The real reason video game movies always turn out bad and vice versa

Nobody likes to put their creative efforts into someone else's intellectual property. It's that simple.

I've been reading and watching videos on why video game movies always turn out bad. There are numerous explanations. That they are rushed to come out on the shelf when the movie is popular. That video games are too different of a medium so things get lost in translation.

While this may explain by what mechanism the movies end up bad, it doesn't explain why no one fixes it. It's not that hard to figure out the essence of a game and then apply movie techniques to create the same feeling. It's also not impossible to plan ahead so you have a ready game when the movie hits theaters.

The reason no one makes a good movie based on a game, or a good game based on a movie is that it doesn't pay off. Lets look at a good game based on a movie; Knights of the old republic. Bioware were permitted to make a game under the Star Wars franchise. They put a lot of effort into finding the essence of Star Wars and make it into a game. It's an adventure movie where the main characters affect the whole world around them (taking on the empire not directly, but in a more covert way).

Bioware achieves this, creating tons and tons of extra lore to the Star Wars franchise. Then George Lucas declares anything but the original trilogy "not canon" and later sells the franchise to Disney. This of course means Bioware can't even use the things they themselves created. So they have to start all over with Mass Effect, their own IP, to invent new aliens, new worlds, new ideas.

Now look at when Bethesda turned down making an rpg based on Game of thrones and instead started working on Skyrim. I'm sure they could have made a good Game of thrones rpg, but then every idea they made, and the IP itself, would be in the hands of someone else.

So, to summarize, to make a video game based on a movie, or a movie based on a video game, is like working for someone else and not even get any credit for it.

I thought the silent hill movie was pretty good

I generally think it has more to do with the interaction aspect of a video game clashing against the observer interaction of a movie.

Take the very recent Hitman movie, plenty of action and the protaganist 47 does some rather acrobatic and inhuman feats during the movie. It is very guns blazing. From the video game's standpoint, going guns blazing is indeed a possibility but for many it's more about sneaking around and figuring out how to eliminate the targets while still getting away without being spotted. Those with such a view will find the Hitman movie feeling shallow and false.

Because people interact in a videogame differently, it makes it more or less impossible to create a movie with the same protaganist that suits all the impressions people might have of them.

I think you're giving Bioware too much credit, there are a great deal of starwars games.

Rogue One itself is very, very similar to Dark Forces.

The animated Street Fighter II movie (even though it was specifically designed to promote Street Fighter) is pretty great and faithful to the game, it also has Chun Li in the shower which doesn't hurt either.

Postal movie was awesome

I enjoyed the Silent Hill movie. The first. second was hilariously bad, but in an entertaining way, so I guess you could say I enjoyed that too. To me, it seems that a lot of he movie adaptations have one of two issues:

1. The main game doesn't have enough story to properly adapt into a movie

2. The creator wants to do their own thing and goes far off base with the source material

The new Monster Hunter movie is going to be about alternate dimensions and all kinds of bullshit, when it should be about a Hunter rising through the ranks and eventually hunting some big bad monster. I could actually see a pretty solid fantasy action movie arising from the latter structure, but the former just sounds bad and unfortunately that's what they're going with.

The reason I dig the Silent Hill movie is that it sticks pretty close to what the games are like, from the sets to the atmosphere, down to the hammy acting and bizarre story. The second movie goes completely off the rails, but the first is a pretty good adaptation of the games IMO. It's also pretty much the only adaptation I've seen that remains so faithful to the original game.

I think the issue is rather obvious yes?

For the majority of movies based on video games, they are simply used as cash in's for the developer and the movie's production company. They dont start from a place of creativity or concern.

Hopefully this changes though as there are plenty of series that would make fantastic movies if the right writing/director team was hired to do them.

Then how come they can make Star Wars into many good games? If someone did made a Call of Duty movie, they could quite easily capture the spirit of the series, while using a more traditional movie approach to story telling. They wouldn't actually have to have fps style scenes in it like the Doom movie.

I think people should stop trying to use Star Wars as an example of anything. Star Wars would be an exception to the rule no matter what angle you come from.

Because Star Wars began as a movie franchise before it became a videogame franchise. Going from the role of a observer to a interacter is easier then vice versa. Of course it also do depend on the developers ensuring a game based on a movie is entertaining enough to be considered a good game. Regarding Star Wars, Lucasart Studio recieved plenty of experience with the franchise when they were the studio that primarily created Star Wars games.

I personally think that it's studios not understanding how a videogame transforming into a movie should work.

Who said that no one has made a good movie based on a game?

Warcraft made more than it´s budget back plus a pretty decent profit.

Resident Evil also made a fair profit, which is why there is now 5 and 1 more in production.

