Upcoming Game Movies And Their Likelihood to Suck 124
Via Kotaku, a story on the Destructoid site about upcoming game movies and their likelihood to suck. Mr. McVengeance runs down the upcoming pixels-to-big-screen adaptations, and amazingly it appears the situation isn't completely hopeless. Just mostly. From the article: "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Probability of Suck: Moderately Low. This gives me mixed feelings on the fact that there are two writers. First is the guy who actually wrote the script for the game, which is a good thing. Second, we have the writer for 'The Day After Tomorrow'. Then, we have Jerry Bruckheimer working as Executive Producer. Y'know, the guy who's name is attached to Pirates of the Carribean and a whole host of other films? I think this film will end up doing OK. I'll be interested in seeing who gets the job as director."
Executive Producer Means Nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the Definition of Executive Producer [imdb.com]: My point is, a famous person executive producing a movie means nothing. None of their talent, none of their expertise, none of their influence is put into the movie. If you use this as reasoning as to whether or not a movie will do good, you're not using sound judgement.
Why do video game movies suck? Because the name is all that makes the cash. Not the story. Not the acting. Not the originality. Those who are interested in making a profit (and everyone is) will put the money down while the movie makes money only because of title recognition. You need to recognize this and stop playing their game for these horrible movies to end. Everyone has to. We're all falling for this trick where names get attached but you need to realize that they're just "producing" it, not directing or writing it. They know it works, look at the sequels roll out as the viewers pay to see them.
As for the writer, they're kind of forced to adhere to an idea already in someone's mind. Whether it be the original game studio that made the original concept or some hollywood bigshot. If writers aren't given absolute control over the story and script, they tend to suck. Collaboration is good but trying to force feed a writer a plot is bad. You'll see it time and time again.
Re:Executive Producer Means Nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, celebrity-names are a suckers game. In any context.
But producers can do a LOT. Often, one person will produce many movies, and hire directors to do his bidding. He will get a team of writer, director, art director, etc, and send these minions who do as the allmighty producer has decreed.
My point is, a famous person executive producing a movie means nothing. None of their talent, none of their expertise, none of their influence is put into the movie.
Executive producer means nothing.
That does not mean that "none of their influence is put into the movie", since that would be a meaning of "executive producer".
Example: Rick Berman, executive producer of all things Star Trek since 1987.
His influence was balanced by Gene Roddenberry for a while, after the creator's death, he started to turn Star Trek into the pile of shit that culminated with the realisation of his vision of what Star Trek ought to be: Enterprise (of which he wrote many sucktastic episodes). he's executive producer, and he is the one who took a preachy vision of humanist techno-eutopia into a preachy, designed by comitee, pro-establishment pile of drivel.
Executive Producer means nothing. Not "that guys has nothing to do with the content".
It's a throaway title for someone involved in the high-level money-talking decision making process. Sometimes they have nothing to do with the movie personally, only their money is involved, but sometimes they're so involved we can safely put the blame for the sucking on them and them alone.
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Producers do a lot. Executive producers usually do little more than hand over the cash. Wikipedia's definition [wikipedia.org] is fairly accurate:
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An executive producer of a motion picture is typically a producer who is not necessarily involved in any creative or technical aspects of production.
Usually, but not necesserily.
Which was my point: The title means nothing, you cannot reliably infer from that title wether or not the person had any creative input in the work.
Usually, it's just a nice title to give to someo
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Fair enough. Bruckheimer is pretty hands-off though (as an EP). He'll advise, but he's certainly not just the suit sent down by the production company.
I don't think the executive producer ever does that. If the producers want something done they'll do it themselves - they are more directly involved
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Re:Executive Producer Means Nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
You'll notice, for example, that Jerry Bruckheimer has a very talented staff around him that help bring in the best (or most popular) actors. You don't think that has anything to do with him personally? You better believe it does -- if I'm a young-ish but established actor, you think I'm going to risk my career on a POS by a no-name producer? Or will I leap at the opportunity to star in a Bruckheimer film?
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Other "Tarantino films":
Uh, Jerry Fuckheimer? (Score:5, Insightful)
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But what do you expect from a lot of people? They don't bother to think about the target audience - if they aren't it then the movie must suck.
Re:Uh, Jerry Fuckheimer? (Score:4, Funny)
Please don't have children.
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Wow imagine that! People have different opinions.
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Fair enough. But remember, without Pearl Harbor, we would not have had Team America World Police.
