John Rhys-Davies Notes The Pitfalls of Game Movies

Veteran actor John Rhys-Davies sat down with GameDaily Biz to talk about his role in Uwe Boll's latest failure of a movie, 'Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King'. Davies is surprisingly candid about his interest in the role, and pretty much nails the numerous problems of making film adaptations of games. "One or two may succeed, and I hope this is one of them, but the structure of a game is completely unlike the structure of a film. And it shows the despair of the studios and producers that these movies even get a look at. If we had good writing, it would not happen. I think that right at the moment, the film industry in Hollywood is in a crisis because we have successfully excluded young and able talent for so long that now there is nothing left."

Boll + Critics

[Nivlheim]

Watch it John! He'll challenge you to a boxing match!

Re:

[magus_melchior]

Just give Boll the Gimli suit complete with prosthetics. If you remember John's comments about his getup in the LotR films, I think his rage will overcome even a real battle axe.

QFG4

[Hatta]

Speaking of John Rhys Davies and games, he was the narrator for Sierra's Quest for Glory 4, one of the best adventure games ever. His deep, slightly creepy voice really added to the murky atmosphere of Mordavia. Too bad no one cares to make a movie out of QFG.

Re:

[EveryNickIsTaken]

No shit. I had the version without voice acting, so it looks like I missed out. Oh, and QFG2: Trial by Fire is better.

Re:

[Thansal]

You can still pick up the anthology pack that has all of them (well, not the original QFG2, but the remake is better I think).

It is really fun going through from 1-4, and the voice acting that they added to 4 is actually really rather good :D

Re:

[Hatta]

There is no remake of QFG2... yet [agdinteractive.com]. I'll be replaying the entire series once that comes out.

Re:

[EveryNickIsTaken]

I've been waiting for this for years, and these guys do quality work. Of course, QFG2 is probably my favorite PC game of all time, and I've often thought QFG2's storyline would make a pretty good movie.

Re:

[Thansal]

Sorry, I fail it. That was supposed to be QFG1

However that is awesome news :D

Re:

[edwdig]

I never got that into QFG2. I wasn't fond of the typing interface, and navigating the city streets in that game was really frustrating.

QFG4 though... the voice acting in that game was amazing. You missed out on a LOT by playing without it. Excellent acting all around. The actors for the guys in the bar frequently broke off from the script with stuff a lot funnier than what was written.

Still love "The cute, innocent (well, maybe not so innocent) bunny was viciously slaughtered and now looks like road kill."

Re:

[framauro13]

When I read the title, QFG4 was the first thing I thought of. His voice acting in that game had more affect on the mood and environment than any other part of the game.

Always nice to see fellow QfG fans out there :) IV was by far the best of the whole series. Too bad those days are over.

Re:

[Verteiron]

He also played Paladin in Wing Commander 3 (and 4, I believe, though I never played that one). Mind you, Mark Hamill played the hero...

Re:

[DCTooTall]

Screw the Hero.....Ginger Lynn was the friggin Mechanic!


Makes you wonder what they did in the down-time...;-)

Re:

[C0R1D4N]

He also called the game 'the script from hell' and had something like 18 hours of dialogue in it. Personally I'm shocked and amazed that Sierra hasn't kept that series going, out of all the "quest" games QFG has the best opportunity to move into the new era of games with its RPG aspects (maybe even an MMO)

Penny Arcade...

[JMZero]

...really nailed this one: comic [penny-arcade.com].

Re:

[Kierthos]

A comic almost four years old, but they still knew who would direct that turkey.

Gabe and Tycho are obviously psychic.

That, however, doesn't explain how they got my pants.

Re:

[demon]

Their casting was a little far off... but not that far, really. Kinda sad and scary that they were so on with that prediction.

Uwe Boll?

[oahazmatt]

How does this guy get anyone to take him seriously?

I saw trailers for Dungeon Siege and wondered how something like that could get a greenlight, and then I find out its Uwe Boll's project, and for a while it makes an eerie kind of sense.

But now that I think about it, it doesn't make sense. How does he still get a studio to pay him anything?

