Weekend Open Forum: Best and worst video game to movie adaptation

The Mass Effect movie is in talks for casting for a long time.

Really enjoyed resident evil,Silent Hill and The Hitman movies.

The worst one for me is Bloodrayne which might be over taken by the Uncharted movie
if it actually has Marky Mark playing the lead role.

Bad:
Hitman movie was horrible. Max Payne was really bad. Resident Evil comes nowhere close to the actual story of the game besides zombies.

Moderate:
Silent hill movie was near it but needed work. Tomb raider ill let slide.

Ok:
Prince of Persia: Sands of time was alright.

I've yet to see a game properly adapted for the screen, although I typically avoid those films. I've seen the first two Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat films - all crap. Tomb Raider I and II were barely tolerable. I'd say Prince of Persia was the pick of the litter, and it was at the bottom end of what I consider watchable. I've also seen the first two D&D films, if those even count, as well as Battleship: neat concept, incredibly bad execution. No idea how it got greenlighted, ugh. I'm honestly not sure if I've seen any more game movies although my friends have seen a lot. They've found all of them laughably bad. I will say that very few games are suitable for the cinematic treatment. Story is paramount, and so is proper suspension of disbelief. If I could pick three games for serious, big-budget adaptations, these would be my choices:

Star Control: Battle Beyond the Stars meets Battlestar Galactica (closer to original BSG in tone). A grand adventure with as much character development as you could squeeze into a trilogy. I'm talking Star Wars for a new generation here.

XCOM: it would be tricky, but man..if you could pull it off. Main character could be a new recruit, probably no higher rank than lieutenant whose selfless heroics should have gotten him killed in battle. Sudden interference from aliens that only he witnessed spares him, but his refusal to deny the truth seemingly kills his career. He ends up being transferred to the XCOM project, where all the former black ops and elite troops look down upon him..all but one, a somewhat unbalanced Delta Force op who claims aliens abducted his teammates several years earlier..

OK, I'm torn on #3. Its a tie between Fallout, Duke Nukem and Half-Life.

HITMAN hands down! I've watched it at least a half a dozen times, awesome movie.

I loved the Mortal Kombat movie, I watched it in the theater in 95, I believe. When Subzero killed that first thug with his freezing powers, I threw a water balloon over the audience.

Silent Hill and the first Mortal Kombat was awesome.

Doom was very bad, but not nearly as lame as Mortal Combat and Street Fighter (Bison dollars ??!). It wouldn't be nearly as bad if it wasn't for the steroid cast and that cliche Sarge character. There certainly was potential for more.

I never liked Lara Croft movies but cinematically I'd rank them above Doom.

Tunnel Rats (by Uwe Boll ...) wasn't all that bad - I can't think of any better game-to-movie adaptation.

I would have to say the best adaptations would be Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within-The CG was excellent for when it was produced.
Silent Hill was also excellent although it left me feeling very depressed at the end.
As far as adaptations I would like to see...
Skyrim/Elder Scrolls- if done well it could be pretty epic imo
Fallout- the 50's styling along with the atmosphere of the games could be awesome if done well.
Bioshock-the 40's/50's styling and atmosphere could make for a good movie as well.

I'm usually more concerned about the other 90% -> film to game adaptions. Simultaneous releases of both often yield terrible results for the game.

Other than that, some games by nature would require a whole television series to properly adapt.

"Battleship" wasn't terrible. But I suppose that wouldn't count as it came from a board game?

They skated by heavily on the "Angelina Jolie factor".

That said, I'm not sure it's actually important whether gamers are pleased, or displeased, with a game / movie adaptation. I was just reminded, "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time", was formerly a video game. The movie was decent, entertaining, and I don't feel as though I wasted any time watching it.

So, if I actually played one of the Prince of Persia games, would that be prejudicial, on my enjoyment of the movie?

It really seems to me that that game should succeed as a game in that peer group, and the movie, as an entirely separate entity, should succeed as a movie, to movie goers.

I like the idea of a Duke Nukem movie. How about Mickey Rourke as Duke? He's had that great monotone voice in Sin City. Give him spiked blond hair, a shotgun in one hand, and a chick on the other, add some colorful phrases to his volcabulary "I'm gonna rip off your head and $417 down your neck" and you've got Duke Nukem!

We've seen a Fallout-esqe type movie with "Book of Eli". The scenery was excellent! They just need to be sure to get Ron Perlman to say "WAR. War never changes" if they DO delve into a Fallout storyline.

