Video games can sometimes be hard to define as just “games”. By this, I mean that in certain titles, and even certain genres, the stories and characters that inhabit these titles are so rich, that they’re more like movies with playable elements. Some cutscenes in video games are as fondly remembered as classic movie moments. The spectacle of some games are easily on par, or in some cases far exceed, those of summer movie blockbusters.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise at times when large movie studios decide to make live-action, or CGI adaptations of classic video games. In theory, they would work, and work. In practice? Not so much.
Hollywood and the video game industry don’t work as well as one might hope. There have been numerous video game movies over the decades. Some have succeeded, some have done decently, but a majority have bombed. One in particular (I’m pretty sure you know which I speak of…) is so bad it’s considered one of the worst movies of all time. Period.
Yet, Hollywood doesn’t seem to mind more games are being picked up for the big screen. Just the other day, it was announced that a Monster Hunter movie would come out, and a CGI take on the original Resident Evil game would be made. Add this to the Pokemon movies that are allegedly going to happen, and it’s clear Hollywood won’t be stopping any time soon. But…shouldn’t they?
The Problem With Transition
If there is a one key element to note when it comes to taking video games and making them into movies, it’s this. Things will get lost in transition. Why? Because movies have a time limit, where games (in theory) do not. At most, and this is the long end of the spectrum, movies have maybe 3 hours (Lord of the Rings for example) to tell their whole story. Whereas games can go as long as they developers feel they should.
Because of this, it’s often times hard to crunch down parts of games and make it movie worthy. Yes, you’d think it’d be as simple as “take out the gameplay, leave the rest” and maybe added an extra scene or two, but it’s not that scene.
A great example of this is the recent Ratchet & Clank movie. This film had all the makings of success. It was a popular franchise, it was CGI like the games, but better looking in many ways. It would be friendly for all ages, and they even had the voice actors from the games to help cement the feel of the games.
The problem? They tried to condense the story in such a way that many were confused about what the characters were doing. Even diehard fans were wondering how they got from one scene to another. Or worse, the characters didn’t act like themselves at times.
While video games can build up story and scenes over time, movies don’t. The moment the credits roll, the countdown has begun. Yet Hollywood keeps trying to cram these massive games into a few hours, it doesn’t work, not very often.
What Works On The Big Screen?
The other thing video games have over movies is a massive array of diversity. By this I mean there are genres, subgenres, 2D style, 3D style, etc. This hasn’t changed in decades. Movies? Not so much. In fact, there was a survey done this year about how the movie market has changed. Many of the top films nowadays are massive action blockbusters, or superhero films. But if you look at games, it’s a much wider net.
What does this have to do with anything? Well, the game you pick to make a movie of will affect the potential audience you’re trying to reach. This is another reason for a lot of failures. Easily the biggest success long term for video game movies is the Resident Evil series. Which has had six live-action movies, all starring the same character, and is set to have one more to wrap it all up. Zombies, villains, Milla Jovovich, it’s not hard to see it working on the big screen. Tomb Raider was another big success. It was simple action, storytelling, had Angelina Jolie. That’s a win.
Now let’s look at others. Prince of Persia. Did decent, had a good actor as the Prince. Result? No sequel. Warcraft. HUGE fanbase, massive fantasy world like LOTR or other films, did massive profit wise overseas. But in the US? Not so much, and if there is a sequel, it will likely be made only for China.
How about Angry Birds? It did pretty well considering, was a big hit with kids, and even developed the story more than the games ever did. But…it’s unclear about a sequel because it didn’t do “as well” as maybe some expected it too. Also, pretty much every review said it was “too long” and that the best part of the film was unsurprisingly, when the birds attacked the pigs like in the game.
The freedom that games have on consoles, handhelds, and PC is that they can do whatever they want to try and make the games work. They can spend time on stories, refine gameplay, make the people feel involved. But while that works on a TV or computer screen, it doesn’t mean it’ll work on the big screen. Some games just can’t translate in a good way, and we get bad movies because of that.
Many are worried about the upcoming Assassin’s Creed film for that reason. Though it has all the makings of a Hollywood hit, it’s not that simple when you consider the context of the games. Time will tell, but viewers have now grown very weary of anything video game related in movies.
Scars Of The Past
Which of course is another big thing. Hollywood has tried for YEARS to make video games profitable in movies, but it rarely ever works. While that doesn’t make Hollywood gun shy for trying, it does make viewers gun shy for watching.
If I say Super Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Dead or Alive in the context of video games, you’ll often get a positive reaction. But, if I say them in the context of movies, you’ll often get dry heaves, hissing sounds, rants.
These are but a few of the massively unpopular video game movies that Hollywood has made. Now to be fair, the first Mortal Kombat movie was viewed very popular, but its sequel was an abomination. Street Fighter can’t even say that. It had two chances at Hollywood glory, and failed miserably both times. And Mario Bros? Yeah…the less said about that the better.
Point is, that with every bad video game movie, fans get more and more angry. Because we LOVE these game franchises more often than not, we don’t want to see them ruined on the big screen. And yet, Hollywood keeps making them.
This of course isn’t even mentioning all the video game movies that almost got made into Hollywood films but fizzled out along the way. To many, that was a blessing.
Know Thy Limits Hollywood
Is it impossible to make a good video game movie? Of course not. They have made good ones before. But, like I’ve noted, it’s a very low success rate. And even the ones that have decent success aren’t exactly good movies. They just made some money. More often than naught, they fail, and cost studios lots of money, and given viewers very bad memories.
So please Hollywood, take it from the fans, the people you’re trying to appeal to. Know thy limits. Either make the movie as true to the games as possible, with story, characters, and action. Or don’t do it at all. We’ve suffered enough.