Re:

[__aaclcg7560]

Hollywood has to pay someone to make all those bad movies that get run on late night cable. A Uwe Boll marathon, anyone?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

...A Uwe Boll marathon, anyone?

You'll need a "Clockwork Orange" chair for that one.

Re:Uwe Boll?

[tomandlu]

It's a German tax thing. Basically, everyone wins whether or not the films make any money - if the film loses money, the investors get a generous write-off, and if it makes money, the investors pay less tax on the profit than they would have on the original investment (it's a reward for investing in film).

Hang on, here's a link: How the flick does boll keep making movies [tinyurl.com]

Re:Uwe Boll? Heh...

[Svartalf]

I think the only stinker that he actually did a "decent" job on (Though it lost money for
differing reasons...) would be his movie version of Postal. Everything else, heh...

He's trying to out "Ed Wood" Ed himself because he makes a HELL of a lot more money that way.

In the end, I know why this batch of people went for the lame thing- I'll bet each and every
one of the actors made decent cash on this title and it was something to do, even if it was
one of his atrocious movies.

Re:Uwe Boll?

[LittleImp]

According to Wikipedia: In the DVD commentary of Alone in the Dark, Boll explains how he funds his films: "Maybe you know it but it's not so easy to finance movies in total. And the reason I am able to do these kind of movies is I have a tax shelter fund in Germany, and if you invest in a movie in Germany you get basically fifty percent back from the Government."

Re:

[dintech]

You mean the German people pay to inflict this crap on the world? Godwin in 3... 2... 1...

Re:

[stratjakt]

It's simple.

His movies make money.

Why does anybody even expect "high art" from Hollywood?

Re:

[Have Blue]

He's using literally the same trick as in The Producers. There's a loophole in Germany's tax laws that allows him to come out ahead while making terrible movies on tiny budgets.

Re:

[SatanicPuppy]

I don't know if you read this article today on Reuters [reuters.com]...But I'm afraid they have closed that loophole now.

If you hate Boll, read the article, it's like hot cocoa for the mind. He's pretty much done, as far as wide distribution goes.

Re:

[vecctor]

I don't know if I would call the budgets tiny. I mentioned this in a thread on a different site:

... according to wikipedia, his movies still cost millions and it doesn't seem like they break even, let alone make money:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwe_boll#Financing [wikipedia.org]

EDIT:

Yeah, Bloodrayne ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BloodRayne_(film) [wikipedia.org] ) was a disaster. Cost $25 million and made $3.5 million at the theatres. Throw in advertising, and I doubt even DVD sales are going to make that profitable.

I want an accountant to figure out how this works!

Re:

[eison]

Easy. He finds private investors, promises them a return on their investment, then delivers. One common thing about people with money, they love the idea of being involved with making a movie.
His initial movies were able to generate the return while losing money due to German tax law; the tax law has since been fixed so he has had to tighten up a bit and generate a real profit, which he now does. It's not as good as the profit to be made in other things, but the glamour of the movies overcomes that for e

Re:

[xhrit]

The German tax-shelter gambit. It is a scam.

http://www.slate.com/id/2117309/ [slate.com]

Yay!

[Kamineko]

Huzzah for John Rhys-Davies!

I honestly thought that Dungeon Siege was a dead project. I'm very suprised to learn that they've had their heads down the whole time and got something done.

Who else didn't think that the DS movie was still in progress?

Re:

[Shrubbman]

Actually it was done and sitting in a can for over a year while Boll was running around trying to find a distributor for it. He just finally found a taker.

Re:

[Dmala]

I hate to rain on your parade, but while John Rhys-Davies is great, he's not nearly enough to offset the giant suckig sound that is Uwe Boll. 100% guaranteed Dungeon Siege is going to be awful.

Who else didn't think that the DS movie was still in progress?

I hoped it had gotten dropped. Is that the same thing?

Re:

[Kamineko]

It will be crap. It has to be. But I don't care. To me, it'll be a blur of inconsequence with intermittent John Rhys-Davies coolness.