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True enough.... Not sure whether that would be a good or a bad thing. Loved the point being made, but just like South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut, when Matt & Trey are turned loose with an R rating they go a little overboard. I know I could have done with the puke scene being about a minute shorter. And I'm really glad they cut the puppet sex out and have had zero urge to go in search of the unedited DVD.
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Agreed! They went a bit *too* far with that. Nuff said.
Actually, they didn't cut the sex scene out of the movie, they just trimmed at least 2 minutes off of it so that the film would be rated R.
Just a little?! :-) ...But that is what makes their films work. I think of them as being a version 2.0 of And
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I'll never understand in what way Pearl Harbor is such an aweful movie with respect to all the other stereotypically hollywoodian movies. To me it's just your average big budget "average joe becomes a true american hero" movie. Maybe does it only have to do with South Park fanboyism... Just checking, do you also hate Contact for the simple fact that the alien is the girl's father?
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Hit and miss?
Bruckheimer's name on a movie is a good indication that the movie is going to be *shit*.
Doesn't mean it won't make money. It might make a lot of money. But the movie is going to be *shit*.
POC2? Christ, that was like they took 5 random scripts, fired them from a cannon, picked up whatever scattered confetti they could find, decided to film it, and then lost *that*. What a rambling, insensate pile of crud. I can take that sort of "brainless fun" for an hour and a hal
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Never saw Kangaroo Jack.
Game movie suckage (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm pretty sure the adult film industry would disagree.
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Also, keep in mind that most games aren't very well written, with one-dimensional characters and contrived, simplistic storylines. Even games with writing considered to be above-average are fairly weak when compared to writing in other mediums. You're not going to
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> can have far more content than any game in existance, can be adapted into a good movie there's no reason
> the same can't be done with games.
And most movies made from novels suck donkey nads too. Same problem that you nailed in that first sentence. Hollywood is infested with incompetent hacks, period. Nuke the site from orbit, its the only way to be sure.
90% of the time when a novel is m
No simple way to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is my progression to ask myself if the gamovie will be good:
- Do you like the game/genre in the first place?
- If yes, does the game have a good amount of storyline?
- If yes, do you like the producer who is doing the movie?
- If yes, do you like the director?
- If yes, do you like the actors/actresses (if known)?
Generally speaking, if you can answer yes to over 3/5 of those, I think you'll like the movie.
And, in other words, don't listen to critics. Be your own critic.
TLF
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Actors read lines. They can sometimes take a shitty script and make a movie "wonderfully acted" if they're fantastic actors. Directors make things slightly prettier than they would otherwise be, assuming it's a really good director. But the movie sucking (albeit prettily and with good acting) or not is entirely up to the writing. And apparently this one's written by the genius from Day After Tomorrow. It'll blo
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Besides the fact that like I said already, your answer is.. for you.
There are plenty of people out there who liked Day After Tommorow. Sure, it was an incredible exaggeration of something that's actually remotely possible, but hey, it's a movie right?
I can't say I loved the movie, but again, that's my opinion. YMMV
TLF
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There are plenty of people out there who liked Day After Tommorow.
That can't be true. If it were, I wouldn't be able to go on living. So it's not true.
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You may now cease to live
TLF
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I think you're severely underestimating the director's ability to ruin a movie. Granted, starting with a crappy script from a crappy writer can ruin any chance a movie might have not to suck, but handing a decent script and a decent cast over to a bad director will doom a movie just as quickly. Uwe Boll and Michael Bay come to mind.
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- Do you like the game/genre in the first place? Yes. Immensely.
- If yes, does the game have a good amount of storyline? No
- If yes, do you like the producer who is doing the movie? I do like the production company.
- If yes, do you like the director? They did Max Headroom so that's good enough for me.
- If yes, do you like the actors/actresses (if known)? Most of them, especially Bob Hoskins, Dennis Hopper, and Lance H
high expectations (Score:5, Funny)
90% Will Suck (Score:4, Insightful)
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When a movie is good, it gets noticed. Or, sometimes, when it's so bad it's funny, like Snakes on a Plane or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Game adaptations NEVER get noticed for being good -- they ONLY get noticed for bein
Everquest... (Score:1)
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Oh, right, no, they aren't. So this comment comes from where? Are there any other games you don't like that aren't being made into movies you think should be added to discussions of games that are?
Checkers. The Checkers movie will SUCK. Unless all the kings fight it out in a cage match at the end.
