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

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

#291

Post by emodendroket »

krapp wrote: post #275
emodendroket wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely a video game movie getting rave reviews would sell even more tickets. And you have to imagine the people making a movie hope viewers like it.

You'd think so, but Michael Bay's Transformers franchise is widely despised by critics and fans (and rightly so), and also makes hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars worldwide. When you have audacity, nostalgia and guaranteed merchandising potential you don't need the movie to be good, unfortunately.

I have to think the people who keep coming back for one installment after another don't despise the movies. And in fact I remember being dragged to Transformers II by an ex who really wanted to see it because she enjoyed the first one.

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

#294

Post by mrexroad »

learc83 wrote: post #287
jitix wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Mass Effect trilogy is fairly original and does away with a lot of the space sci-fi cliches like humans being the ruling class of the galaxy, or all species having a united voice, etc. I’d love to see it made into a movie.

It's a good story and I liked their take on it, but Mass Effect borrows everything you mentioned from Babylon 5.

HUGE Babylon 5 fan here, but any sort of B5 film adaptation would have been a complete crap.

Different stories need different mediums?

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

#296

Post by peatmoss »

tormeh wrote: post #254
peatmoss wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof. Which ones? After the ten thousandth person recommended the game to me, I recently played through it and never found a plot that I didn't find pretty flat. Plus, I couldn't tell if the terrible dialog and gratuitous cringe-worthy softcore CGI porn sequences were supposed to be a self-aware in-joke.

Hm, do you like any fantasy at all? It sounds like it might not be your genre. Hard sci-fi more your thing? In that case The Talos Principle is pretty good, if fairly gameplay heavy.

Loved The Talos Principle, but also enjoyed Skyrim. Skyrim’s quests and side quests felt a bit thing-collecty at times, but I feel like you could get into it as a nationalistic boy scout viking barbarian, or an angry lizard thief, or an elven mage and play three different games.

With the Witcher 3, I felt trapped in a character whose demeanor I found insufferable no matter what options I chose.

I wanted to like the game, and recognize the technical achievement, but it left me pretty blasé about quite a lot.

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

#297

Post by Izkata »

debacle wrote: post #179
evo_9 wrote: post #150

If they pick a game worthy of making it into a movie, that would be a good start. Halo would have made a great movie but MS messed that one up and the guy they hired went on to make District 9. There are plenty of games worthy of movie treatments. Dark Souls, SkyRim, Zelda, Mass Effect, Ico, Last Guardian, just to name a few. If you start with Rampage or Mortal Kombat than you end up with equally shallow movies. Ther…

I don't think you could make a good Zelda movie about Link, though. It would have to be told from a different perspective.

The April Fools trailer [0] makes me think you could. It'd be more along the lines of a basic Hero's Journey story, but that doesn't necessarily mean it would be bad.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBCzkz3gHb8

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

#298

Post by Izkata »

ant512 wrote: post #100
d0lph wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the world and characters some games develop is occasionally interesting and compelling?

Like the rumored Tetris movie?

I can't seem to find anything more recent than June 2016 on the so-called Tetris Trilogy (though I admit to not looking very hard), but this fake Tetris movie trailer from 2012 is something that I think could actually be interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhwGEa7507g

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

#299

Post by bonesss »

beloch wrote: post #253
jitix wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Mass Effect trilogy is fairly original and does away with a lot of the space sci-fi cliches like humans being the ruling class of the galaxy, or all species having a united voice, etc. I’d love to see it made into a movie.

Movies and games are sufficiently different that the the key to making a good "video game" movie may be to pick a property that gives more options than it takes away. For example, Tomb Raider has to be based on Lara Croft raiding tombs, or it's not Tomb Raider. You have your main character, type of action, and key plot points determined before you start, and viewers will compare them to the games. This is very limiti…

> Create a movie that coexists with game plots rather than trying to sum them up or replace them and you'll have more freedom to make a movie that's actually good.

The challenge with this is that a studio would be alienating fans and making a large investment into an IP and then throwing most of that in the garbage...

Mass Effect isn't enough of a name to carry an untried, unanchored, narrative into the mainstream. Most fans of any work have a superficial relationship to the underlying IP, so most people people who walk into a Batman movie are only gonna want to see Batman, not some "good story" told about unrelated people in Batmans world.

If the story is so solid, and it's so exciting you want to put a hundred million dollars behind it, then why share profits with an unrelated IP owner? Change the 'universe', keep the money. If you're going to pay for an IP, why not use it?

Using established IPs is all about risk management. Paying extra for the joy of increasing the risk is how execs end up not execs ;)

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

#300

Post by PhasmaFelis »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #212
tnecniv wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starship Troopers is great on multiple levels, ranging from a fun action movie I was sad to see and to a commentary on Nazi Germany.

If you read the novel, you get the impression Heinlein actually supports strong barriers to citizenship and other governmental ideals seen in the movie. It praises meritocracy but doesn't really touch on how to avoid corruption, besides being in an existential war against bugs (and skinnies, not seen in the movie).

One thing that comes up a lot in these discussions: a lot of people (not saying this is you) got the impression that the society in the novel requires military service to gain citizenship. It's worth mentioning that the novel is pretty specific that the condition of citizenship is service, period: you have to be willing to sacrifice a few years of your life in service to your nation, and they will find something for anyone willing to serve, no matter what disabilities they may have. The protagonist only chooses the military because he doesn't have any aptitudes to speak of beyond "reasonably physically fit."
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