Incidentally, I'd like more tea [mrdictionary.net]

Re:

[PhoenixOne]

I thought is was dead too. It was the only way I could sleep at night.

I didn't know they released it until I saw a movie poster while waiting in line for a *real* movie. My girlfriend had to remove me from the area (and I think kids standing nearby learned some new words).

Pitfall Harry

[gEvil (beta)]

I dunno. I can't quite see John Rhys-Davies playing Pitfall Harry. I just can't imagine him swinging from those vines over alligator pits...

Re:

[east coast]

I kinda thought that when I first seen the headline, that it might be a Pitfall movie.

Couldn't be any worse than most other movies but I still wouldn't want to see it.

Re:

[__aaclcg7560]

Swinging over alligator pits? Uh, no.

Falling into an alligator pit? Oh, hell yes!

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[sammy baby]

Of course, one of his most memorable roles was looking down into a pit filled with snakes.

"Asps. Very dangerous. You go first."

I have another reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the structure of a game and the structure of a movie doesn't mean all video game movies are crap. There have been some successful ones, after all.

No, the reason a lot of video game movies flop is because a lot of them are made by Uwe Boll, who is a complete and utter retard.

O RLY?

[gumpish]

Just because the structure of a game and the structure of a movie doesn't mean all video game movies are crap. There have been some successful ones, after all.

Which you can't be bothered to enumerate? Which escape you at the moment?

Re:

[zoips]

Well, the Resident Evil movies, though shining jewels they are certainly not, were not suicide inducing like Uwe Boll's ventures. Silent Hill wasn't terrible either.

Re:

[Sciros]

Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, while not universally liked (some hate one, some hate the other, some like both, some hate both), were successful enough.

The Resident Evil movies make money.

Silent Hill was generally well-accepted, even by critics.

These movies are all far from good IMO (though Street Fighter does have a hilarious Raul Julia as M.Bison), but they were successful as far as I know.

Re:

[vux984]

Resident Evil 1 was actually good.

Resident Evil 2 and 3, Tomb Raider: cradle of life, and silent hill all entirely watchable.

And although I'm not a fan and haven't watched them, they made like 10 pokemon movies... so they must have been at least somewhat successful.

The Problem Is...

[sexconker]

They keep hiring directors like Uwe Boll.

A note to John

[Jesterboy]

Dear John,
    Your talent dwarfs your competition. You were the bomb in "Sliders", so I'll kindly look the other way whilst you make some bankage.

    Keep on truckin'!

Sincerely,
Jesterboy

Re:A note to John

[Zarhan]

Dear John,
        Your talent dwarfs your competition.

Not if he's playing Gimli, really.

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[tgd]

Wow I've seen every damn episode of Sliders and seen the LoTR movies a half dozen times each I'm sure and I never realized that was him.

What a loser I am.

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[Reziac]

An amazingly versatile actor. He often "disappears" into the role to the point that only when the credits roll do I realise it was him.

Re:

[fbjon]

My thoughts exactly. I immediately recognized the name and knew that I knew who it is, but I had to google for an interview video to actually know.

Re:

[LKM]

Yeah. He's one of these "wait a minute... that was him too???" guys. I've seen tons of movies with him, but often I've only figured out afterwards that he played the role.

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[Reziac]

My exact words -- over and over and over!!

My fave role, tho, was his character in the short-lived espionage series "Under Cover" (1991). Just priceless. Wish this would come out on DVD -- there are several unaired episodes.

This just in:

[Alzheimers]

Movies that suck generally do poorly at the box office.

Film at 11!

double-take

[lucky130]

I had to do a double-take at the headline; just glancing out of the corner of my eye, it looked like John Rhys-Davies was going to do Pitfall: The Movie.

Problem translating games to movie scripts?

[I8TheWorm]

And 7 million Dungeon Seige roleplayers rejoiced.

I don't agree with issues translating games to movie scripts, other than his suggestion that young fresh talent is excluded in Hollywood (I guess that's true... he's the expert not me).