For Half-Life, I think Gary Oldman would be an excellent Freeman.... He's very reserved, but you know he can be a super badass when he needs to be. They just need to made him look about 10 or so years younger (he looked young as Sirius Black in the Potter films, but looked old in the Dark Knight series).

If they were making a Mass Effect movie, would it be beneficial to get the actor they modeled Shepard after to play Shepard (assuming he has any acting ability)? Would they hire any of the voice actors who are actually movie actors to reprise their roles (David Keith, Seth Green, Lance Henriksen, etc.)?
Knowing Hollywood, they'll get Keanu Reaves to play Shepard, Chris Tucker to play Captain Anderson, and Rosanne Barr to play Wrex (this would have to be the version were Wrex got killed).

Oh, and the movie Wing Commander (1999 - Freddie Prinze Jr.) blew total chunks... No body mentioned that one yet, so I had to have the lack of class to bring it up. :-D

hahaha thanks for the laugh man, love the first Mortal Kombat movie, to me is one of the best game to movie adaptation!

What about Wing Commander? That movie was actually decent to watch.

Personally when I'm watching a movie it's strictly for entertainment purposes. Most of the movies that have been made from a game series have been fair at best. About the only series I truly did enjoy were the Laura Croft (Tomb Raider) series.

I actually really enjoyed HITMAN, still watch it when its on TV.

Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter you need to realize that they had to create a storyline using characters from a game that essentially involves buttonmashing. Most game movies already have background stories that the writers can draw from.

Max Payne was an awful movie. I loved the game, and just wanted to see it played out on the big screen, but alas, they had to "hollywood" it up.

I'd like to see an X-COM movie or Mirror's Edge.

Did anyone see the 40 minute Assasin's Creed movie they put out just before the 3rd game? It was really impressive.

The issue I have with games turned into movies is one of two big problems, either you start with a game like mortal combat and turn it into a movie somehow, a fighting games a movie does not make. Or the other side where you have a game with a story longer than the typical 90 minutes run time devoted to it. Hence a lot has to be cut out and plot development is missed almost entirely at times. The first resident evil is easily one of my top picks except that movie franchise quickly takes a turn for the worse. Prince of Persia was alright, but I never played more than the 2D version back in the 90s. The idea of trying to cram Half-Life's story into under 2 hours of film would be a sad day. Which also raises another issue, as a gamer you've likely played the game the movie has been based off of and can point out flaws, or holes in the story, retracting from the experience further. To end on an idea, how about Hollywood leaves games as games and not try and capitalize on them. And for the love of god stop making games based on movies, with the exception to some of the early 007 games, well Goldeneye, all other attempts have just been bad, horrible, or garbage.

Still waiting for HALO movie...Uncle Bill hello?

At its core, isn't this the same issue as someone who has, "read the book, but didn't think the movie did it justice...?

Hollywood has made some really bad movies, from games or otherwise. A bad movie from a good game, could simply be a bad movie, in and of itself, period.

To the upside, at least movies from games have a good, "healthy" dose, of the "
old ultra violence". (Come to think of it, I wonder if "A Clockwork Orange", didn't have a bit of influence on the "Grand Theft Auto" franchise).

Things could be worse, romantic comedies all stink, regardless of how big the stars are in them. They should rename the genre, "boredom generators, with romantic undertones". Calling them, "comedies", is way too big of a stretch. So, what happens if they take your advice, and stop making violent game derivative movies? You could be responsible for the bankruptcy of the MPAA? No wait, that's the down loader's fault, or so they say.

The second point is, a game is a first person , task oriented affair. With a movie, the first person's only "task", is to suffer through, (or enjoy thoroughly), other people being tasked. It's really an apples and oranges comparison in the first place. And remember peeps, you need a pen to script a game or a movie, not a controller.

Then too, a movie can't end with you winning, a game can. There's got to be a hefty amount of letdown in that.

And Uwe Boll still needs to take up a new career in "waste management", or if you prefer, "sanitation engineering".

Well, if it helps you picture it, it was a two-story movie theater. I was in the upper balcony and the balloon landed down there in the crowd. They never knew what hit them. I bet some of them still think it was actually Subzero.

So what you're saying is, only the very stoned, very naive, very brave, or very desperate, should cross the threshold of a theater you're planning on attending?