Tomb Raider again made it's budget back and also a profit, And again a new is in production.

So your argument failed and of course there is good movies based on games, it´s all about the actors and script and for some reason a lot of game-movies seem to be half assed, but when they finally hit the right recipe they also get people in to watch them.

I think a Mario Kart movie could be successful

Game theory does a great video on this from memory?

This. People "put their creative efforts into other people's intellectual property" all the time. I mean, jeeze...how many classic movies have been adapted from novels that some other person wrote? It's certainly not as if all or even most of the great movies out there are the result of someone coming up with his own intellectual property and then just deciding to make a movie out of it.

The thing about video games is that video game stories are usually shit. It's not that someone wouldn't put their creative efforts into adapting someone else's intellectual property. It's more the case that if they were starting from a place of creativity or concern, they probably wouldn't have settled on videogames in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I love videogames. But generally speaking, they are not the place to go to to find great stories that need to get more exposure. If someone does happen to see a story and gets moved to adapt it into a movie for the sake of the art form, that probably didn't happen by playing a videogame. Videogame stories are (usually) still shit, and the only reason to go back to that well is for a quick and easy payout (in terms of movie adaptations).

That of course isn't to say that people can't turn a simple hired job into something great. You get talented people, they can elevate even garbage. The thing is...why would a studio who's making a video game movie bother getting someone on the level of Steven Spielberg or Paul Thomas Anderson to direct it? They could absolutely get the talent if they wanted to. They just DON'T want to, because it's a damn videogame movie, which means that they can hire b-list (or worse) talent and still turn a profit.

These movies just are not meant to be good. The people who look for inspiration for their projects usually don't turn to video games for inspiration, and the people who greenlight these movies anyway usually aren't looking for cast and crew who can make a good movie.

Critics did. It doesn't matter if fans of the franchise liked it. It has a rating of 28 % at rotten tomatoes. No video game movie is rated fresh.

Who gives a fudge about critics? if the movie does well and makes a profit, then that is by definition not a failure.

Critics are like the behind, nothing but crap comes out of them.

I kinda feel sorry for people who live their lives by critics and think they are somehow more qualified to tell them what they like and dislike.

The Riddick games were awesome. The real reason for one or the other being bad is that when you produce a game or movie and you assign people to it, they are not going to be compassionate about it like it would if you draw those kinds of people to it. This is why EA often makes bad games, rather than let a developer do what they want to do, they force them.

Starbreeze had compassion to create a Riddick game and did so of their own free will with the help of Vin Diesel. That doesn't happen often, rather companies want a license to a popular product and then force it on a group of developers.

I disagree with this.

There are plenty of video games that provide for a rich atmosphere and potential universe to draw from. They are no different from any other story telling device.

Mortal Kombat (1995) is the only good video game movie ever.

Disagree with it all you like, but I don't see the cinematic greats mining videogames for potential. They're almost always written by b-list (at best) talent. And even when you get actually good actors in it, that's usually just a "just a paycheck" kind of gig, something that they do in between their real movies.

Regardless of if you think that videogames have just as much potential as any other source, the people making the movies don't think so. The ones who actually DO make video game movies are either too incompetent to realize games' supposed potential, either that or they were never really concerned with making quality in the first place. Meanwhile, the people who potentially COULD make a great video game movie have no interest in making video game movies. Talk all you like about how the games have POTENTIAL to be turned into great movies, but the people who could POTENTIALLY make great movies seem to have no interest in doing video game adaptations. Come back to me when Martin Scorcese does a GTA movie, but what we've been getting are (at best) movies directed by the likes of Paul W. Anderson, Cristoph Gans, and Jan De Bont.

Pretty much this. A good videogame movie CAN be made. Just takes the right talent and a good relationship between the movie makers and the IP owner. Again look at Marvel movies.

@yukalaka: I stopped reading after you said "no one likes to put their creative touches on someone else's intellectual property" cause we know that's not true. When movies based on books and comic books are done well with lots of creative effort dumped into them we can see that's not the reason then for video game based movies sucking.

From what I see it's because studios don't trust video games as a source material so they put very little in the way of resources towards them. Lower budgets, nobody directors, usually no name actors, etc.

Again, this is simply because they are used as cash in's, its not that video games are inherently a worse place to start for creative material. Its the corporate world we live in simply wanting to make as much money as quickly and easily as possible. This does not speak to whether or not people can be creative within these universes, as weve seen with many video game related novels. The same lack of concern for a product is why we dont see good directors or actors taking it seriously, they wont if the studio wont.

But we know what will happen right? The same thing we see with everything. Eventually someone will come along and give us a quality video game movie and everyone will want to latch on and mimic it. 10% will get it right, and then all the sudden we start seeing thse movies being made by directors who are fans of the series and writers who are fans of the series or good writers. We see this trend over and over and over again.