I think the real problem with me seeing that is I'm a gamer. So when Silent Hill released, I rushed out to see it having played and enjoyed the game. The story in Silent Hill the game was entertaining... why wouldn't it be entertaining in a movie theater?

Re:

[ghostunit]

The Silent Hill movie does resemble the visual style of the game but does not respect its story, instead presenting us with something else entirely. Unfortunately, they gave that job to the american who wrote Armageddon, so surprise surprise, yet another christian-influenced sin/punishment theme ending with a bloodfest. They just didn't get it at all.

Wing Commander

[DarthBender]

I loved him as Paladin in Wing Commander III and IV. Of course I am biased because I LOVED Wing Commander III and IV. So for such a prolific actor/voice actor I will absolutely listen to his opinions. Aside from his most famous roles, I respect him as a prolific actor. Like Christopher Walken, he takes many many roles, and executes all of them so incredibly brilliantly.

Re:

[pragma_x]

I have to admit, the storyline and acting in Wing Commander IV was was really something special for when it was released.

I borrowed it from a friend and upon handing it back he asked: "So, what did you think?"

I replied: "Best movie I ever played."

Here's what I don't understand

[sesshomaru]

Here's what I don't understand. You're Uwe Boll. You've gotten fabulously rich with a simple formula, buying the names of somewhat popular video games, and then slapping them on whatever vaguely connected movie you feel like making. Ok, so far, so good eh?

But for this movie, you don't even use the title of the videogame for the title of the movie, you just put it in the subtitle. So the movie isn't even called "Dungeon Seige" it's called "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale." I mean, partly I think he's hoping that someone's Mom, on hearing her son wants "Return of the King" for Christmas, will accidentally buy "In the Name of the King" instead. In that case, though, why bother with paying for a Dungeon Seige license?

It's a puzzle that must be solved!

Re:

[grumbel]

### Why bother with paying for a Dungeon Seige license

It is cheap, it comes with a build-in fan-base and it is free advertisment, i.e. this discussion wouldn't exist if it would be 100% original content not based on video game.

Re:Here's what I don't understand

[Thansal]

Because he honestly thinks he makes good movies.

He doesn't think:
1) Buy movie writes to game
2) Make a movie and attach name.
3) ?????
4) profit.
5) Repeat.

It really is:
1) Buy movie writes to game.
2) Make good movie that is based on best selling game.
3) ponder why every one hates my movie.
4) Challenge and threaten any one who insults my movie.
5) Repeat.

Re:

[MBCook]

As you can probably guess (and people have said, such as on NPR just the other day)... he is a modern Ed Wood, except Wood's movies had a charm about them (sort of like a 2nd grade play) where Boll's are just bad (like a bad play at a real opera company).

Re:

[Svartalf]

As you can probably guess (and people have said, such as on NPR just the other day)... he is a modern Ed Wood, except Wood's movies had a charm about them (sort of like a 2nd grade play) where Boll's are just bad (like a bad play at a real opera company).

Heh... You're being too gracious...

Bad's one thing, Uwe Boll's in another category all himself.
I don't think there are current words in the English vocabulary that even begin to describe the horror that is a Uwe Boll movie.

Boll Rules

[LKM]

As you can probably guess (and people have said, such as on NPR just the other day)... he is a modern Ed Wood, except Wood's movies had a charm about them (sort of like a 2nd grade play) where Boll's are just bad (like a bad play at a real opera company).

Actually, I love Boll's movies. Both his and Ed Wood's are perfect for an evening with a bunch of beers and a bunch of pals. I hope somebody makes MST3K-style versions of Boll's movies.

Wrong Games

[MBCook]

Ignoring that they tend to use terrible writers, I can't help but wonder if they are just choosing the wrong games.

Mario doesn't really have a story, so it's not that surprising that it was hard to make a good movie out of that. Games like the Final Fantasy games or Mass Effect have good stories, but they would lose too much if you cut it down to even the length of a long film (2.5 hours).

What you need to do is set it in the universe. The Resident Evil movies got that part right. There is no reason those couldn't have been made into good movies. Get good writers, it could have worked.

