Friday, August 3, 2012

Episode 73: "The Return" (aka "Going Hollywood")

Update: I am informed that the ability to post comments at ScrewAttack should be restored sometime Saturday morning. Stay tuned.

The OverThinker finally gives in and offers up the obligatory "what's wrong with video-game movies" episode; along with a quick-and-easy "jumping on" point for new fans and longtime viewers alike. Full episode (and semi-spoilers) after the jump:




Yup. Surprise ending. Not a dream. Not an imaginary tale. But if you think you know where it's going... you don't ;)

56 comments:

ScrewAttackSamus said...

Actually I think we'd also be better off if we also stop trying to adapt games to only LIVE-ACTION. I actually think Mario would do better as a Dreamworks or a Pixar movie instead of live-action. Also, we could stop trying movies altogether and go to televised series. I think Zelda could work better as an animated series. Heck, Nintendo Power had a GREAT comic series for Link to the Past done by manga/anime legend (and Kamen Rider creator) Shotaro Ishinomori. Mega Man is the same way.

Metroid could work a little better as a live-action film, but you'd have to amp up characters from villains to even outright adding side characters.

Jacob said...

Personally I'm glad with the ending, but I'm going to wait and see how long till angry comments will crop up. I'll say three more minutes. Well either way I still don't see much of a point with video games to movies. Sure they might be cool and introduce people to the games or even be good. But other than live action and no need to interact what are you going to get out of it other than a shorter experience. Maybe it's my lack of knowledge with film, but awesome movies based on games doesn't feel like a good idea. comic books to film have the show the characters in a self contained setting in short bursts with moving pictures. Video games are already mostly self contained and if they sequel bait the movies would too. Movies to games could be used to expand the world and characters (in theory), but the other wouldn't work that way because of the shorter length. Maybe I'm just spouting nonsense, but making good movies off games seems kinda pointless.

Wes said...

*facepalm* I can't believe I didn't get that Ivan thing before, Jesus. And wow Bob, I'll admit I was a skeptic about the Super Mario movie, but it sounds like you've got it down.

Soooo, when does your production on the fanfilm start? :)

Wes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

One Winged Angel should never go with "WHAT UP CHIEF, I'M BACK." No. Thats a bad Bob!

Legal said...

@Anonymous Actually, if I can think of the poster-child for underthinking when it comes to jrpgs, I'd pick FF7. I thought it was a perfect choice for The Underthinkers return.

Arturo said...

OK, seriously, that pitch for Castlevania would KILL!! As for who gets to play Simon Belmont...
Chris Hemsworth? Probably too easy. I'm still thinking who should be Dracula.
The more I think about it, the more I think Zelda and Metroid should both be animated series. THAT BEING SAID, unlike that old Zelda cartoon from the 80's, we need something that takes itself a bit more seriously. Here's my idea:
you guys remember Samurai Jack? Yeah, how about they just do THAT for Zelda and Metroid?
As for Mario, a movie would definitely do, but in order for the visual asthetic to be as close to the game as possible, it would have to be animated. I mean, Bowser pretty much looked PERFECT in the Wreck-It Ralph trailer. I want to see an entire Mario movie like that.

Legal said...

That Metroid pitch would be killer. A little exposition from Samus at the very beginning, some banter whenever she runs into Ridley, Mother Brain, maybe a couple more. A few extended, scenes of action, exploration, and silent introspection. Ends with a sequence of Samus escaping from Zebes or SR388, her talking over it with a little bit of epilogue. Masterpiece.

Omorka said...

Adaptation from one medium into another always causes problems.

Case in point: novels are too long to make good movies, with only a few exceptions. The appropriate length for a written work for the whole thing to become a screenplay is roughly long novelette/short novella length. But there aren't that many venues to publish novelettes and novellas - I personally only ever run into them in SF anthology magazines. So any adaptation of a full length novel into a movie involves a lot of cutting and condensing. (In the opposite direction, writing a movie novelization requires adding a lot, usually but not always backstory and characterization.)

