Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#101

Post by PeterisP » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #21

lihes wrote: post #2

It's very simple: those two are not the same media. A movie, a book are made to tell a story. A video game is made for playing, not for telling a story. They should stop adapting video games, it's pointless.

I remember back in the day the Final Fantasy 7 trailers had a voiceover that went something like: "Dozens of characters, hundreds of locations, a plot spanning 40 hours, they said it couldn't be done in a movie, they were right." Lots of games tell stories these days. There's no fundamental reason those stories couldn't be adopted to the silver screen. Of course many of these stories aren't really very good, but the…

The quote "Dozens of characters, hundreds of locations, a plot spanning 40 hours" (and the much larger numbers for some modern games) by itself is a fundamental reason those stories are hard to adopt to the silver screen.

A movie needs a couple hours of focused plot, and a limited number of in-depth characters whose motivations can reasonably be covered in this short time. A blockbuster game generally involves a much larger cast of characters, and a much, much longer/wider plot story to cover the hours.

If you leave the story as-is and just cut the "sidequests", then the movie will be full of characters who are barely introduced and whose motivations make no sense to those who haven't played the game and don't know the backstory; and if you cut the story to be "movie-sized", then it will have little resemblance to the original, as key points will need to be drastically altered.

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#102

Post by defen » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:22 PM UTC

adpirz wrote: post #37

I still have hope. It took many decades before we entered the golden age of comic book movies, and while I don't think the wait will be as long, I think we're still not quite there yet with video games. What makes a good video game movie is what makes any movie good: when the creative team behind the endeavor believes in it and is tied to the source material. Read some of Nolan's early interviews before Batman Begins…

> a proper Metal Gear film

They're working on that (Jordan Vogt-Roberts, guy who did Kong: Skull Island). I have no idea how you could possibly turn Metal Gear into a movie that is appealing to people who haven't played the games, but he seems to be a huge fan of the series, and has claimed to have "cracked the code" about how to make an appealing movie based on a video game, in the same way that Hollywood has cracked the code for making comic book movies. He's also working with Hideo Kojima. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#103

Post by ygaf » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:23 PM UTC

ssambros wrote: post #59

sirmarksalot wrote: post #44

So many video game movie projects are missing the simple question, "why?" So many of these games are inspired by movies in the first place, and their stories are mostly just cliches based on their source material. It's fine in the context of the game, because the player is doing something, but when you put that into a non-interactive medium, the flaws become obvious. If you take Indiana Jones, turn it into a game wit…

Mortal Kombat was not a bad movie if you ask me.

It's all about whether you've played the game. I can watch the movie knowing/accepting what the plot is (there's a tournament, people have to fight - just sit back and watch shit go down) and the characters (there's going to be a humanoid reptile etc).

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#104

Post by xutopia » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:24 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #86

I started making a list * Super Mario Bros * Silent Hill And then realized that I couldn't add more to it... It's insane. There are so many good stories in video game. I'd argue that The Last Of Us is the most beautiful entertainment story every created be it a movie, video game, comic, book, ... Anime have the same issues, they have insane stories and they either end up being ignored or worse, being shit on by direc…

The Last Of Us was brilliant in that the game mechanics were just something great around a wonderful storyline. Come to think about it some of the Final Fantasy games were really great stories too but the translation to screen was such a washed down version that it failed at what mattered: making us feel something.

On screen today we have shows like Game of Thrones that really deliver at making us feel things and keeping us surprised. Before there was Game of Thrones though I reckon that the death of Aerith Gainsborough in Final Fantasy 7 was one of those twists that TV shows and movies shied away from until recently.

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#105

Post by fmj » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #101

jandrese wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember back in the day the Final Fantasy 7 trailers had a voiceover that went something like: "Dozens of characters, hundreds of locations, a plot spanning 40 hours, they said it couldn't be done in a movie, they were right." Lots of games tell stories these days. There's no fundamental reason those stories couldn't be adopted to the silver screen. Of course many of these stories aren't really very good, but the…

The quote "Dozens of characters, hundreds of locations, a plot spanning 40 hours" (and the much larger numbers for some modern games) by itself is a fundamental reason those stories are hard to adopt to the silver screen. A movie needs a couple hours of focused plot, and a limited number of in-depth characters whose motivations can reasonably be covered in this short time. A blockbuster game generally involves a much…

>If you leave the story as-is and just cut the "sidequests", then the movie will be full of characters who are barely introduced and whose motivations make no sense to those who haven't played the game and don't know the backstory

FFVII: Advent Children is a great example of this. Half the characters from the original game just come stumbling into the plot with no introduction or explanation.

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#106

Post by jandrese » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:28 PM UTC

gknoy wrote: post #84

jandrese wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest not going back and watching Mortal Kombat again if you want to retain your memories of it being a good film. Maybe it's best just to listen to the soundtrack instead.

I re-watched it a few months back; it was still enjoyable overall. I agree that it didn't match up to nostalgia, but it wasn't as bad as one might fear. The overt sexism (and threats) towards Sonya are pretty upsetting. I'd forgotten about that, and as a teenager I wrote it off as "well I guess he's just a Bad Guy". As an adult (and parent) now, I really feel like that kind of messaging is pretty toxic and unnecessar…

Isn't Johnny Cage just relabeled Bruce Lee?

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#107

Post by Merad » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #69

RulingWalnut wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ~~absolutely~~ fantastic stories in video games. There are plenty of games that you play for the story and the gameplay is just meh.

Such as? Besides adventures games Infocom or Sierra style and their descendants...

The Witcher 3. Part of the problem is that often your story-heavy games are really telling dozens of different stories. In TW3 for example, the main story is good but not amazing, yet several of its "secondary" stories are fantastic.

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#108

Post by occamrazor » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

I liked Resident Evil, both as a movie its own merits, and specifically as an adaptation of the video game.

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#109

Post by jakebasile » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:33 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #22

jakebasile wrote: post #13

There have been good video game movies, but the number is vanishingly small. Many are "so bad it's good" such as anything Uwe Boll makes, but there are a couple that seem to be created by directors who genuinely love the source material and take it in interesting directions (e.g. the first Silent Hill film, the first Resident Evil film, arguably Final Fantasy: The Sprits Within). Also, Mortal Kombat (1995) is a good…

I suggest not going back and watching Mortal Kombat again if you want to retain your memories of it being a good film. Maybe it's best just to listen to the soundtrack instead.

I watched it Sunday night, and I enjoyed it almost as much as when I saw it as a 9 year old. It's not a great film, but it has a generally coherent plot and narrative structure, good with choreography, and one of the best action movie soundtracks ever made.

To this day the fight with Reptile is one of my favorite action sequences in any film I've seen.

Re: Why Can't Hollywood Make a Good Video Game Movie?

#110

Post by probably_wrong » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

They did make a good video game movie: it's called "Pirates of the Caribbean", and it's an adaptation of Monkey Island.

I know, I know, it's the other way around. But it should be proof that a good videogame movie is at least possible - you would have to change surprisingly little.