Portal would be interesting. It has a great character, interesting special effects, but it's too short. You might be able to make an interesting mini-movie out of it (say a half-hour TV show?). I don't think you'd be able to make a decent length film (1.5 hours) out of what's there.

You could expand it. Start with a little of the back story of Aperture Science (maybe show the introduction as a new employee comes in?) As things go on you could see the guy work on GlaDOS a little and her development and as the tests on previous subjects. You move on to GlaDOS doing what she did and then finally Chell and her attempt to escape. Basically GlaDOS is the main character of the movie. I could see it working, but keeping that great dark humor balance as well as the creepiness balance through the whole movie would be an incredible challenge. I don't know how you'd fit in the description of the portal device ("man-sized ad-hoc quantum tunnel through physical space with possible applications as a shower curtain") without breaking any sense of reality. Since part of the mood of Portal comes from having no idea what is going on, the script would be a real departure in some ways which would make it even more challenging. I think we all know that GlaDOS could be the next HAL easily. HAL didn't have cake.

Set a movie in the world of Ivalice (from FF: Tactics/XII). Maybe something set in the Ratchet & Clank universe. Heck, make one of the Phoenix Wright cases into a comedy/drama. There are options.

Instead, producers find the biggest game they can (let's take GTA), then conceive a movie that fits in (a gangster plot!), then make it fit in more (we'll have him not own a car, he'll just take them when he needs one), then beat it with a bad script stick ("You can't tell me what to do, I've already committed Grand Theft Auto..."), then add some flashy effects (everything blows up, lots of blood) and there is nothing to differentiate the movie from any other bad formulaic summer movie except there is a video game's name on it.

Re:

[faloi]

I enjoyed the Resident Evil movies, but I've always been a bit of a zombie movie fan. So I was predisposed to like them. I think you're right, though. There are a lot of perfectly viable "universes" out there that have the potential to make a good movie. The one that comes to mind for me is Warhammer. I bet that, with decent writers, it'd be possible to crank out a movie in either the fantasy or 40k variant that would hook viewers that don't know anything about the back story.

Re:

[MBCook]

It occurred to me that not only could you use that, but there are a small number of games that are already setup as movies: adventure games. If you take out some of the useless puzzles and such, they could get close in run time as well. The Monkey Island games, Grim Fandango (which would be great), Day of the Tenticle, The Dig (which I think was going to be a movie before they decided to make it a game), and I'm sure others which I can't think of.

Re:

[DCTooTall]

I would almost LOVE to see Grim Fandango as a movie. First time I played that game I honestly felt that it was probably easily one of the best over-all stories I'd ever come across in any medium. Even better, Doesn't Lucas already have the rights to the story since it was done by their game division?

Re:

[DCTooTall]

Ya know... just thought about this for a second, and the big problem with that idea is that for all intents and purposes, the old Graphic Adventure genre of games is dead. They died out before the current age of mainstream gaming really hit it's stride. The problem with that? Because these games are 1. old and 2. not really publically well-known, you end up having a harder time convincing studios to use the stories in a movie form. They don't have the "built in audience" of say a Resident Evil

Re:

[MBCook]

A Grim Fandango movie won't have the draw of the Grand Theft Auto name, that's true. It will have next to none. I listed it because it has a great story. If you want to make a movie out of a game, it's a good game to use because of the story and how well it could be adapted. If you just want to cash in on a license, you're right it's a terrible game to make into a movie.

Re:

[Drooling Iguana]

Didn't they already make a series of Monkey Island games with Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightly?

Plot murder occurs too

[phorm]

In the case of many game movies, the game often does have a good plot, but the movie simply doesn't follow it. If you're lucky, it might occur in the same world. If no, well, perhaps a few of the characters have the same names.

Take for instance Doom. OK... well... it had a BFG (which incidentally wasn't even *that* like the game BFG). The plot, sucked. However, when I played through the actual game (Doom 3, that is), I remember being quite interested in the plot: alien race opens portal to nether dimension,

Re:

[nuzak]

> In the case of many game movies, the game often does have a good plot, but the movie simply doesn't follow it.

