Video game based movies


nd Silent Hill maybe the best Videogame Movie yet.
I beg to differ. The Silent Hill Movie was shite. Gans is good at copying every piece he can from a video game (he copied directly the camera angles from the firt video game, which is insane because you dont watch a movie like you play a game), but he is pretty bad at recreating the experience and make the movie as scary as the game. It was actually pretty boring to watch.
 
I beg to differ. The Silent Hill Movie was shite. Gans is good at copying every piece he can from a video game (he copied directly the camera angles from the firt video game, which is insane because you dont watch a movie like you play a game), but he is pretty bad at recreating the experience and make the movie as scary as the game. It was actually pretty boring to watch.
Compared to Uwe Boll's "Alone in the Dark" Movie, Silent Hill was a masterpiece!   ;)
 
There are a lot of movies which are bad, but are still great. I don't understand the paradox; like, I can say "this is a really bad movie" and at the same time "I want to watch it again, and again, it's so awesome". Not even that they are so bad they're good, like they are legitimately terrible movies that are also legitimately good movies. It makes no sense to me but I know it to be true. Anyone else experienced this?

I think Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter fit into this category. I can look at them and think "the plot was weak, the acting cheesy, these are bad movies... but they play out so well and I can really get into the well choreographed action scense so they're really good movies"
 
I kid you not, the house of the dead movie is borderline porn; and who would have thought that the little kid from gentle Ben, could have turned out to be such a pervert... :rolleyes:
 
But how do any of these compare to the wonderful film "Super Mario Bros."?
 
I watched that movie in cinema back then when I was a kid, I found it not that bad...back then. :D I know that story with Bob Hoskins and he may be right. The movie was pure trash and not worth to watch twice. But at least it had some interesting references to the games. Actualy, everythign was there: Princess Daisy, Koopa and his Troopers, Goombas, high jumps, even Yoshi and mushrooms, bo-ombs etc... I've seen game based movies with less references. Oh, and Roxette made the soundtrack!  :wub:
I was so happy they made it into a film until I saw it.  I like a lot of films no one else will waste their time with for a variety of reasons, however I felt they destroyed the SMB story, and that it had no redeeming qualities.  Even as a kid I thought it sucked.  The goombas just pissed me off.

Overall, there are not much good Videogame Movies, first Street Fighter Movie was also trash but much better than this horrible Chun Li flick.
But, but, but...I don't recall either of them in detail, and I don't think I really liked the first.  I do remember that I thought the Chun-Li one was watchable (for me...yet, strangely, I can't stand some stuff that is extremely popular and well received), and I actually enjoyed it.

Dead or Alive was somehow watchable, however, Kasumi wore long trousers in that film and no skirt, these bastards!!! :angry:
No disagreements here.  I feel that it may have seemed a bit hollow. I never really got very into these games, so they may be just as hollow.

and Silent Hill maybe the best Videogame Movie yet.
I recently saw Silent Hill: Revelation and enjoyed it.  Not as good as the first one.  As for the story and depiction of the games, I have only played the first one, and never completed it.  I do plan to go back to these games if I get the chance since they are something I would really enjoy.

Resident Evil is also watchable but I never found any of the movies really good. They competely forgot the puzzle part and the suspense.
I think they were just going for action movies inspired by video games.  We own all but the last of these (they fit into my family's interests outside of video games, and I feel that they are better than a lot of the other recent zombie films out there).

The old one has a sequel in comic form that's not too bad:
You can get away with a lot more with comics.  I think I have come across this before and didn't bother to read it because of my frustration with the film.  I will take a look.  Thanks for the link.

How about the rumor of Netflix bringing a live action Legend of Zelda series? Personally I don't think it'll work, there's too much variety in the Zelda series: no matter what they do there'll be massive complaints that it either isn't "zelda enough" or it's "not original enough", know what I mean?
I can see this going very wrong if not handled properly, and I can't imagine how it can be done properly.  The moment Link speaks it will fail, and it seems difficult to base a show around an action character that only grunts and stuff (hasn't he only ever said two words in the entire series of games?).  I would rather it be "not original enough" than not Zelda enough.