A game that only takes as long as a movie would be labelled a ripoff, and rightly so. Between that and the interactive nature of games as opposed to movies, a lot of any gaming experience has to be cut to make it a film. Even something like Star Control II, where there is a story, at least parts of it have to be done linearly, and the roster of characters is limited, would be Peter-Jackson-esque trilogies, not a single film. (Not saying I still wouldn't love to see it, mind.)

Ultimately, I think it's a problem of scale and complexity. There's only so much you can pack into a movie, whereas more immersive media are more resistant to limitations of interest and attention span. I'd make a comparison between a tournament tabletop RPG round and a long-running campaign (the first being more film-like, the second being more like a novel or even series of novels), but I'm not sure how many tabletoppers we have here.

I'm tempted to ask whether you found the Anti-Thinker costume during the move and decided to give it one more spin, but I'll refrain. Instead, let me just hope he gets a bit more actual character development this time around!

Anonymous said...

I know the one person that could actually give us the best video game movie. Uwe Boll. Seriously. Giving him the right script, producers and a good team he would actually probably make a great Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty movie. If anyone actually watched his movies, you can see that Uwe Boll has an eye for action and atmosphere during these scenes. I really wish this could happen. Boll's problem is that he has little motivation and he has some problems with story and structure. But that would be fixed if he had a dream team for the movie and actual backing from a studio. This probably sounds crazy, but I have seen almost all of his movies and I have seen him make good movies.

Shark said...

@Legal

"Golbez Clad in Dark" would've worked with the Anti Thinker's return. "One Winged Angel" seems just over the top, and just doesn't fit with the character.

Botman said...

Well, once again, I see you have failed to address one of the main problems I have with the stories: you continue to make no effort to separate that Game Overthinker character from Bob Chipman, the person. You even have your "character" refer to himself as a movie critic. It just lends legitimacy to the complaints that I and others have made that the stories are nothing but an ego fueled vision of an idealized Mary-Sue version of yourself fighting your brother in ninja outfits.

Also, you have said that when you created the Antithinker, it was not intended to be a derogatory stereotype of people who enjoy games that you hate. I will be watching the next arc with morbid interest to see whether or not that statement was a lie that you told after the fact to save face.

Sabre said...

As already mentioned, I think the obsession with making things live action is one of the biggest flaws. Why have a Mario or Megaman film full of bad puppets and CGI when you could animate it?

I'd also question if making a generic genre film with a skin of an existing game is worth it. Die Hard with Dracula would just be a so-so Die Hard knock off with Bela Lugosi instead of Alan Rickman.

As for Resident Evil. I'm a RE fan, and while it's easy to say "Oh, RE is just B grade zombie crap." when I think it's A grade zombie crap. :P But that said, I don't really like Silent Hill. As such, the people making the films would have to be fans of the games, because otherwise it would be possible to just glance at something and just assume "Oh, Resident Evil has zombies. Let's make Dawn of the Dead again." or "Megaman has cute Japanese robots, and there's lots of them, let's make a film like Pokemon." and so on.

Sir Laguna said...

About Zelda movies, I'm hoping for the best on this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W7hsDhSCBg

About Anti-Thinker returning... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Anonymous said...

Oh fuck me!

The Avengers again? That's it, this film is officially overrated in my books.

I guess it's the first faithful adaptation in terms of quality stories if you don't count X-Men 2, First Class, or the Nolan batman films.

I guess it's the first aesthetically faithful superhero film if you don't count Raimi's Spider-Man films or....the first major one: Superman The Movie!

Can we please stop pretending The Avengers is the first great and visually accurate superhero film.

Even Bob suggests compromising certain "silly" aspects of the Mario games (warrior plumbers, warp tunnels) by giving them a practical purpose. Yet superhero films do it and it's a crime not rectified till The Avengers? Gimme a break!

Shark said...

@Sabre

It takes a lot of time and money to make a good animated film. The animation has to be fluid, the character designs must be consistent, the script has to be good, the backgrounds need to be detailed and gorgeous, and the you need to find the voice actor who can say the character's line in a way that matches their personality.