Yeah, but you're talking about Dungeon Siege here, perhaps the most uninteractive linear and repetitive game since ProgressQuest. In this game, you literally just walk a single line, automatically attack everything that comes near, automatically pick up loot, and automatically convert it to gold if you don't want it. The only thing that isn't automated is you walking through the paper-thin pl

Re:

[Dexx]

Portal could be done by showing the previous escape attempts - the people that leave the clues & notes for Chell. That way they could work in a group of escapees at once, working together. After the final confrontation with GlaDOS (with only a small part of the group making it out) the end of the movie could be like the game - cake, still alive, etc.

Re:

[Remus Shepherd]

Uwe Boll would spice up a Portal movie by setting it in a forest and throwing ninjas at Chell, which she would refer to as 'androids'. The portal gun -- being too expensive a special effect -- will be used only once, to dump cake all over GlaDOS, with the portal itself never shown. The vulnerability that GlaDOS has to cake which causes her to explode will never be explained.

Now that I contemplate this tragedy, I hope Valve knows enough not to sell any rights for Half-Life or Portal to anyone, least of all

Re:

[cyxxon]

I think you kind of nailed it - I have always felt that the studios desperately just cling to the name of the franchise, instead of seeing what they really could do if they used it as a backdrop. THat is incidently why I am looking forward for the Warcraft movie- up until now I only heard that it will not be based on plot inside either of their games, but will be taking place roughly a year or so before WoW. So they have some established characters, and plenty of bad or good scenarios from the lore to use a

Re:

[MeanderingMind]

Portal could work as a movie, but it would be a very different movie than the game.

Part of the game's excellent story came from the fact that you were the lab rat. You could watch GlaDOS peering at you, waiting for you to complete an objective before voicing her sarcasm laden approval of your success.

Another part of the game's excellence is how it was about learning. You had to continually learn how to use this nifty device you were given. This was, of course, backed up by the lab rat atmosphere.

How do you

Re:

[Chris Burke]

Part of the game's excellent story came from the fact that you were the lab rat. You could watch GlaDOS peering at you, waiting for you to complete an objective before voicing her sarcasm laden approval of your success.

Another part of the game's excellence is how it was about learning. You had to continually learn how to use this nifty device you were given. This was, of course, backed up by the lab rat atmosphere.

How do you translate these things into a movie?

The answer: You can't, directly. At best you ca

Re:

[master_p]

GTA SA could have been a hell of a movie; it's practically a movie by itself. So is Half Life 1 and 2. And Zelda games.

It all depends on the game; if the game has a good storyline, it may become a good movie. If it is a repetitive thing like a strategy game or Tetris or Pacman, then it's not easy to do a game on it.

Games are too complex

[telchine]

I personally think that games are too complex to be turned into films without losing a lot of their values.

Converting a game to a movie is as bad an idea as converting a movie into a book. Maybe sometimes it can work, but certainly not always.

I saw the movie...

[bleh-of-the-huns]

And honestly, for brainless mind numbing I was bored and there was nothing to do movie, that I went into with 0 expectations, it was not half bad. Granted there were a good dozen of so movies I could have gone to see, but going alone while wife is at work.. would result in a serious drop in my life expectancy.. okay maybe not that bad.. but plenty of nagging.

Polar Opposites

[dazedNconfuzed]

A movie is interesting because the protagonist screws up at some point.
A game is interesting because the protagonist (you) must never screw up.

"Romeo and Juliet" the play/movie is interesting because the characters make tragic mistakes and suffer horribly.
"Romeo and Juliet" the game would suck precisely because they would all live happily ever after.

"Doom" the game was cool because you ran around killing monsters, and tried repeatedly in difficult scenarios until you overcame the scenario.
"Doom" the movie sucked because watching someone else playing a game perfectly for 2 hours is enormously dull so the scriptwriter threw in unrelated "and the protagonist screwed up" material.