I would love to see a Metroid movie though, that's something that could be done beautifully with the right directory.
Yes, so much yes!  I personally don't want it live action.  I don't want to associate an actress with Samus.  She is probably my favorite video game character.

wow, your standards must be pretty low then :D
It isn't so much that my standards are low as much as that I appreciate things for different reasons.  A movie doesn't have to be good to be enjoyed.  All those action films with minimal story that seem to do so well prove that, and I can't stand most of those.  (Having read the rest of the thread I see that WizardStan mentioned the good "bad movies".) 

There are a lot of movies which are bad, but are still great. I don't understand the paradox; like, I can say "this is a really bad movie" and at the same time "I want to watch it again, and again, it's so awesome". Not even that they are so bad they're good, like they are legitimately terrible movies that are also legitimately good movies. It makes no sense to me but I know it to be true. Anyone else experienced this?
Yes.  All the time. 


I kinda go for those films that are often overlooked, or generally disliked enough that no one mentions them or bothers watching them, though.  Some, like The Whisperer in Darkness by the HPLHS that I finally got around to watching because it was on Chiller last week, don't have a massive budget to live up to what they are trying to do.  That is a bad example, as that is a great movie, and I think they did a really good job with everything, and it may be better than The Call of Cthulhu.  A better example would probably be the Matrix.  I have seen it more times than I should, but it is really a shitty movie.  It has about 5 minutes worth of story that other films would use as an introduction, and a bunch of eye candy.  Everyone acted like it was such an amazing movie, and I was told many times that I would love it because of my interests and tastes, so they were all confused when I told them that the only thing that was somewhat interesting was the basic idea and ontological stuff.  I am pretty sure this movie was widely regarded as great, but it is just bad and pretty.  I really liked The Animatrix, though.


Anyway, films can have horrible actors and an incompetent crew, and the story and ideas can be great, so for me it is still a wonderful movie.  I can think of some that I like and I don't know why I like them, and should probably greatly dislike them.  I still watch them, often many times.  There are some that I do like for the reasons The Matrix was probably popular: appealing or interesting visuals.  Sometimes I just like a character, and if the actor can pull it off all the other failings of a film don't really matter much.
 
I can see this going very wrong if not handled properly, and I can't imagine how it can be done properly.  The moment Link speaks it will fail, and it seems difficult to base a show around an action character that only grunts and stuff (hasn't he only ever said two words in the entire series of games?).  I would rather it be "not original enough" than not Zelda enough.

It's not just that Link doesn't speak, he has nearly no personality. The idea behind this is that it makes people relate better with him, since they can project whatever they want on him. That's indeed pretty hard to handle correctly in a TV show/movie.
 
I can see this going very wrong if not handled properly, and I can't imagine how it can be done properly.  The moment Link speaks it will fail, and it seems difficult to base a show around an action character that only grunts and stuff (hasn't he only ever said two words in the entire series of games?).  I would rather it be "not original enough" than not Zelda enough.

It's not just that Link doesn't speak, he has nearly no personality. The idea behind this is that it makes people relate better with him, since they can project whatever they want on him. That's indeed pretty hard to handle correctly in a TV show/movie.
I aggree, Link is a template,

but it's not like all succesful shows/movies have only protagonists with... well... actual personalities.

350x350.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's not just that Link doesn't speak, he has nearly no personality. The idea behind this is that it makes people relate better with him
Yep, sounds about right for most people.

Seriously (?), though what you mention is pretty much what I mean.  He is a video game character in the purest sense, and, as has been stated by the people behind the games, he is really intended to just be an avatar, or a reflection of the player.  It is possible to keep this true with a character like that in film/television, but all it takes is a little slip up and it may as well not be Zelda.  Maybe if they throw all of that out the window the result will still be okay.  They just need to look at the track record of video game based movies, and evaluate why they would want to do such a thing.  Sure, some hardcore fans will love it even if it is as bad as Super Mario Bros., but most likely the result will be a lot of money wasted on a big budget film that has almost no chance of being successful, and a bunch of fans that think everyone involved was stupid for jumping on board.  Or maybe not.  That is what I would think, though.

