Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 357 posts

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

#301

Post by lagadu »

jitix wrote: post #262
bananarepdev wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When i think about Mass Effect, what comes to mind are these long sequences in the Citadel where you do nothing more than talk, learning about the biology, technology qnd geopolitics of the game's universe. I don't think this kind of content would fit a blockbuster movie, and without it what remains is a bunch of space marines shooting aliens.

Actually the looong cutscenes where you cannot do anything, is one of the reasons I think it’d be a good movie. If you think about it it’s a very interactive story. Yes, you have choices like most RPGs but they don’t really matter at the end. The learning about background stuff is one thing that the movie makers would have to smooth out. I think the new tomb raider does a good job at balancing backstory and the plot.…

Specifically about Mass Effect: I think the difficulty here is that the ME universe is pretty vanilla by scifi standards. The good part about the games is how they present a big universe and fill it up with lore and characters for you to explore and because of it (at least for me) the game's immersion goes very smoothly from "I'm playing a video game" to "I'm commander fucking Shepard and I'm saving this galaxy whether it wants to or not".

I think that'd be pretty hard to bring to a non-interactive medium. Sure good novels can be written but again, a film lacks the time to give so much exposition.

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

#302

Post by halis »

I'm a huge RPG fan, so don't get me wrong, I love video games...but let's be honest, the stories only go skin deep. They are mostly shallow and the characters are mostly stereotypes that belong in a D-list movie at best (think Billy Baldwin).

My opinion is stop making super hero movies and video game movies. They may be somewhat fun, but they provide no sustenance, it's like eating Ramen.

Make some movies from the DragonLance books. There are some fantasy stereotypes in there, but the stories are awesome overall.

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

#304

Post by ChuckMcM »

I am one of those people who can enjoy a video game inspired movie, but only if I've played the game. I believe that is because the movie reminds me of game play that I enjoyed so it gets that extra bonus feeling. If I haven't played the game the movie is definitely less engaging. This can be true for movies adapted from books like the Lord of the Rings, I enjoyed reading the books and the movie reminded me of that enjoyment.

But given that, it seems it can go the other way as well. I saw Ready Player One (and have read the book) and the differences between the book and the movie, while understandable, interfered with me enjoying the movie.

There are also fairly formulaic movies that unroll just like a video game. With early levels, a mini boss, more levels, another boss, a few more levels and then the big boss. Watching Kong skull island was like that.

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

#305

Post by carey »

classichasclass wrote: post #135
CodeMage wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's close to the mark, but not quite there. To quote Sid Meier, "A game is a series of interesting choices." It's hard to make a good game with a great plot: the better the plot, the more you restrict the player's choices. It's not impossible, but it's hard. Plenty of games have great characters and excellent world-building. Quite a few pose interesting questions, make you face hard dilemmas and leave you…

I think BioShock Infinite probably proves your point, too. Compared to the other two entries it limits the player's choices even further and simplifies gameplay even more, but has a much more compelling story. Unfortunately, the story would probably not be as compelling were the player not led by the nose through it. FTR, I had the most fun playing BioShock 2, but I still like Infinite the most.

Especially with the DLC, Infinite is a classical tragedy, so of course the player character doesn’t get to make any meaningful choices.

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

#306

Post by ehnto »

andrewflnr wrote: post #288
Bluestrike2 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really interesting is that there are a number of video game franchises with nuanced backstories that have spawned successful and surprisingly well-written novels. So it's definitely possible to take a video game and turn it into a book. And there are plenty of books that get turned into excellent movies or TV shows (of course, there are plenty that get turned into bad ones, FWIW). Books like Eric Nylund's Halo…

It may be the similarity of the medium that hamstrings Hollywood. Going from prose to a movie tends to absolutely force a lot of compromises. You no longer really have the option of extensive narration, seeing into characters' thoughts, etc, and the whole thing has to fit into 200 minutes at the outside. A video game already operates under similar constraints as a movie, so it's possible to create a movie that's very…

I would argue that the medium of video games is more free to explore a rich story than either books or movies, video games benefit from the ability to explore story and lore asynchronously from the main plot, with unique branching, and at the players leisure, so appealing to a wide audience with every detail isn't necessary.

Some games can even continue story telling for hundreds of hours, meandering through dozens of different storylines, arcs, characters, minute details, (Skyrim, Fallout,..). Some games even have their own books inside the games that the character player can read!

The medium really is quite a bit more flexible than a movie. Where I think some comments are suggesting that games are not story rich enough to translate into movies and that's certainly true in some cases, I would argue that the types of story telling are simply not always directly compatible with a linear movie story line.

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

#307

Post by sametmax »

jitix wrote: post #233
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…

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.

I can't recall anything that was surprising in Mass Effect.

It's basically a dumb down Babylon 5 environment, with a dumb down Deus Ex gameplay and a dumb down Hyperion twist, served on a fake open world made of long empty corridors or galaxy trajectories. If the fights were good I would forgive it, but even that is very basic.

I really don't understand the appeal of this game.

Maybe it appeals to people that don't read much SF or played a lot of videos games before 2000 because they don't have reference of anything better ? It's true that today people consider fallout 3 & next as good, while there are only the shadow of 1 and 2.

And I don't say that because "it was better before". Breath of the Wild and Pillar of Eternity prove you can get plenty of quality in today's production.

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

#308

Post by baby »

throwaway080383 wrote: post #121
baby wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mostly because videogame plot lines aren't as good as we give them credit for Same with movies, books, comics, ... but the top is good. The Last Of Us ffs...

TLOU is basically a movie. I played a few hours and got bored because it felt like I was watching mainly cutscenes with gameplay interspersed. Interesting movie, just not a great game .

Play in a higher level of difficulty then

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

#309

Post by sametmax »

dfxm12 wrote: post #26

Mostly because videogame plot lines aren't as good as we give them credit for. Videogames are great at being interactive diversions, but their stories leave a lot to be desired and are really just thin background dressing for the real reason we play videogames: for the gameplay. The most successful videogame movies tend towards genre films like Mortal Kombat (the film) and Resident Evil (the series). Of course, let's…

Depends which game. FF7, Baldur's gate and portal have great plots. It's just that good plots take a lot of time and don't make as much money. So producers request them to be removed from games, movies, tv shows, etc.

Why would you bother making a plot when you can make bank with Transformer ?

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

#310

Post by quickthrower2 »

Bluestrike2 wrote: post #259
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…

What's really interesting is that there are a number of video game franchises with nuanced backstories that have spawned successful and surprisingly well-written novels. So it's definitely possible to take a video game and turn it into a book. And there are plenty of books that get turned into excellent movies or TV shows (of course, there are plenty that get turned into bad ones, FWIW). Books like Eric Nylund's Halo…

So you can go: Game -> Book -> Movie, and y'all set.
Post reply on HN