Biff said...

To me the issue of movie adaptations comes down to the question of why we care if things get turned into a movie.

As you note in this episode, Bob, half the games you discuss are heavily based upon movies in the first place. Adapting them to movies misses the point. If I want a Double Dragon movie, and Double Dragon is just The Warriors turned into a video game, why can't I just watch The Warriors? What is a movie specifically adapting Double Dragon really going to accomplish that The Warriors didn't, except to use the names of IP from the game?

The only value of, say, a Legend of Zelda movie would be to apply characterization and narrative to a series of games that deliberately and successfully have neither. A movie would tell us what Link is like as a person, and what his relationship is with Zelda. But I submit these are questions the fandom doesn't want answered--at least, not by anyone but themselves. Each fan has their own answers to these questions and will never be satisfied with a Zelda movie made by someone else.

Your suggestion of reversing the formula that turned Tim Burton's Batman into Sunsoft's Batman to produce the perfect Mario movie is specious. There's just too much room for error--one could just as easily use that "reverse engineering" technique to turn Super Mario Bros. into the 1993 movie. So you're brought right back to the same basic dilemma--how do you make sure the movie is good?

awwnuts07 said...

Great episode, Bob. Reminds me your "How to Fix Sonic" entry a while back.

Redd the Sock said...

Penality for illegal use of great music for one note joke character. Okay, given the schtick you do, it makes sense story wise, but he's not badass enough for that song.

OT Some creative thoughts there, though some flaws, mostly in perception of the film. Mario and Double Dragon's cheif failure (beyond horrid scripts) lied in shoehorning a video game's elements into a concept for a different movie. Like that Battleship thing, we get an idea which for good or bad feels like they had this other script lying around, and changed the characters to Billy and Jimmy Lee. Reducing too much from the game back to its generic roots results in less a Zelda movie, than a movie that happens to be named Zelda because 'generic fantasy film" won't move tickets. The reverse engineering thing also needs to be in the hands of someone with a brain as, well, Mario Bros. They slide through frozem pipes. They got magic jumping shoes. Bombs grown on fungus.

The main problem usualy comes down to length. Yeah, Mortal Kombat could have benefitted from a mystical healer (in hindsight, characters getting resurected isn't unprecidented), but it also left a main subplot out. Just about any game story with enough substance to be noteworthy usually is too long for the average film. Metal gear Solid is often requested until yyou time things. Even just the bare essental codec scenes run 2 and a half hours with no time for prologue or action scenes. And yes, half the story is litteraly talking heads. Any Final Fantasy SNES and foreward, way too long.

I actually favor sticking to television for adapting game plots. Budgets have improved and it leaves time for development, exposition, and less need to cut parts out and maybe expand the universe if done properly rather than exploitively. Give Link a couple of sidekicks, send them on the quest in the first two episodes and interchange getting triforce pieces (via the usual character tests) and solving local problems which expand Hyrule's culture. Or Have Metroid only be the piolet for a show about Samus' battles against the Space Pirates.

Just some thoughts.

Anonymous said...

Dear bob,



The Street Fighter games are not all tournaments only 1,2,3, 4 are. Alpha 2,3 (alpha 1 was rebooted as 2) are just people getting into fights. I believe that SF3 Third Strike and SS4 take a year after the events of their respective tournaments and are people just seeing whats changed.

As a Megaman fan, no I do NOT EVER want to see a live action film. I don't care if it is done by/with an asian cast and crew. Or the way you stated. Yes I have heard of eddie lebron's film. No I don't like it at all. What I would like to see as a fan is a animated feature not cgi but traditional animated feature with the style of that movie metropolis, not that silent film from long ago but the animated one based off of the manga of Osamu Tezuka. Or kinda like that Rockman Online trailer they released years ago.

Megabyte said...

Im not so sure Im against the idea of Aliens with Metroids... at least not for step 1.... this is a series that could do well with a trilogy, I think...

1) Aliens with Metroids... standard forumla... keep it simple.