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*rimshot*
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Game Movies vs Book/Movie (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed... (Score:2)
I'm not a big game player, but I did go out and buy Resident evil for the PS2 when it came out. I played it only superficially. When I went to se the first Resident Evil movie, I thought it was good, actually. Having only played the game lightly, I thought it matched up nicely. However, I went to the movie with a friend who had played the game pretty extensively and he hated the movie, saying it wasn't at all like the game.
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I don't find that this is true for me. The best examples I can find are the lord of the ring movies, I thought they were good movies, true to the spirit of the books, and I enjoyed them imensely even though I had read the entire trilogy before. They're not the same as the books though, but that's unavoidable when
Re:Game Movies vs Book/Movie (Score:5, Interesting)
Not at all the reason. The problem is Hollywood is broken. Only talentless hacks can stand working within the studio system so almost everything that crawls out of Hollywood sucks. That and the tendency for screenwriters (ones adapting a novel to the screen, as opposed to people who write original screenplays) to confuse themselves with authors, and producers/directors who feel qualified to impose their 'artistic vision' on an author's work. Guys, if you really had the talent you could write your own material instead of blowing a wad of money optioning the rights to a successful story.
Yes, film, TV and novels are different mediums and some things must bend to fit. Lord of the Rings would have required a miniseries of massive proportions to film faithful to the books and would probably have been BORING. But the movies did a wonderful job of remaining faithful to the ideas and feel of the original material even when they made massive cuts and alterations.
David Lynch made such a turd from Dune the original author had to go on CNN on opening day and disown it, saying "I wrote a book about a man who thought himself a God. They made a movie about a man who becomes a God." It took Sci-Fi Channel, working with virtually unknown people in Europe (read as outside the Hollywood system) to produce a version worthy of the name. Yes it also had to drop a bunch of material on the floor and change stuff to stitch the story back together but what remained was recognizable as Dune.
Then you get horrors like Starship Troopers, where Hollywood allows a man who states, in the promotional documentary for the movie no less, that he took on the project to make a mockery of the novel and so poison the ground that no serious attempt would ever be made to film it. And they expected the fans to flock into theaters for that?
Or how about the most abused novel of all time, Tarzan of the Apes. How many times has that one been screwed up by Hollywood? And each attempt screws it up in totally different ways yet none even bother to even get the basic storyline even half correct. It looks like all they pay for is the name because they promptly go off and write a totally new story about a guy raised by apes. Has even one at least got the language thing right? In the book when Tarzan reaches civilization he speaks fluent French and can read and write Engish. Yet how many versions have him show up as a illiterate naked savage? The whole core concept of Tarzan is that he understands our ways perfectly well... and rejects them as debased and wicked, opting instead for a simpler existence as a 'noble savage'. A load of fetid dingos kidneys if you ask me, but if I were doing a novel of the book I would respect the original authors intent. No, the only explanation is Hollywood doesn't care. They think that it is only the brand name that sells.
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Yes. Otherwise what is the point of buying the rights to a book? If a filmmaker wants to tell his own story.... why not save the money and write their own?
> Most people would hate the novel Tarzan - the idea is too goofy to take seriously, plus the Hardy Boys-level prose is laughable.
Riight. Which is why it earned the author a crapload of money over run of twenty four books and made Hollywood toss cash t
Prince of TiVo (Score:2)
Next ten seconds: Reverses time, fails again.
Next ten seconds: See above
Next ten seconds: See above above
Next ten sconds: After running out of sand, on his last attempt, he barely makes it.
Next ten minutes: Lots of fighting, puzzle solving, and Fara.
Next 50 seconds: Oh noes, it's another huge pit! Time for trial and error.
It's gonna be hard to create a sense of life and death when your hero has to mess up multiple times before he's in mortal danger.
Still,
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Duke Nukem? (Score:2, Funny)
Could that ever suck?!
I dont think so.
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DOA - High Likely Hood (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey what about Crazy Taxi? (Score:1)
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Or maybe you were joking?
WOW (Score:1)
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where's World Of Warcraft? I wanna see how Blizzard makes it in the theaters. the in-game movies for Warcraft are astonishing but can they match in in the theaters?
Or any other movie based on a Blizzard game, for that matter. Maybe there is a Starcraft or Diablo movie out there that I'm not aware of (aside from that DVD in the collector's edition of Diablo II). Or maybe this is why Blizzard is such a big success: They don't license their precious video game titles to make stupid movies.
