay, which in turn makes them less appealing for adaptation because they tend to not be blockbusters that move a lot of copies that execs expect will turn into ticket sales, or they're overwrought to the point of parody which wouldn't translate well either.

 

I mean take something like Grand Theft Auto V. If you remove all the gameplay, what remains is a pretty bland little crime story filled with cliché characters that often lack any and all motivation to be doing what they're doing. Franklin has absolutely no business doing what he does in this game at all. He has no motivation and actively complains about doing anything the missions have him do. Trevor is just a deranged player-insert character. And ironically, he's not as despicable as he needs to be in this role, because of his forced dramatic backstory that feels like the author thought it would serve as a reasonable justification for his love of mayhem and insanity, which it really doesn't. Michael is probably the most well-rounded of the characters, but this isn't used to have him go through an actual arc and his initial motivation is nonsensical. He's mostly just the butt of jokes. These characters are not written to express something through the story or the gameplay, and Rockstar are clearly at odds with themselves between wanting to write meaningful stories filled with gravitas and failing so but still also have the satirical elements from earlier games in there that made it popular in the first place.

 

The second answer is that adapting a video game essentially removes one dimension of the work you're adapting. With a book, you're adding a dimension, which is visuals. You can tell the same story and convey the same experience fairly easily. The only aspect that typically poses any trouble is fitting a novel that takes 10-20 hours to read into a 2 hour movie. Even with the many aspects films can shorten, like lengthy descriptions of scenery that can be conveyed in the blink of an eye, stuff like action typically gets more screen time than words on a page. That's why short story adaptations usually fare the best, because they don't have to deal with the time constraints as much without having the pacing start to suffer. But with video games, you're removing the interactivity. And often that's a big part of the storytelling experience of video games. Not in your mindless shooter maybe - which also wouldn't make for great cinema - but there are games that try to be about something and explore meaning through gameplay. That's probably the biggest reason why I feel that a Bioshock movie based on the Rapture setting would never work. One of the best parts about that game is intrinsically linked to the fact that it's interactive.

[William Payne]

I think if the right director/producer did it the METAL GEAR series could work. 

[LAwLz]

10 hours ago, TetraSky said:

It's all because the directors, writers and others like them, all want to put in their own "creative vision" instead of taking wholesale the entire thing that's already written and choregraphed in the game.

All because they feel like they have something to prove... even though nobody ask them that.

This result is shlt most of the time, because it deviate so much from the original that the fans don't like it and doesn't explain things enough for non-fans to get into it.

 

Also doesn't help when they've obviously never touched the source material save for maybe some youtube clips for inspiration.

It's not about people wanting to put their own "creative vision" on the project, or aren't familiar with the source material. You just can't copy a game 1:1 and believe it will work as a movie.

 

 

 

16 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

-snip-

Very well said.

Games are typically terribly written and as a result doesn't work as movies. But even if they were well written, it's still not that likely that the story would adapt well to a movie. Movies needs a certain structure to be comprehendible and engaging. 

Then we have the issue of removing a dimension as you said. What might be fun to play might not be fun to watch.

Then we have the issue of time. Try cramming 20 hours of gameplay into a 2 hour movie without making some changes. It won't happen.

 

 

Another issue that hasn't been brought up yet is that a lot of video game movies are not exactly passion projects. They are made because the people involved knows that fans of the game will go and watch it just because of the name, and as a result it doesn't really matter how good it is, they will get their money anyway. 

[Arika]

I'm still pissed that they took something as great as Monster Hunter, something that they could have EASILY made a great movie out of, and essentially turned it into an extremely shitty isekai.

[rrats]

Video games are hardest mediums to transfer into a feature film. Easiest are concept albums, comic books / manga, and television shows.

[Spindel]

13 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Part of it is simply going into it with expectations already set for basically all aspects. People who watch films based on books that they've read often have the same reaction, while those who haven't seen/played the source material often enjoy the film a lot more. 

Yeah...no!

 

Even video game based movies of games I have not played are complete trash. 

 

The one that stands out, that is based on a video game IP but not on an actual game, that I actually enjoyed it would be Detective Pikatchu. 

[maplepants]

I think it's actually the same problem that musical movies suffer: directors don't want to just accept the conceits of the genre. Musicals, like games, have a bunch of standard story telling grammar that make the genre work. When moving mediums you have change some of that grammar, but in order to make the right choices you probably need to be a fan of the genre.

