Movies Based on Video Games, Take Two
Okay, now that I've discussed upcoming movies, time to try to actually rant about video game movies.
The focus of my essay/article/rant should've been why video games movies don't work, not on the upcoming ones.
Anyway, I shall try to extend it slightly :).
The actual main problem we have here is the fact that Video games and Movies are completely different forms of media. As are books and movies. And, for that matter, books and games. The latter two are not going to be discussed in this post, btw.
Most games are oriented almost entirely around combat. Story is told in little cut-scenes, sprinkled throughout the game. So you fight, learn a little plot, fight some more, the plot continues, and you fight some more, etc. The storyline is put together to provide an excuse to kill stuff, basically. RPG's are different, but even the least combat-oriented RPG's still require you to kill stuff most of the time, except the plot is good enough to absorb you fully. Otherwise, the plot can be ignored for the most part. As usual, there are other exceptions (Halo comes to mind), but this is the general trend.
Movies are, for the most part, completely different. Combat in the really good movies is treated mostly as a means to an end. In the grand realm of the movie, unless an important character is killed in a fight, then the fight itself is meaningless. It could be erased from the story as a whole without having any negligible affect, except for having less oohs and ahhs.
The only movies which do not follow this trend are heavy-action movies. I'm talking about movies starring the Gubernator in the 80's, Stallone, Van Damn, and other big action stars. They include action as the central theme, with the plot being an excuse to blow shit up good.
This is exactly why Mortal Kombat worked. It meshed perfectly with the Action-Film template. Ditto for Tomb Raider, although to a lesser extent. Hopefully MK 3 will go for the standard Action Film as its end result, instead of Annihalation's attempt at a real movie that failed miserably.
The other problem with this is that Video Games are increasingly aquiring more complex and oft-better plots, which do NOT mesh at ALL with the Action-film motif. No movie studio will try for a video-game movie with a complex plot, because the studio heads know that their target non-gamer audience, Male 18-35, will come because of the shit being blown up good, not for the intrinsically crafted plot.
And before someone says that they could go for both, I'm just gonna shoot that down now. Plot heavy means minimal time for flashy action scenes. Action heavy means little time for plot-heavy scenes. The more complex the plot, the more time needed to allocate to it for the plot to make sense.
Matrix Reloaded encountered this problem. The action was required for it to get return visits by the Male 18-35 audience, but the bro's wanted a strong plot, which was condensed into a half dozen plot scenes, like the Architect speech, which needed return viewings to comprehend.
In short, the only video game -> movie conversions that can work are games that are not at all plot heavy. This is due to condensation of the media (3-4 hours of plot -> 1 hour of allocated plot time) and the fact that their demographic is so heavily based towards Male 18-35 that they are going to likely be action films.
Two genres have a chance of avoiding that Action-film mess, tho. TRPG's do because they are loved primarily for their plot, not neccessarily their gameplay. Besides, the plots are set up like really long movies. However, the long plot conspires against them.
The other genre is the strategy game. It can go for a few epic battle scenes and use the rest of the time to develop the plot. However epic battle scenes tend to be long and only movies of LOTR length would work well. That's really how Starcraft would work: As a trilogy with a couple epic battle scenes in each one.
Okay, now that I've discussed upcoming movies, time to try to actually rant about video game movies.
The focus of my essay/article/rant should've been why video games movies don't work, not on the upcoming ones.
Anyway, I shall try to extend it slightly :).
The actual main problem we have here is the fact that Video games and Movies are completely different forms of media. As are books and movies. And, for that matter, books and games. The latter two are not going to be discussed in this post, btw.
Most games are oriented almost entirely around combat. Story is told in little cut-scenes, sprinkled throughout the game. So you fight, learn a little plot, fight some more, the plot continues, and you fight some more, etc. The storyline is put together to provide an excuse to kill stuff, basically. RPG's are different, but even the least combat-oriented RPG's still require you to kill stuff most of the time, except the plot is good enough to absorb you fully. Otherwise, the plot can be ignored for the most part. As usual, there are other exceptions (Halo comes to mind), but this is the general trend.
Movies are, for the most part, completely different. Combat in the really good movies is treated mostly as a means to an end. In the grand realm of the movie, unless an important character is killed in a fight, then the fight itself is meaningless. It could be erased from the story as a whole without having any negligible affect, except for having less oohs and ahhs.
The only movies which do not follow this trend are heavy-action movies. I'm talking about movies starring the Gubernator in the 80's, Stallone, Van Damn, and other big action stars. They include action as the central theme, with the plot being an excuse to blow shit up good.
This is exactly why Mortal Kombat worked. It meshed perfectly with the Action-Film template. Ditto for Tomb Raider, although to a lesser extent. Hopefully MK 3 will go for the standard Action Film as its end result, instead of Annihalation's attempt at a real movie that failed miserably.
The other problem with this is that Video Games are increasingly aquiring more complex and oft-better plots, which do NOT mesh at ALL with the Action-film motif. No movie studio will try for a video-game movie with a complex plot, because the studio heads know that their target non-gamer audience, Male 18-35, will come because of the shit being blown up good, not for the intrinsically crafted plot.
And before someone says that they could go for both, I'm just gonna shoot that down now. Plot heavy means minimal time for flashy action scenes. Action heavy means little time for plot-heavy scenes. The more complex the plot, the more time needed to allocate to it for the plot to make sense.
Matrix Reloaded encountered this problem. The action was required for it to get return visits by the Male 18-35 audience, but the bro's wanted a strong plot, which was condensed into a half dozen plot scenes, like the Architect speech, which needed return viewings to comprehend.
In short, the only video game -> movie conversions that can work are games that are not at all plot heavy. This is due to condensation of the media (3-4 hours of plot -> 1 hour of allocated plot time) and the fact that their demographic is so heavily based towards Male 18-35 that they are going to likely be action films.
Two genres have a chance of avoiding that Action-film mess, tho. TRPG's do because they are loved primarily for their plot, not neccessarily their gameplay. Besides, the plots are set up like really long movies. However, the long plot conspires against them.
The other genre is the strategy game. It can go for a few epic battle scenes and use the rest of the time to develop the plot. However epic battle scenes tend to be long and only movies of LOTR length would work well. That's really how Starcraft would work: As a trilogy with a couple epic battle scenes in each one.
posted by Wraithy at 2/01/2004 11:27:00 PM
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