Some may counter by tweaking game rules so that "correct" behavior includes "screwups"; no, "screwing up" means failing to exercise "correct" behavior (whatever the system defines that as).
Some may counter by inserting "and then something horrible happens" moments in a game; no, the tragedy comes from the protagonist messing up, not by Demonos Ex Machina events being thrust upon him.

People want to hear stories about how someone else screwed up (regardless of whether they overcame the screwup in the end).
People want to do things correctly and successfully.
Implementing these to cross-purposes is not interesting ... but Ewe Boll has made a bundle from our deeply-ingrained erroneous expectation that if something is fun to do then it _must_ be fun to watch.

Re:

[naoursla]

As a counter point, the film theory I've encountered says that film narratives are interesting when the protagonist goes through an emotional change. The plot of the movie exists only to distract you from this emotional change so that the change doesn't seem droll.

Many games have slim to none emotional arc. That is okay. There is nothing wrong with an action game like Doom not having much of a story. But when you make it into a movie, you need to add an emotional arc.

Some games do have emotional arcs. They

Re:

[Remus Shepherd]

A movie is interesting because the protagonist screws up at some point.
A game is interesting because the protagonist (you) must never screw up.

As a counter point, the film theory I've encountered says that film narratives are interesting when the protagonist goes through an emotional change.

By both of your standards, Planescape: Torment would make an awesome movie.

Re:

[Number14]

(1) I would so totally pay to go see that.

(2) Please, please, please don't let Uwe Boll get this idea.

Re:

[Zembar]

The problem with that is of course that Planescape: Torment wouldn't be one movie; it would either have to be a small short-movie anthology about the different paths an individual can take, or a series of movies all covering different dispositions of the nameless one.

The probability of any one Torment movie matching the experience you got out of the game is almost nil, considering the amount of choice you had. (Were you a sadistic warrior-type? Did you dabble in magic and care about your companions? Were yo

Re:

[loopback_127001]

I have to disagree with this notion that games must result in a story where the protagonist makes 'perfect' choices.

Innumerable RPGs are based around the 'twist' at the midway point where someone you have placed your trust in turns on you. Or where the recovery of the Magical Widget / Discovery of the Treasure is found to be a cover for an evil plot. Then you spend the second half of the game fixing the wrong you've done.

In the initial round of story-free first person shooters (such as Doom), it was a cas

Wing Commander, the death of a wingman

[SmallFurryCreature]

In one of the early wingcommanders you lost a wingman. BAD, reload, retry, samething happened. I tried over and over, killing the kilrathi faster and faster until finally it dawned on me that this wingman was scripted to die. It really was one of the first times in a game for me that such a thing had happened, most games when something bad happen consider it the end. This game never gave you an option, your wingman dies regardless of how good you are.

This is indeed acceptable in a movie, bigs becoming a co

Re:

[Das Modell]

You're making this way more complicated than it is. All you need to do to adapt a game into a movie is find a game with a good storyline and setting, and then adapt it. There's really nothing more to it. You're assuming that an adaptation must be a literal translation of the game, but that isn't true. Doom was very close to the original game, but as anyone can see they made a lot of changes. Resident Evil wasn't directly based on any of the games. You're also assuming that video games are 100% player contr

Pitfall - The Movie

[not already in use]

At first I thought the headline was about a Pitfall movie. I could see it now, Michael Jackson to star as white stick man. :(

Games usually have theatrically weak characters...

[Toasterboy]

Depends on the genre, or course, but CRPG genre games have a tendency to have ridiculously predictable plots stretched out over about 40 hours of play. They have no real surprises, and theatrically weak characters.

Your garden variety film is NOT really about *what* happens and the universe, it's about the persona of the characters and how seeing them move in a 2 hour scenario takes you on a trip. For a lot of folks, as John suggests, yeah, that's about the sex appeal and escapism, and simply "I wish I was

Re:Games usually have theatrically weak characters

[dbIII]

Your typical "game movie" is more about milking franchise icons

Now why did I suddenly think of Tomb Raider? Should be able to get nearly a litre out of those icons.