 

So the reason that the Resident Evil movie sucks is the same reason the Les Mis movie sucks: the creative leads just don't share the love for the original medium that the audience has. 

[Spindel]

16 minutes ago, maplepants said:

I think it's actually the same problem that musical movies suffer: directors don't want to just accept the conceits of the genre. Musicals, like games, have a bunch of standard story telling grammar that make the genre work. When moving mediums you have change some of that grammar, but in order to make the right choices you probably need to be a fan of the genre.

In my opinion you are beating down the right track but not fully committing to the thought. The reason is much simpler, but really controversial in gaming forums and tech forums. 

 

The reason is that the "story" in games, all games, sucks. Even the best story in a video game is still sub par compared to a mediocre book. 

 

Many gamers tend to have this lofty idea with games are "art" that it somehow has to do with story and narrative and that is just wrong. The art in games come from visual presentation (and thus get truly lost in a lot of "realistic looking" games), to some degree world building and mainly game play/mechanics. 

 

Games are just that, games. And good games are driven by good game play mechanics not convoluted tries to make a paper thin story deep. And this is why most movies suck because the source material is paper thin on the story front and game play can't be translated to a good movie. 

 

More game developers and gamers need to take this, now 25 year old, John Carmack quote to heart:

Quote

Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.

 

[GeorgeMKane]

As @LogicalDrmput it, stories from video games don't translate well into movies too often.

 

I remember being excited for both the Prince of Persia and the Assassin's Creed films. I am a huge Assassin's Creed fan, but I feel like they should have kept the AC film animated. They could have done more, and while the story was okay, I felt that the usual action & stealth mix from the games wasn't used very well. I feel like they would have been better off doing a Netflix Assassin's Creed series, rather than one film.

 

Prince of Persia on the other hand did a lot right, and was able to take elements from the games and bring them into the films very well. I was actually hoping they would have announced a sequel, but I don't think that's planned anymore. I think Gyllenhaal said that during/after filming, that he shouldn't have accepted the role, which was fair. I thought he was good actually, but I think the filmmakers only went with him to get that name on the cover (as usual), to sell the movie.

 

Video game companies should focus more on getting shows made, and put on like HBO MAX or Netflix. They'll do better, and give the teams more time to work on the projects.

[wseaton]

Anybody claiming games don't have good stories havent played Homeworld or Bioshock. Both are richer in terms of storyline and narrative than most movies I've seen. I consider both good stories adapted into video games.

 

The problem with video game adoptions is everybody knows the story. You also have the obligatory fan service. Why watch a movie if you know how it ends.

 

So, you need a script writer that can take the original storyline and mix it up so that its unique and yet familiar. Not impossible, but difficult.

 

Half Life would be ideal for live action series because its open ended enough to give a lot of room for a good script writer to flex some creativity and has a good world building. For instance, make it a series and for each episode have a different actor play Gordon Freeman. 

 

Somewhere on YouTube there's a live action short of Portal that is excellent. Proof that translation to live action can work if you keep studio execs from messing it up.

 

 

[Giganthrax]

They're different mediums with different storytelling needs. For example, a game like Doom is literally impossible to translate into a decent movie becasue what makes Doom great as a video game simply wouldn't work in a movie without major changes, at which point it would no longer be Doom. Same goes for Hitman, Super Mario, and other games that focus primarily on gameplay. 

 

On the other hand, games like Uncharted, Last of Us, Tomb Raider, God of War 4, etc. would all easily translate into a movie because their developers have a hard-on for Hollywood and are basically making an interactive movie anyway. The problem is that most of these games were heavily inspired by classic Hollywood films (eg. Uncharted & Tomb Raider = Indiana Jones) so their stories would make for very cliched films, which is why the directors attempt to change things a lot, which rarely ends well. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

16 hours ago, IPD said:

 

I see it as a 2 way street, as games based off movie franchises usually are duds as well (Goldeneye N64 being a notable exception).  I would venture a guess that a story that plays out well on screen doesn't necessarily play out well in a game, and vice versa.  Even TV shows don't translate well to the big screen--which is why the 4 TNG movies all sucked compared to the series.  ST:TMP would have made a great TV episode (or 2 parter) but felt plodding in the theater

There are other good movie games, 

but o take offense to what you said about the tbh movies.