2) Enter into the Prime series with Phazon and the expairiments there in. (Does not have to be exact to the game... since, you know, she could find the outpost some other way then flying away from Zebes after the first game).

3) Source of Phazon... Phaaze (Metroid Prime 3)... maybe give the Ing a little more time since they got bearly any in the game... and 2 they were seriously the stuff of nightmares.

Complete trilogy with an intro, advancing the danger and upping the scale, and final resolution...

Razmere said...

Great episode. I have a few SLIGHT disagreements on how the Zelda movie should be made but everything else was awesome! Keep up the great work!

cdstephens said...

Personally, I hope your treatment of Anti-thinker is less "strawman that you beat up" and more "another take on video game culture", like with Retrothinker lamenting how the passage of time affected his beloved video game franchises. Although he was misguided, he did have some points. Not to mention that if Anti-thinker HASN'T changed at all since we last saw him in terms of thinking, then it'll be the same schtick we've already seen and thus be kinda boring.

Sabre said...

Shark- That depends. Not every film is a multi million doller epic, and not every animated film is pixar or akira grade.

Futurama and Resident Evil Degeneration were straight to DVD, and are good enough animation wise. If you want to get really cheap, you could use the assets from the games. Even that Resident Evil 3D ride short film was better than the live action stuff, and likely cheaper.

Where games and animation differ from film is that it costs as much to make a person as an explosion. You can cut corners with talking heads and walk cycles, but whereas it would cost a fortune to put Bowser or the Elites from Halo on screen, in animation that's not a problem, as well as avoiding the disconnect that bad CG effects brings.

That won't make the films good, as RE Degeneration was ultimately boring outside of the fanservice stuff and jokes. It would remove the bad effects, horrible acting and pointless crap that fills up most other films based on games.

Popcorn Dave said...

Good episode, Bob. I was worried this would just be repeating the same points you've made before on that Intermission article, but congrats on coming up with a few actual practical suggestions and not just your usual cry of "someone make me a Mario movie NOW!". I may write more later (can't agree on everything, now!), but yeah, good work.

Although I must say, I'm really not that thrilled to see the bloody Antithinker again.

Anonymous said...

I'm betting Anti Thinker's new 'character development' will be that he is now a misogynist homophobe who wants all video game endings changed to cater to his every whim.

Shark said...

@Anonymous

Moviebob wouldn't do something that stupid. He would only make himself look bad portraying the Anti Thinker as a racist and a homophobe.

Anonymous said...

My line of thought has always been the following: fuck Hollywood. Leave the Japanese to adapt their own games, because they usually get it right so far as I'm concerned. The Sonic OVA? Awesome. Pokemon? A fair few of the movies (and some parts of the anime series) were pretty damn good. Advent Children... eh, mixed reactions, but I personally love how inhumanly powerful pretty much everybody seemed to be (seriously, it actually gives you the impression that this is the follow-up to an RPG where, hypothetically, everybody could be leveled to 99 and take out world-devouring demon lords with little effort). It's not always perfect, but at least there's a pretty damn good chance that there's gonna be input from the original creators, to say nothing of using the familiar character models if they just stick to 2D anime (or the same 3D models should they go that route).

While I'm at it, I just wanted to note the irony of AIR making a far better TV series than a movie (but then, that's a visual novel, so it may not count). The fact that they were both done by different studios likely had something to do with it, but it may also be a sign that some adaptions are better off being made as a series rather than a 1-2 hour movie.

ShadowWing Tronix said...

Actually, part of your Mario Bros. idea was used in the rather lackluster anime movie that's been making the YouTube rounds. Hopefully you version would be better executed.

As for Double Dragon, there has never been a proper adaptation. The movies went for some weird future sci-fi thing, the comic went even further, and I'm not sure what the cartoon was doing. All three added this weird mystic element that was completely out of place for the franchise. It's not in the games.

Otherwise I think animation, regardless of how many "D"s there are, is the best route to go. It's easier to accept certain worlds in animation than in live action and it's no surprise that most of the good game adaptations have been animated.

