It's a different medium, you idiot! - Videogame movies.

This is the first in a short series of articles called It's a different medium, you idiot! The point of which is to point out to people why they are idiot for saying things like "It's not as good as the book." Of course, it's not as good as the book! *Reasons for this in the next article. This installment will look at the dreaded, but ever popular genre of videogame movies, as well as looking at what happens when we get the reverse (videogames based on movies).

Early days and the early 1990s
The dawn of the videogame console was, without a doubt, a glorious moment. Throughout the Western world (and Japan), kids and adults were playing on ZX Spectrums, Commodore 64s and the ol' BBC tape deck thingymahoozit. Videogame popularity went through the roof, however, with the advent of the Sega MasterSystem and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The big star? Mario.


A blight on cinema and gaming.

The Super Mario Bros movie was an unmitigated disaster. I'm not saying that it was the first videogame movie, but it was certainly the earliest that I'll focus on. First of all, let's take a surface look at Super Mario Bros. as a concept. There are these Italian brothers called Mario and Luigi, they are plumbers in a world were pipes take you to other places, oh, and there is a princess. These three are the ONLY HUMANS IN THE WORLD, the rest of existence is populated by both tyrannical and benign dinosaurs, talking mushrooms, floating fireballs with faces etc. Super Mario Bros. was a great game and I remember fondly the time I spent playing it, but it makes no sense other than: get to the end of the screen, don't get hit, turn big, turn small, get firebolts, beat the obsticles. Who in their right mind would commission a movie that is based upon a world that doesn't make sense? Why not a Cool Spot movie? Why not an Ecco the Dolphin movie? Why not a Duck Hunt movie? I was going to say 'Why not an Earthworm Jim movie?' and then I remembered the vaguely entertaining TV series. Other 'successes' of the era include Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat which also took no plot properties and tried to make a story out of them, whilst retaining the 1-on-1 fights from the games.


The first Tomb Raider spawned
endless sequels and two movies.



Late 1990s and early 2000s

Tomb Raider revolutionised British gaming by bringing us Indiana Jones with ever increasing tits. The HUGELY successful video games series has provided the world with probably the second most popular female costume after Princess Leia in the Gold Bikini, as well as two movies starring Angelina Jolie. 

Resident Evil made people shit themselves and was probably responsible for the influx of zombie movies in the early 2000s. The irony is that the flood of Resident Evil movies have not been very good. This was a time when Hollywood was only just starting to take note of games again (after the dire early 90s). Many games that came in this time-frame could have supported movies, but were overlooked because of the stigma attached to videogame moives. Hitman took 10 years to make it to the screen. Syphon Filter or Metal Gear Solid could have produced decent 3* movies, but the market still wasn't open enough to consider them.

Late 2000s to the future

  

Perhaps too faithfully adapted?

Bloodrayne went straight to DVD. As a minimal plot, action driven game, this was undoubtably a good thing. Hitman, however, got a cinema release. Not a great film, but better than Bloodrayne? Definitely. This was a sign that the industry was beginning to find it's market and beginning to understand where story potential truely lay. Hitman, if I recall correctly, basically took the plot of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and adapted it for screen. In the adaptation we lost the missions and took many of the general ideas from the cutscenes and tweaked them. The result was not perfect, but acceptable. Had we kept the missions, surely we would have been bored senseless watching 47 kill for money, but without extending the plot. The problem was really that the character (strong, solemn, silent) really wasn't suited to carting a talkative bint around to provide exposition. A look at Blade Runner's Deckard could have shown how to handle a character who is, by nature more introverted.

Speaking of Blade Runner brings us nicely to:

Movie Tie-in Videogames

Spider-man 2's video game wasn't Amazing, but did work quite well



From Jurassic Park, to The Matrix to Yogi Bear, major movies are expected to have a videogame tie-in these days. It is quite simply an easy sell. People go out, enjoy the movie and buy the game. This means that more often than not the game hasn't had the attention that the concept deserves, as the game needs to be out for the cinema release (or DVD release at a push) to suceed in capturing the maximum market sales. Movie tie-ins often fall down when they try to stick too rigidly to the film's plot and can flourish when they take a step away to add elements of their own.



1982-1995 Longest wait for a
movies' video game?

 Spider-man 2 is a good example of a game that took that step back. Whilst there are many flaws within the game, it really took the one element that makes Spider-man who he is and went to town on it. It let you free-roam web-swing, leap and crawl around New York City. It also added in a romantic plot featuring Black Cat and some battles against other Spider-man villians. The main plot of the film was included as the spine of the story, but you were allowed to go off, explore and complete side-quests.
Blade Runner, of course, was itself based on the book by Phillip K. Dick, but the video game adaptation came 15 years after the movie. Talk about taking a step back, you don't even play as Deckard. You play a rookie Blade Runner who has to investigate and retire Replicants, whilst alternate endings reveal that you are or are not a Replicant yourself. So whilst not a direct tie-in, the game utilised and mirrored the movie whilst giving itself it's own story and identity.

Story structure: The real pitfall

Now here in lies the main problem when translating videogames to movies (and viceversa). A video is considered to be feature-length when it lasts 75 minutes+ and most movies come in between an hour and a half and two hours. Videogames, however, last anywhere between 6 and 60 hours. The plot and character content of which can be minimal, by which I mean you could spend thirty seconds watching a cutscene for every hour you spend platforming or hack'n'slashing. So videogames either have too many plot points or too few for a writer to be able to translate it directly into a screenplay.

In summary then, the main reason for videogame and movie crossovers not being as good as their counterparts (and this will be a recurring theme): story structure and characterisation.

A game has the first hour to deliver exposition and introduce the characters. A movie has to do it in twenty minutes.
A game has several levels over which to bombard you with set-pieces of action and adventure. A movie probably has time to fit in three or four at the most.
A game can forget story and characterisation during certain parts of it's levels. Every part of a movie should reveal more about the plot and characterisation.
These very different structures make it very difficult to get all the elements to work right. It might be a cinematic game, but if you can't get the movie's structure right, it's going to suck.

Everytime you hear an arguement against them, take these catchphrases into your hearts and repeat:

It was intended to be a movie, so of course the movie is better.
It was intended to be a game, so of course the game is better.


Can Drake's Forune break the mould?

I'm looking at Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, which is currently in development, as a beacon. A symbol. If this movie can break the mould and be good, then I won't give up on the chances for videogame movies just yet. The Uncharted series has very purposefully tried to envoke adventure movies of the past by adding in strong story and character moments. Even something as simple as Drake losing his footing on a climb reveals a little about his character as he mutters under his breath. In game banter between the characters helps to build a relationship as we play and not as we take a drink in the cutscenes. It's this attention to detail, as well as the cinematic events, that will translate well to the screen.

Regardless of whether it can or can not succeed where others have failed, we will have to wait until 2013 to find out. In the meantime, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is out in November.

Think that a game is crying out for a big-screen translation? Is a Zelda movie past-due? Did you actually enjoy Street Fighter?

Comment below to share your thoughts.