Over winter break, my girlfriend and I rented the movie Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Based off of the title of this article you may be thinking that I want to rant and rave how horrible I thought the movie was, but I honestly enjoyed it. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was no masterpiece and was far from flawless, but it was definitely entertaining and was well worth the 2 bucks that it cost to rent it. Movie critics might not agree with me, but average people seemed to like it based off of a 71% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. This movie got me thinking, why was this movie, which was based off of a video game, good when so many others like it were so bad. I also decided to think about what makes games based off of movies good or bad. I came up with 2 large reasons why so many movies adapted from video games (and games adapted from movies) are, pardon my french, crap.
What a weird sequel to Donnie Darko
1. Plot/Story:
It may seem pretty obvious that a bad movie or game has a bad plot, but adaptations can make one of two mistakes with the plot or story. When a video game is based off of a movie, they often make the mistake of completely copying the plot of the movie, and basically copy the movie scene for scene. This mistake is done with too many “highly anticipated” movies, and basically any Disney movie. This really grinds my gears for a couple of reasons. First of all, I just saw the movie why the heck would I want to see it again in video game form! Second, how can you expect to take a 2 hour movie and expand it into a 10 hour (minimum) game. Finally, any excitement or suspense is completely removed from the game because I already know whats going to happen. So how do you make a movie into a great video game? Unfortunately, greatness is not easy to achieve but there are options to create an above average video game. First, rather than completely following the plot, use the game as a prequel or sequel. One good examples of this is Enter the Matrix, this game wasn’t amazing, it wasn’t even great but it did manage to get a 7.2 on IGN which is a lot better than what Shrek got. A better example is Ghostbusters which managed to get an 8 on IGN. The other option is to base the game off of the world that the movie created while adding more elements (missions, side quests, etc) which was done triumphantly with the original N64 version GoldenEye 007 and the Wii’s version of GoldenEye 007.
The other mistake that can be done with a story, is to stray too far from the forerunner’s creation. I’m talking about movies that push “loosely based on” to the extreme, which is almost always the case with movies based off of games. The degree of differences between movies and their video game predecessor varies from movie to movie. Small changes are fine, but completely changing factors of a game can end up ruining the movie. Lets face it, who is most likely going to see a film adaptation of a video game, someone who loved the game or someone who has no clue what it is? I’m pretty sure I know the answer: the person who loved the game. So, now follow me here, if the person that loved the game has to deal with complete alterations to key aspects of the characters and the world that was created by the game, then the gamer is going to hate the movie. Lets look at a couple films that have made mistakes with variations.
First, the classic film Double Dragon, I haven’t played the games in a long time so I don’t know all the specifics of the story but I do know one thing for sure; the game is about twins and the movie is about a Caucasian and his Asian brother. I’m not saying that failing to get twins (or even brothers of the same ethnicity) was the only downfall of the movie, but that did throw me off. I’m also pretty sure that the first Double Dragon game was about fighting gang members to get a women back, not battling ninja’s for a medallion. Second, Wing Commander. Oh, Wing Commander, you truly disappointed me. As a kid my brothers and I loved the video games, so when the movie came out we were pumped. Now for the alterations, first what the h-e-double hockey sticks happened to the Kilrathi!? If you aren’t familiar with the game or movie, the Kilrathi are the evil alien antagonists that were vicious lion-like bringers of destruction in the game and looked more like ugly cat mutants in the movie. The other changes include complete alterations to the designs of the spaceships and giving the main character special navigation powers. Finally, lets look at a movie so loosely based off of a game that one of the only thing it shares is the title, and even that is loose! The movie that I’m taking about is In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Honestly, until I started researching for this article I thought that the title was just “In the Name of the King.” The movie did keep the basic story of the beginning of Dungeon Siege and the name of the monsters were right, but that’s about it. Even Jason Statham and Burt Reynolds could not save this movie.