Anonymous said...

Another awesome video! Keep up the good work, Bob! :D

Anonymous said...

That ending was... AWESOME. Can't wait for the next episode Bob!

T4_was_here said...

*pfffh* I always though Navi was hot.

Wolfboy said...

A small shaving disaster, Bob? You goatee looks a trifle asymmetrical.

Other than that, good points. I've never really been enough of a fan of any series bar Max Payne to really look forward to the movie adaptation, and I think that Max Payne (the film) is a really good example of exactly what you're talking about.

The games had some supernatural overtones (especially the first one with all the Ragnarok stuff) but were really a noir story about Max working his way up the chain of conspiracy and discovering new and unpleasant things at every turn (and killing a lot of people, obviously). There was no reason that plot structure (if not necessarily the actual plot) couldn't have worked in a movie context - instead we got V as a weird gate-to-hell drug that may actually summon demons to murder you.

I'd totally watch the Call Of Duty movie if it was made the way you describe...

GatoNegroLoco said...

to be honest, zelda wouldn't be that hard. each is a new story on account that they're all different links. so you could make an original zelda story without problems. since the zelda games generally have the story serve the game play, you could use this to create one without all the elements that wouldn't translate.

Anonymous said...

It´s like watching The Irate game, but with better commentary.

Sam Robards, Comic Fan said...

This was a great episode, Bob. It felt like you were really having fun with the concept and subject matter (unlike some of the recent controversy-laden episodes), and you can always tell when a creator enjoys what they're doing.

In terms of the subject matter, I don't disagree with any of your statements about converting the classics to the big screen.

But if I were going to bring any game to the big screen, it'd be my favorite game of all time: Xenogears.

Yeah, the sprawling nature of the narrative would require a Lord of the Rings-style pre-planned trilogy, but its rich, characters, philosophical themes (including love, religion and class/caste disparity, to name a few) and giant robots would make a phenomenal trilogy. Even if you'd still have to trim a lot of material from the story to fit it.

My back-up movie would be based on Final Fantasy X. It's Pokemon-styled summon system, terrific creature designs and vibrant visual palette would make it a visual treat, and its man-out-of-his-world story would be an easy way to get the audience involved.

As for the GO plotline, is anyone else thinking Retrothinker v Antithinker fight?

PadMasher said...

Honestly, why bother turning a game into a movie? I think Bob pretty much explained what's wrong here. A lot of those games were designed around the idea of being played by a player. Interaction was crucial so the storyboard was based around this idea.

This has a lot to do with why a lot of movies don't translate into games. There have been a few good cartoons based on video games but, I see little point in making games, some of which feel like movies already like Uncharted, into big-screen pictures. Who here wants a game based off The Artist? I didn't think so.

Evilkinggumby said...

I am in the same league as Bob, most of the movies he cited that are based on games are not that bad. Yes when compared to true moviemaking they're no spectacle, but when placed on the gliding scale and given a little bit of leeway.. I rather enjoy the Resident evil movies, or the first MK, and hell even the first Street Fighter with Van damme (though that was WAY back when I was a nut for the games and so it was entirely a geek pleasure).

What I will not do is say " I don't see why movie "x" got a academy award and they totally didn't consider Angry Birds: The Movie for one! ". I hold game movies in their own sub-category of the medium.. lol.

I'm not as long into this series as most so I don't know what allusions you are making for future episodes by referencing characters from the past... but I look forward to seeing where it all jumps off from. And isn't it about time the Game Overthinker gets a female companion? The Girl Overthinker? lol... either as a partner in crime, a love interest.. a temptress or a nemesis...

You could hold a contest and have loads of girl gamer thinkers apply for the role! Just think of the fun :)

Anonymous said...

