OP-ED: The Gears of War “Movie”: Games and Hollywood

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Hollywood has … problems.

Okay, that’s kind of a lame lead. We all know that. Everywhere has problems. Is Hollywood unique?

Well … yes. Most of their problems are pretty specific. And a lot of them are of their own, self-inflicted making. If you want a fascinating hour, go look up a podcast on how things like Academy Awards are determined and you’ll be exposed to an almost insane feedback loop wherein people make movies to please the academy so that they can win awards to make movies to please the academy.

Yeah, Hollywood is weird. But one of their more puzzling “problems,” the one that I want to talk about today, is their obsession with “fixing what isn’t broke.”

That’s right. I want to talk about video game movies.

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Comments

[PaulAsaran]

I continue to maintain that Mortal Kombat was a great adaptation of the games, even if it hasn’t aged well. I also recall buying the soundtrack and discovering a lot of music I never would have considered before, some of which I grew to enjoy. The less said about the sequel, the better.

Every now and then I’ll see a movie based on a game that is okay, but they’re never really tied to the game (Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within is one such example, though it was more ‘meh’ than anything). But I honestly can’t think of anything coming out recently based on a game that I enjoyed. Then again, I haven’t been going to see a lot of movie lately, either. Still, it’s quite the shame that Hollywood can’t seem to recognize what makes games good.

[sevenofeleven]

Good article.

Someone actually made a final fantasy movie and it sucked.
Yes, it looked good. But they spent no time fleshing out the chars.
I felt sorry for them when they died because it looked nasty. I should've had more feelings for these chars.
I've watched a lot of B movies and most of them at least did some fleshing out. To me, that movie sucked.
It was a Final fantasy movie but I don't remember the name but I can tell you what happened in it.

Back in the day, there was this game series called Wing Commander.
Basically, imagine a ww 2 movie set on an aircraft carrier and you were a newbie pilot assigned to the carrier.
Move everything into space and replace the Japanese with Kilrathi, evil bipedal cats. Each Wing commander game 1, 2, 3 was an evolution toward a more cinematic experience. Besides flying around, you can talk to people during missions on the carrier.

Then they made the movie.
Ugh, it was awful. They used none of the ship designs from the game and the Kilrathi looked terrible.

There are a lot of issues converting games into movies.

1. There is a difference between being the hero and watching someone being the hero.

2. Sorry to say this but Hollywood has very little respect for game stories. "It's for frickin kids"

3. Some games have very little story. Others have tons of lore but are hard to boil down to the Hollywood formula.

4. Hollywood has their own way of doing things and sometimes it just gets in the way.

5. Foreign markets have more influence now. Chinese censors don't like certain things.

6. Gamer's expectations.