I don't think the Kilrathi should have shaved for the movie
So how do you take a video games plot and make a it into a movie? Well I think that there are two ways. Take the games key elements and change minor details, and I mean MINOR details. Changing events is completely fine, its really hard to take a 10 hour game and make it into a 2 hour movie. But to give characters powers or change very large elements of characters or the fictitious world they live in is going to aggravate people. As I mentioned in the beginning, Prince of Persia did this very well. The story may have changed a bit, but the basic premise was there and none of the crucial elements were changed too much. I think that taking out the sand monsters was a good idea, but in doing that they did change to goal from sealing the sands of time to preventing the release of the sands of time. For the sake of not seeing cheesy sand monsters, I think it was a worth it.
The other approach is to take a game with an already loose plot, and turn it into a surprisingly good film. The movie that I’m talking about, obviously, is Mortal Kombat! Again this film is not critically acclaimed or anything but I sure liked it. I mean come on, they took a game that is quite literally just 1 on 1 fights and turned it into a 1 hour and 41 minute film! Yes I realize that the game does have a plot, its basically about a tournament to save humanity from the Outworld. I still have to say bravo to Paul W.S. Anderson for managing to make a decent film out of Mortal Kombat.
I know which one I fear more, the one that looks like Fabio
2. Time
Time is an issue that plagues many games that are adapted from movies. The issue is that they want to release the game at around the same time that the movie is coming out. This means that companies are rushing to complete a game just so people can walk into a store and say “Hey I just saw that movie! It was really good so I think I’ll buy the game.” Half an hour later they’re pounding their controller against their head asking why they spent so much money on such a horrible game. In order for a movie to be adapted into a good game, there needs to be enough time to make it both graphically pleasing, and enjoyable to play. So, lets look at two of the games that I mentioned way earlier in the article, GoldenEye 007 and Ghostbusters. Neither of these games were released right when the movie came out. GoldenEye 007 was released 2 years after the movie came out (and 15 years after the movie for the Wii’s version), and Ghostbusters was released 20 years after the second movie. Clearly time was well spent to make such good games. To me it only makes sense that there needs to be time between a movies release and a video games release. You don’t see a movie coming out right when a book comes out, even Harry Potter has time between releases, and don’t even get me started on Twilight.
I talked about time with video game releases, but what about the reverse? Umm well, it seems that there is no correlation between how good the movie will be and how long you wait after the release of the game to release the movie. Double Dragon was released 8 years after the video games debuted, Wing Commander was 9 years after the video games debuted, Mortal Kombat was a mere 3 years, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was released 7 years after the release of the game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time but 21 years after the first Prince of Persia game. The only thing that I can say is, take they need to take there time to make a movie well, and make sure that the game franchise is still popular when the movie is released.
Are these sure fire ways to make a good adaptation, heck no but they definitely help. I realize that you, yes I’m pointing at you, might think Prince of Persia sucked, or one of the movies/games that I thought was bad actually rocked you’re socks. These are just my opinions and there is no need to argue, but I would love for you to share video game/movie adaptations that you loved or hated and mayhaps even a reason why.
P.S. I didn’t talk about Tron because that was a movie that looked like a game, then a game, then another game (remember the PC game Tron 2.0 it was pretty wicked), then a movie, and now a game again. I would have just confused myself.
Oh and by the way, the Fabio caption made me chuckle pretty good.
Agreed on all accounts. Very good read.
If I may interject my own example, let us look at the film Doom starring The Rock and Carl Urban. I'll admit that this film is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. I actually do enjoy it, but I also realize how horrible it is. First of all, they changed a huuuuuge element of the game. Instead of the monsters being from hell, they made them martians. Not ok. Although the addition of the BFG was pretty interesting. I do think that they had an interesting idea with the first-person segment in the movie, but it just wasn't implemented well. A much better example of this technique can be seen in the short "The Package" in Halo: Legends (which is definitely worth a rent).
Lets not even get started on the Mario movie.
Here's to hoping that someday a video game can get the big-screen attention that it deserves (I'm looking at you Halo)
Thats for the post. Its a great read!