Maybe they could do movies set in the vidoe game unvierses. Somethign like a fallout game set in one of the ares not on the coasts with a Watchmen style montage of the various events that lead to this. Stuff like the resource wars, the new plague, the Chinese invasion of Alaska; and have it begin with Enola Gay dropping Little Boy on Hiroshima, and ending with the U.S. and China nuking each other. A Mass Effect movie could cover the first contact between Humans and Turians at Shanxi and how it spiraled into all-out war, the Council races uplifitng the krogan to kill the rachni and then the Krogan growing out of control leading to the deployment of the genophage, or the Gteh devloping sentience and having to fight back against the Quarians, similar to what the Animatrix did in the Seocnd Rennaisace.

Anonymous said...

While it is true that it took 50 years for the avengers to be realized on film it must be remembered that there was a long road to get there. If you count serials you had Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941), Spy Smasher (1942), Batman (1943) Superman (1948, and Batman and Robin (1949) as the first live action efforts to bring comic book character to movie screens though it wasn't until Superman (1978) that things improved...somewhat.

Unknown said...

I think the real root problem that underlies these questions is that ultimately we gamers, no matter what kind of gaming we go for, are ultimately minutia obsessed geeks critiquing a subset of media that is only tangentially intended for us on merits unique to our own perspective. This same is true for us into literature, irrespective of genre preferences, those of us into comics, those of us into animation, those of us into live action TV and those of us into live action movies. These adaptations, no matter the source medium nor the destination medium, are ultimately mainly aimed at the broader less intensely interested general audience and only to a much smaller amount at the audience of the original work.

So long as the broad strokes, including whatever point the story was intended to convey and general characterization, are accurate in an adaptation and it is an adequate example of it's genre and medium then there is little more any of have a right to ask for, from my personal perspective.

Nick said...

"If you say my name backwards, it's a reference to something!"

OH MY GOSH I ACTUALLY NEVER GOT THAT!! *facepalm* *ashamed*

*continues watching episode*

Nick said...

Five stars for "One Winged Angel." \m/

Unknown said...

I recently did a video positing a theory on how to execute a new MK franchise Marvel style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZl7kCZvJAk&feature=g-upl

Sir Reginald Lee IV said...

I know a lot of people have already commented, but on the off-chance you see my comment here, I would like to refer you to this: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/ir/jo/jolp/29528-ocarina-of-time-zelda-the-movie & http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/ir/jo/jolp/29582-lets-play-ocarina-of-time-continued

In this brief series of videos, anime critic & gaming fan JesuOtaku lays out in detail her concept for how Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time could be produced as a movie. It has been some time since I have watched these videos in their entirety, and they do not cover the entirety of the game, but the level of details and cleverness of adapting the existing material is quite impressive. I would highly recommend you give it a look.

volvo crusher said...

You know what would be really awesome for a Zelda movie? Having Link stay mute and putting in music and sound effects to show what he's thinking like an old movie or cartoon. Other characters still talk and everything, but their dialog scenes play out so Link never needs to talk.

Ron said...

Great as usual bob, love your logic.
On a slight different topic - Have you seen the 'Art of Video Games exhibit at the Smithsonian in DC?'

Anonymous said...

That's NOT how you pronounce Altaïr and Ezio... *twitch twitch* /pet peeve

fox said...

Ok Bob, here's an idea:

Why the hell haven't you suited up with a tanooki power yet? Are you waiting for some season finale or something? Are you trying to tell us that some powers are to be used with care and restraint?!

You call yourself a Nintendo fan? A Mario fan?! Then where is my Tanooki Overthinker fight scenes?! Come on, Bob! You can even write an episode with your views on why retro games had such a ludicrous sensibility regarding things like powerups, magic, weapons and what not. That thing writes itself!

So yeah. Overthinker. Tanooki suit. I wanna see it. Prove to me you have the balls, Bob (brilliant pun!).

Unknown said...

Dear Game Overthinker I am a huge fan of yours and I love all your show but I was trying to watch your Episode 24 - "Reality Sucks" aka "VOTE FOR ME!" and Episode 25 - "Violence is Golden" but the videos won't play can you fix that please?

Unknown said...

Dear Game Overthinker will you please upload all of your episodes from episode 01 to episode 24 on screwattack.com?