Nemisis, insurrection , and first contact are great

[maplepants]

10 minutes ago, Spindel said:

The reason is that the "story" in games, all games, sucks. Even the best story in a video game is still sub par compared to a mediocre book. 

 

Many gamers tend to have this lofty idea with games are "art" that it somehow has to do with story and narrative and that is just wrong. The art in games come from visual presentation (and thus get truly lost in a lot of "realistic looking" games), to some degree world building and mainly game play/mechanics. 

 

Games are just that, games. And good games are driven by good game play mechanics not convoluted tries to make a paper thin story deep. And this is why most movies suck because the source material is paper thin on the story front and game play can't be translated to a good movie. 

Most games have very bad stories, but I disagree that having a bad story is inevitable for games.

 

Fallout: New Vegas, Stardew Valley, Firewatch, Grim Dawn, the Stanley Parable, Papers Please, and Wolfenstein: The New Order all had stories that I quite enjoyed. There are also many games where you build your own story, like Minecraft, the NHL games and Civilization.

 

For me, the example of musicals works here too. In a good musical like the Lion King story and songs happen together and go well together. So it is for gameplay and narrative in good games like Fallout: New Vegas. In a bad musical like Dear Even Hanson the story pauses for the songs. It's the same for bad narrative games like Call of Duty. You only get story beats exclusively during cut scenes and so the game is divided into the gameplay parts and the story parts separated like oil and water. 

 

I think a movie adaptation of a good story heavy game could be done as long as it's something with a good story and is done by a creative team that played and loved the game.

[Spindel]

2 hours ago, wseaton said:

The problem with video game adoptions is everybody knows the story. You also have the obligatory fan service. Why watch a movie if you know how it ends.

This is a nonsense argument. 

 

It's not like video games exist in some kind of vacuum being the only ones that people know the story before hand. It's like movies based on books (and comics in later years) don't exist.  

 

Actually a lot of posts in this thread (and similar posts on video game boards) reeks of people not reading books (or comics for that matter). 

 

[tkitch]

Because not every movie can have a First Person scene of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, running through a decrepit mars base, with a chainsaw!

 

(Kidding that was terrible, but SO MUCH FUN)

 

Translating something from one media to another is /HARD/.  

See Lord of the Rings:  One of the best movie adaptations of a book ever made, but still had serious criticisms for changes and large chunks that were just skipped.

 

Also See:  The Hobbit:  holy SHIT was that movie trilogy panned for being terrible.  

[Spindel]

7 minutes ago, tkitch said:

See Lord of the Rings:  One of the best movie adaptations of a book ever made, but still had serious criticisms for changes and large chunks that were just skipped.

It was a good adaptation because it cut out a lot of crap that actually didn't drive the story onwards  

But to call it one of the best adaptations of a book ever made really is a stretch. 

9 minutes ago, tkitch said:

Also See:  The Hobbit:  holy SHIT was that movie trilogy panned for being terrible.  

It is a bad adaptation for the exact opposite reason LotR was a good adaptation, it filled out the story (a kids story at that) with a lot of crap that didn't drive the story onwards.  

[IPD]

8 hours ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

There are other good movie games, 

but o take offense to what you said about the tbh movies.

Nemisis, insurrection , and first contact are great

The issue with the TNG movies is that they took everything that was good, engaging and meaningful from 7 seasons of the show--and promptly discarded it for the big screen.  Picard stopped being a cultured diplomat and became a gunslinger.  12,000 year old Kurlan Neiscos that Picard himself described as "priceless"?  Junk, according to Picard at the end of Generations.  Creation of the Borg Cooperative and the potential for disconnected drones (like Hugh)?  Negative, kill them all--according to Picard in First Contact.

 

The list goes on from there.  They are entertaining pieces of cinema.  They might even potentially deserve to wear the Trek moniker.  But they aren't the TNG crew.  They're shallow and wanting.  And unless you count Trek (2009), there hasn't been a truly good Trek movie since ST:VI.  And 2009 wasn't so much "great" as it simply took every trope about the TOS cast and turned it up to 11.  Unsurprising, since this is JJ "lensflare" Abrams--and he did pretty much the same thing with The Force Awakens.