Its a newer place to draw inspiration from. Fact is we have not seen the creative worlds and characters necessary for expansion until maybe ten years ago. Video games before 10-15 years ago or so, were far more simplistic for the most part and to parallel this with writing, it would be like movie makers attempting to adapt cave drawings to a movie.

@kod: Like I said, good cast and crew can elevate the material that they're working on. Even though video game stories usually are crap, there's still no reason that good writers/directors/actors can't take the material and elevate it. Hell, people seem to love Big Trouble in Little China, and that isn't exactly a shining example of a great story. It's actually pretty much trash, but it's handled in a way that makes it a lot of fun to watch.

That there's no reason people shouldn't be able to make a great video game movie was precisely my point. That should absolutely be doable even if the source material does suck. The reasons it doesn't happen are because...

a) The people making the movies really don't care much about quality. They're approaching it as a quick and easy cash-in on a pre-established fan base. As such, they generally hire shitty writers, shitty directors, and shitty actors in order to keep costs down.

b) The people with the talent and skill to elevate the material and make a great video game movie have no interest in making the movies. These guys often go to great lengths to get their passion projects up and running, but video game movies aren't on the agenda. They prefer mining cinema and literature for their inspiration.

Also, I think you're going to be disappointed if you ever expect great video game movies to become commonplace. Will we ever get a few great video game movies? Sure. But it's not going to be the case of one studio making a hit and then everyone jumping on the bandwagon. Do you know why? Because even if that were to happen, then the followers would simply be jumping on the bandwagon. They wouldn't be approaching it from a place of creativity, they'd be trying to cash in on the hot new video game movie fad. It'd be some studio executive saying, "well, video game movies seem to be the hot thing right now, so let's go buy up the movie rights to one of those video game thingies." It'd be exactly the same as how 90% of zombie fiction is trash. Most of them are just hopping on the zombie fad, which means that most of that stuff SUCKS. Or remember how after the Lord of the Rings movies were really big, there was this brief period where a few studios tried to cash in on that fad? Or remember after the Hunger Games movies were really big, there was this glut of adaptations of young adult fantasy novels, and most of them sucked balls as well.

Also, don't cite superhero movies as an example either. Sure, this might be a golden age for superhero movies, but don't forget that most of the good ones are being put out exclusively by Marvel Studios. The other studios put out a good one every now and then, but overall most of the quality movies are just coming from Marvel. You will not see the same situation happen with video game adaptations unless a single movie company decides to pretty much focus exclusively on video game adaptations. You're not gonna see that happen. The best you'll see is a bunch of imitators each doing their own thing. And in that case, most of the movies will still suck since most of the imitators are just trying to cash in on a fad.

Video game movies are awful because the source material is usually shit in translation. We think video games have this incredible story line and plot, but most of them are very meager. By playing the game, we have a far greater experience than watching it. We bring a lot of ourselves and our imagination when playing a game. That doesnt translate well when watching a noninteractive movie.

Even I think that's a fairly minor point. Even if the underlying storyline and plot are pretty garbage, it's the writers' and directors' jobs to make it better. I mean, I've never read Jaws, but by all accounts I've heard it's actually a pretty bad novel. Didn't stop Steven Spielberg from adapting it into a great movie.

It really shouldn't be any different with video game adaptations. Even if the underlying story is kind of crappy, that's no excuse for the writers and directors not IMPROVING on it. Lots of good movies actually have pretty crappy stories, yet still end up being great movies overall by being better than the sum of their parts. And while I think that a lot of video game stories actually kind of suck, I do think that a lot of them actually utilize some interesting concepts and ideas. No one's saying that the filmmakers need to follow the source material to the letter, instead the filmmakers need to keep the interesting parts that work and then scrap and redo the rest. Keep the interesting ideas and concepts, and then base a GOOD story around that. There's zero reason why that can't be done even with stories that were bad in the first place.

I think the problem with video games is the same problem with movies overall today. Instead of a director bringing his vision to the studios, the studios buy up intellectual properties and proceed to utilize marketing in order to maximize profits followed by finding the director they think will do it right. This process sucks the creativity out of most big movies today. That's why I am a huge fan of Chinese, Korean and Japanese movies. They are desperate to expand their movie business, so the Asian studios throw cash at well known directors for whatever stories they themselves want to tell.

When you determine you want to finance a film not because of the ideas the creator brings to you, but because you have a promotional and quarterly deadline to meet, how is creativity supposed to reign supreme? Imagine if Shakespeare was coerced into accepting commissions for plays and books from the Catholic Church? Imagine the great works we would lose....