I aggree, Link is a template,

but it's not like all succesful shows/movies have only protagonists with... well... actual personalities.

350x350.jpg
Btw, did I mention The Matrix?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I can see this going very wrong if not handled properly, and I can't imagine how it can be done properly. The moment Link speaks it will fail, and it seems difficult to base a show around an action character that only grunts and stuff (hasn't he only ever said two words in the entire series of games?). I would rather it be "not original enough" than not Zelda enough.
I just stumbled across something that *might* make it work, maybe. Apparently in Hyrule Warriors Link is canonically mute and relies on a fairy to translate for him. That, to me, would solve the problem: everytime Link "speaks" it's not actually him saying the words, the fairy is just giving the gist of what he was thinking, it's just a third parties interpretation of what he's feeling. We're still free to put our own spin on what his exact words and emotions are. It would still be very hard to pull off but in this way I at least see how it could work.
 
In some sense that works, but is even more watered down since you get everything filtered through the interpretation of a third party.  While that works, it has always seemed that it works best if the interpreter understands the language and what is most important to the person they are interpretting for, as well as how they think a bit.  Not sure that made sense. 
 
Yeah, I hear you. That's why I say it could work but would still be very hard to pull off, there'd be a very fine line in the interpretation and how Link could act and one mistep destroys the immersion.

I also realized that the vast majority of a Zelda game is Link solving dungeon puzzles and fighting baddies, how would that translate? Is there going to be long stretches of movie where link just pushes blocks around on ice?
 
The moment Link speaks it will fail, and it seems difficult to base a show around an action character that only grunts and stuff (hasn't he only ever said two words in the entire series of games?)
As far as I recall, those words are 'Hah' and 'Woah'. They should employ Bogus Adventure era Keanu.
 
Well maybe they will cut out Link and actually make it about Zelda. 
 
I wouldn't recommend making a movie about a template.

Blizzard's units are full of character, even the lowest peon always had more personality than Link, that's why I think making complete movies with those would be awesome.

It puzzles me why they don't make them CGI with the same studio that made those cinematics in the games.

BTW: The Lost Vikings could make a nice comedy/action-hybrid with proper actors and well written dialogues.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I also realized that the vast majority of a Zelda game is Link solving dungeon puzzles and fighting baddies, how would that translate? Is there going to be long stretches of movie where link just pushes blocks around on ice?
I recall several films that seemed to do ok financially that included things like this, figuring things out and "solving puzzles", along with action and adventure...Indiana Jones, for example.  The puzzles wouldn't need to be just like the games as long as they include the basic idea and make some nods that fans will get.  Since it is one of the most important elements in the games it does need to be included, but for pacing and keeping films within the time expected they couldn't really go all out on puzzles.

The moment Link speaks it will fail, and it seems difficult to base a show around an action character that only grunts and stuff (hasn't he only ever said two words in the entire series of games?)
As far as I recall, those words are 'Hah' and 'Woah'. They should employ Bogus Adventure era Keanu.
I thought that was it, too.  I read a Zelda wiki article about Link last week that said he actually said a couple more words in a couple games.  It was still almost nothing, and I think it was in some of the older, but not earliest, games.  I am not going to seek it out right now, as I don't have time to verify in the games.  I think a surefire way to ensure a stillborn Zelda movie is to include Keanu as Link, even if they have the same personality.
 
I hated every Uve Boll's movie, except one, that actually I consider a great comedy, it's POSTAL !!

It just kills me every time I watch it because of how much dumb it is !! :D

The other movies I "accepted" are the TOMB RAIDER serie, PRINCE OF PERSIA, and MORTAL KOMBAT (only the first)

I hated the "movie inventions" like the Scorpion's "live" harpoon, or some improvised background story, but the characters in the listed movies were very close to their games counterparts, so I just enjoyed them as it was some japanese OAV with the same characters in another story.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YoWEMeJMP5U?feature=oembed
 
I always thought Rampage was inspired by the likes of King Kong and Godzilla.  A movie based on a video game based loosely on movies sounds pretty cool, and that variety of films seems to be fairly successful.
 
Back
Top