Video game movie party game

[greg1104]

Here's a thought experiment game I like to play with my friends. Let's say you're locked in a room for days and forced to keep the DVD player running. The only movies you have to watch are "Super Mario Bros", "Street Fighter", and "Doom". The question, then, is: what's the best way to break a DVD in half so there's a sharp enough edge that you can kill yourself with it?

The biggest pitfall

[Sunar]

is idiots allowing Uwe Boll to keep being involved with them. Why does this clown keep getting movies? WHY?!

~Sun

Re:

[Detritus]

He isn't a bad director, and he knows how to put together a deal.

Uwe Boll may not be in any danger of winning an Academy Award, but it takes a certain amount of talent and aptitude to make even a mediocre movie. You may think the movie is bad, but that's a relative judgement. It could be much worse, and not in a "Ed Wood" so bizarre that it's good kind of way. I've seen some really horrible movies that make you want to shoot yourself after the first five minutes.

Re:

[demon]

So that his only make you want to do so after 10 or 15 is an improvement? Just because it's somewhat less than "really bad" still doesn't make it something I would be watching willingly...

Once people figure out that a != b we'll be ok

[liquiddark]

Books aren't movies. Songs aren't TV shows. Dance performances are not paintings. It's amazing that people don't get these fairly simple rules, but they don't. If you're going to do a treatment of a source in a particular medium, you have to be writing for that medium, informed by that source, not writing for that source informed by that medium. Making movie copies of games - even something like KOTOR or Mass Effect - is simply not at all the same experience, emotionally, intellectually, or physically.

many reasons?

[Tom]

I don't get the plural form of "reason" in this context. To me there is exactly one reason why making a game into a movie is difficult:

Games are interactive, movies are to be watched.

The rules for both kinds of entertainment are very different. What makes one great simply doesn't work on the other. Games suck whenever you don't control what happens (one reason why too many or too long cutscenes make games suck), whereas in a movie you never have control. Movies can generate tension by giving you (the viewer

No inherent challenge in game-based movies.

[MaWeiTao]

There's no reason whatsoever why a game can't be made into a movie. The problem isn't the medium at all it's the writing and directing. Uwe Boll's movies are crap for the simple reason that he's inept. Chances are that any movie he'd make would be bad regardless of the source material.

That aside, let's take any story-driven game. Regardless of how a player is allowed to complete the game a fairly linear story is told. Mass Effect, Halo 3, Bioshock, Half Life 2 all provide straight-forward stories. How the story is told may differ from a movie, but otherwise there's a progression to the plot that is essentially the same as most movies and novels. A setting is established, a conflict is presented, there's a gradual buildup, a climax and resolution.

Really, the only games that are difficult to base a game on are those with randomly generated content and perhaps MMOs. However, even with MMOs there's generally a rich enough setting and back story that a creative writer has plenty to work with.

If anything I'd argue it's easier to base a movie on a game than a novel. Remove the gameplay and enough story is provided to easily fit a standard-length movie. I'd argue it's far more difficult to effectively condense a 300+ page novel into a two hour film.

The challenge in basing a movie on a game is the often weak and generic source material. Also, often just enough content is provided to meet the needs of the game essentially forcing a movie writer to expand on it. But again, it goes back to creativity and skill. A great writer and director could make a movie based on anything with compelling results. Of course, once a movie studio gets involved all that goes out the window. But again, the problem isn't the medium.

Re:

[Rigus1]

"A setting is established, a conflict is presented, there's a gradual buildup, a climax and resolution." Sounds like a good Friday night to me, but change "resolution" to "a long hot shower with lots of scrubbing", or perhaps just "antibiotics".

Prince Of Persia movie in the works

[Von Helmet]

They're working on a movie adaptation of Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time [wikipedia.org]. Jerry Bruckheimer is producing, Mike Newell is rumoured to be directing. Jordan Mechner wrote the original script (which is a good thing) and someone else has done subsequent drafts.

The Sands Of Time is probably my favourite game ever, so I'd love to see a great film get made off the back of it... I'm not holding my breath though. I'll probably see it anyway, as I love the game, but I'll be gutted if it's crap and ends up sourin