Chazz said...

Oh, hey, awesome, the Anti-thinker's back. Maybe now we'll get to get to see some more of his hinted at character development. I legitimately can't wait so see what happens. Though...Ooh! Ooh! If Anti-Thinker is back, but there's also still the guy with the fourth stone, does that mean we might see some competition between the two of them? Maybe they're each trying to out do each other in order to impress the big monster voice guy? Also I'd love for Retrothinker to become a regular character, I agree with the Sam Robards, a fight between the Retro and Anti thinkers could be awesome. Retro could even have power-ups similar to the Bob's, but based on old/dead games!
Seriously Bob, good job. Keep up the awesome work.

Specter Von Baren said...

Probably the best episode I've seen in a while. No bullshit about hot button topics or snide jabs or anything like that, just overthinking. The "reverse-engineering" of a Mario movie was very well thought out.

Smashmatt202 said...

Video game movies... that is, movies based on a video game. I like the comparison Extra Credits used in that video game movies were/are like comic book movies, it just took a while for Hollywood to get the hang of it and get people who really liked it and really cared about the final product. Video games will get there, hopefully...

Until then, let's see what the Overthinker has to say...

You know, I can't wait until Bob fights 16-bit enemies. I ESPECIALLY can't wait to see a scene where Bob fights an EarthBound enemy, and fights him EarthBound-style... Yeah, I can TOTALLY see Starman working for that monster-voiced guy...

Whoa, new opening credits! Say, is that an original melody? If not, where's if front, and do you think you should get your own original intro music?

I don't really think that Prince of Persia: Sands of Time really falls under what the Bob thinks of the series, but what do I know...

And here we come to the main problem: what makes a good game doesn't necessarily make a good movie. Movies are all about visuals and storytelling, where as most games tend to rely on certain gameplay features and, more importantly, player inter-activity. Those things are impossible to implement in movies. Like, Hell, I'd be hard-pressed to say an EarthBound movie would be any good, seeing as so much of the game's charm comes from stuff that would be insanely difficult, if not down-right IMPOSSIBLE to implement into an at least 90-minute movie. You also can't risk going too long with these kinds of things.

I remember Bob saying that in order to make a good Halo movie, they'd have to make a Halo movie that Halo fans would HATE. And I guess the same can be applied to pretty much any video game and it's fans. Then again, gamers seem to be really fickle about what they want, flipping back and forth between things to the point where they are never satisfied.

The thing about Assassin's Creed and Desmond is that, yeah, they're building up to something, but they never seem to GET to that something, to the point where I wonder just how many Assassin's Creed games can they make before they have to eventually address that something... Not to mention, yeah, like Bob said, the premise is good for a game, it does leave things a bit too complicated trying to turn it into a movie. Like, Desmond has dreams of the life of a assassin ancestor, but how are they going to justify that in a movie? ...Well, whatever they come up with, I'd be willing to see it.

Damn, there actually IS going to be a live-action Halo movie? Interesting...

Smashmatt202 said...

I like the comparison to books... Because, in a way, I feel movies are IMPROVING on books buy given he stories images, whereas adapting a video game to a movie feels like a step backwards.

A Call of Duty movie? SHOT IN FIRST PERSON! FUCKING BRILLIANT!!!! Seriously, someone get on that!

A Metroid movie... I think I heard about something like that from several years ago. No word on it since, though I heard Kraid and Ridley were in going to be in it. I forget who was going to play Samus.

I only know about the Double Dragon movie through the Nostalgia Critic... I liked the parts where he said "wasn't the plot of Double Dragon 'some girl gets punched in the gut and two guys save her'? How hard was THAT to adapt?!" Yeah, I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he said. Really weird shit was in that movie... Actually, I should watch that review again, I recall it being funny!

Doug Walker also didn't like the Mortal Kombat movie, but yeah, I would have been better if the gore was kept... in my opinion, at least.

"Everybody would be dead and nobody would be back for the sequel". Given how terrible the sequel was (and how they killed off characters in that anyway), is that really such a bad thing?