They are making a World of Warcraft movie (Score:1)
http://www.blizzard.com/press/060509.shtml [blizzard.com]
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prince of persia movie cheats? (Score:2)
Best one! (Score:4, Funny)
Probability of Suck: Bet on It
Directed by Uwe Boll. Next.
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Postal (2007)
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2006)
Uwe Boll does not appear to be associate with these two movies anymore.
Fear Effect (2008)
Hunter: The Reckoning (2007)
Last January, German Legislature changed some of their tax shelter laws. I don't know if this has affected his funding or not. I always figured his investors didn't care and were using it as a tax shelter. Possibly, even hoping to lose money on the movie.
A question (Score:2)
Blade Runner by Westwood (Score:1)
I remember couple of years ago "Chronicles of Riddick" was applauded for good gameplay, (movie was pretty bad though, according to critics). Not seen/played any of those so wouldn't vouch.
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Although, I'm the exact opposite of you; I haven't seen the movie. Although, I thought Pitch Black was a good movie. ^_^
Blade Runner and TRON 2.0 (Score:2)
TRON 2.0 is, as far as I'm concerned, the sequel to the movie TRON. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's better than the original movie (and I consider myself a fan of the original). The story is engaging and the special effects/graphics are jaw-dropping. They took everything that was good about the movie, made it better, and came up with a compelling plot that actually makes sense both from
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For films based on games, it depends what sort of game you're looking at. There have been some great TV series based on games recently, (AIR TV probably being the best), but those were games which were almost entirely story to begin with. I don't
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World of Warcraft? (Score:1)
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Chomp. (Score:2)
Half-Life (Score:1)
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Did the author even watch these movies? (Score:2)
The director is that of "Mr. 3000" and "Drumline". The writer did "Tomb Raider". A winning pair we have here for a fighting game movie. I expect this to be on the people's lists of top 10 worst video games.
Both "Mr. 3000" and "Drumline" were solid movies. Not blockbusters by any stretch but both were very well directed.
"Tomb Raider" wasn't a great movie but I think the writing was pretty good for the subject matter. Too much shooting and and too little adventure, maybe a little to formulaic.
Hitman (Score:1)
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Movie -- Game and vice versa- it *can* work (Score:2)
Games that have made successful translations into film seem to be harder to find. Off hand t
Why I think game movies suck. (Score:2)
producing it. Otherwise, nobody would ever make video game movies. I have no stats to determine which ones made money and which didn't, but considering there's a sizeable audien
What crap is this? (Score:1)
Where does this guy get off calling World of Darkness emo?!?!!?!? I play the World of Darkness systems all the time, and I don't cut my wrist and wish for death and blast life... Maybe he meant that its way to elmo? Cause we laugh a lot playing, socializing, and having a good time, though we don't tic
Umm, Yeah... (Score:2)
Yeah, because "The Day After Tomorrow" didn't have massive gaping plot-holes big enough to drive a few semi's through and a story that was so flawed and rediculous that I could almost believe wolves would walk to New York City and find their way into
Halo will probably suck. (Score:1, Funny)
Bungie - check.
Great backstory - check.
Peter Jackson - check.
WETA - check.
Promising director - check.
Good scriptwriter - check.
Infinite budget - check.
Too good to be true - check.
How could anything this promising NOT end up the biggest anticlimax of all time?
What everyone seems to have not noticed (Score:1)
Bruckheimer = crap (Score:2)
I refuse to see anything he touches. Ever.
Very subjective (Score:1)
Also, I'd appreciate if the poster of future articles can indicate if it's from
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no hl? (Score:1)
lame, HL would make a coo movie
Do game movies actually suck? (Score:3, Insightful)
I seen Wing Commander, Lara Croft and Resident Evil, and I thought each one was reasonably watchable. Not as good as similar films like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and 28 Days Later, but not a wasted evening either.
I suspect the truth about game movie suckage is that too many people are bringing alot of baggage to the film. Non-gamers are immediately sniffy about such low-brow entertainment, Gamers look down on the films because the plot is even more linear than the game, Movie Buffs are comparing it to the best of the competition and Genre fans have seen spacebattle/adventure/zombie flicks done before.
So what if the acting is a bit wooden? Star Wars wasnt exactly celulose-free.
If you want suckage, go see The Avengers.
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Since Simpson's passing though, that's when we got everything else you listed.
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