Video games and Hollywood or: How I Learned to Stop Caring and Ignore the Garbage

Let me start off by saying two things: 1) I love movies. 2) My love for movies is overshadowed only by my love for video games. It's borderline addiction, and as Andy can tell you, sometimes I scare people when talking about them. So when I was looking at Andy's post on re-inventing the Mortal Kombat movies, it struck me - has there ever been a movie based off a video game that has actually been good? Most of you know the answer already: no, there hasn't. Not one. Sure, some may be seen as mildly entertaining fare, like the first Resident Evil and the Tomb Raider films, but there hasn't been one that I've seen that really captures the spirit of the game and leaves me with a lasting impression (nausea doesn't count). Here's the real question, though... Why is that?

Video games, particularly ones popular enough to have treatments made for them, typically have a plot already set up. Sure, most of them are fairly straightforward, Point A-to-Point B, good-vs-evil standard fare, but in modern games, it is not uncommon to see intriguing subplots, great character development, and fantastic worlds that just beg to be translated pixel-by-pixel to the silver screen. However, the more I think about it, the more I begin to understand the difficulties that could arise.

First, sometimes the games, mainly the old ones that you used to play on your NES or Sega Genesis, didn't have much of a backstory (or if it did, it was largely forgettable). So, Hollywood writers were forced to explain things that were simply taken for granted by gamers. Most of the time, their explanations were so obtuse that you wondered exactly how strong their ganja was. So what ended up happening was that the movie alienated the masses who just didn't understand what was going on, but it also alienated the hardcore fans by changing things around to the point where it became a shadow of the game it was supposed to honor. Movies like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and the unbelievably abysmal Super Mario Bros. all fall into this category. Indeed, even today, there are a few unnecessary tweaks in the adaptations that have frustrated many gamers - Hitman, for example, changed much of the back-story for its main character, Agent 47, and also made him, dare I say, somewhat less plausible. I always thought a contract killer was supposed to be stealthy, but hey, if you want to blow up everything in your path, more power to you, I guess.

Then there are the adaptations that just try to suck the money out of your wallet. These, like BloodRayne, House of the Dead, and Alone in the Dark, are poorly written, poorly produced, pieces of garbage (and wouldn't you know it, they were all directed by Uwe Boll!). Funny, if I didn't know any better, I'd think Mr. Boll was intentionally making horrible gaming movies just so he can make a bunch of cash off of kids who don't know any better. Word to the wise, folks - if you see Uwe Boll's name attached to a movie, run. Run far, far away. If you've been playing too many video games and can't run for an extended period of time, call a cab. The important thing is that you distance yourself from the unholy black essence of said abomination.

However, in my opinion, the one fatal flaw in game-based movies is the one thing that will probably never be translated from your XBox to the big screen: interactivity. The whole fun of video games is that you get to live vicariously through the hero. To play as Master Chief, or Link, or Mario, or hundreds of other characters, offers an escape from reality, but one which is completely dependent upon your actions and control. Therefore, the hero in the game becomes an extension of yourself, and so even though the game's the same for everyone, the characters and stories have a slightly different resonance for each individual player. That's the biggest obstacle to overcome - even if the studio manages to line up a solid cast and script, it may still be difficult to get the audience to buy into the story, because they're not the ones telling it. I will give the makers of Doom credit for the five-minute, first-person-view segment in an attempt to re-create the experience, but it's not the same. It can't be the same. The visceral experience of controlling the hero in a game just cannot be reproduced by a cast of actors.

So, if that's the case, it is possible to make a good movie based on a game? I think it still is. Getting feedback from gamers would certainly help the writers and directors get a feel for the tone and style of the story and setting, and if you fail to follow the plot of the game, you should still be able to place a new plot in the same universe without having to make drastic changes to the characters or the backstory. The game developers manage to do it all the time; surely the Hollywood writers can do the same. The source material is often pretty good... there's little need to mess with the formula. As I said, it's not possible to perfectly re-create the video game on film, but as long as the spirit of the game is honored and maintained, the gaming audience should be satisfied. God knows they haven't been very satisfied so far.

Will Hollywood actually get the message? Who knows? But with production for movies based on Spy Hunter, Castlevania, Postal, and even The Sims (your guess is as good as mine) underway, as well as rumors about Halo, Splinter Cell, and Max Payne (not to mention the scores of other games that deserve a movie), we'll have plenty of opportunities over the coming years to see if they can get it right.

This gamer is keeping his fingers crossed.