Wait, Warner Bros. owned Mortal Kombat now, doesn't it? So yeah, they could totally do that!

Good call on the Mega Man movie idea... though I can't wait to see what a real life Dr. Light and Dr. Wily would look like!

Castlevania: Die Hard with Dracula... FUCK! YEAH!!!

Remember the Sonic the Hedgehog OVA? It was made into "The Movie" when dubbed in English, and I rather liked it, though mostly because I miss Dr. Robotnik's classic design and I love seeing it animated.

I agree, you don't need to talk about all the crazy stuff that happens in The Legend of Zelda the first time through. I mean, most of the Marvel movies don't immediately jump into the heavy stuff with their first movie (or at least shouldn't), that's what sequels are for. When the first Zelda movie turns out as a success, THEN you can get into more complex storylines! Also, if and when they make a Zelda movie, I hope that, if they use Ganondorf, they call him Ganondorf Dragmire, like they did in A Link to the Past! ;)

I SAW JOHN CARTER! Also, these ideas are so brilliant, some filmmaker BETTER write this stuff down!

Lampshade hanging... I don't know, sometimes when MovieBob does it, it's not as funny...

You know what WOULD be funny? If there were actually FIVE stones... and the fifth stone is "heart"! XD

I actually lol'd at One-Winged Angel playing the int background! Anti-Thinker's back? Okay, but what was his robotic voice there...?

MaddKossack115 said...

The problem isn't that movie-makers "overcomplicate" stories from video games. They just take scripts from the reject pile and slap the game title on it for brand recognition. It's why the best "video games movies" come from fans and film teams working closely with the original developers, as they do it for fans of the franchise, not for general movie audience who don't know/care about games. It'll take a video game movie success in the box office before Hollywood actually puts effort into making them right.

Now, to talk about your movie translation concepts, I'll give a quick rundown of my opinion:

Call of Duty in literal first person is cool, but it should stick closer to the tone of the games (for better or for worse). A total anti-war video game movie would be "Spec Ops: The Line".

Metroid sort of sounds like what Metroid: Other M tried to do, only if it DIDN'T fuck up the "old-school narrative not translating well". The whole idea of "make Metroid about exploring a world more than a action-movie cut-and-paste" also gives a better way to characterize Samus - to me, it would focus on Samus putting the "Hunter" in Bounty Hunter, tracking down Ridley and his Space Pirate crew across all the diverse levels of the starship/planet, using the time in between to give the backstory of why she wants Ridley and her crew dead. Boom! "Aliens" meets "Kill Bill"! Tell me that won't make box office gold (if done right, obviously)!

The adaptations of "the classics" were also mostly spot-on, in that they're better off sticking to the aesthetics and tone of the games, and starting off with the basics first instead of jamming the extensive backlog of their franchises into one damn movie.

I actually think Megaman and Sonic would both be better off going down the route Astro Boy tried to do in 2009, by adapting all the Anime art into CGI (hopefully beefing up the pretty visuals with a more involving story than Astro Boy 2009).

The one for a Zelda movie is also pretty good, and I can see enough material for a whole "trilogy" of sorts, with the classic/Ocarina of Time games making one, and Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword using their stories as sequels building off the groundwork laid by the Ocarina movie.

As for Mario, I kind of have an idea that the "real-world" (i.e. Brooklyn) is shot in live action, and all the work in the Mushroom Kingdom is CGI.

As for your opinion of "Street Fighter" being a G.I. Joe movie... well, that's pretty much because Bison and his Shadowloo organization were Cobra Commander and his Cobra army, and his plot was more identifiable to American audiences than the whole plot with Ryu, at least at the time the film was made and released. A more faithful "remake" of Street Fighter (not looking at you "Legend") would still have the initial set-up of "Bison and Shadoloo want to take over the world", but would tie in the plot of the game.

Incidentally, I think the (Fake) Movie Trailer series by Bloodrunsclear would definitely be a cool exercise in translating the concepts of games to movie setpieces.