Poll Of The Week #10 - Do Videogames Make Good Movies?

[Kokichi]

Okay, I'm running out of ideas here, I probably could have thought of a different one, but I'm on spring break so I don't want to waste too much time

Do videogames make good movies? Silent Hill just bombed. RE / Tomb Raider movies were meh. I haven't seem Doom yet, but I heard the same. Anything by Uwe Boll is an instant stinker. It seems that videogames just don't make good movies. Superhero movies are starting to be really good, but they sucked a long time ago. Maybe videogames are just going through the same period, where people are trying to figure out how to effecitvely make them? I dunno, what do you guys think, chi??

 

[Aiser]

I think they make aweful movies, however theres always the exception. for instance ffvii:AC wasn't at all that bad, however theres more aweful video game based movies then there are good ones.

 

[Dark_Ness]

The potential is there, but most people just don't find it. Videogames with stories could make good movies, but games like Mario Party 6 or Tetris would just bomb.
If they found a way to put a story into SSBM, THAT could be pretty cool- maybe we could make movies out of fanfics. Who knows?

 

[F8X]

I think that their is a huge potential for video game movies, but they have yet to use their potential.(AKA Peter Jackson most likely will help halo do good

 

[Legomaxx]

Video games have the potential to make good movies imho. But it does not need to be said that the ones so far that are out were not all that great.

 

[dark_dragon8]

"Videogames are meant to be interactive, that's why they don't make good movies".

I so strongly agree with this statement. Games are games and movies are movies in my head. Movies are cool and all, but the rush of playing a game, accomplishing a goal and finishing the game is a great thrill. Watching a movie is just watching it from start to finish, that's it, I have no control over it like in a game. Not saying bad things about movies but they are good, but the gaming movies like Doom, Tomb Raider and such are just horrid movies.

 

[Kokichi]

I think they make aweful movies, however theres always the exception. for instance ffvii:AC wasn't at all that bad, however theres more aweful video game based movies then there are good ones.

Personally I didn't really like FFVII:AC. I mean, yes, the graphics were awesome, and the fighting was really cool, but the storyline sucked, it was too messy, and it didn't make sense unless you had played the game earlier (which I had, but since it was so long ago I forgot everything and everybody, so I was just as lost as my non-playing-FF7 friends who saw it).

Kinda reminded me of the previous FF movie that bombed...

 

[ZMan]

ZMan says that video game movies suck as much if not more than movies based video games. ZMan says that some games have potential as movies, but all hope is lost.

ZMan is now talking in third person for awhile.

 

[kaid]

Does FF10 count as a movie? it sure seemed like one...

 

[Aiser]

Personally I didn't really like FFVII:AC. I mean, yes, the graphics were awesome, and the fighting was really cool, but the storyline sucked, it was too messy, and it didn't make sense unless you had played the game earlier (which I had, but since it was so long ago I forgot everything and everybody, so I was just as lost as my non-playing-FF7 friends who saw it).

Kinda reminded me of the previous FF movie that bombed...

Well yeah, I can understand that. the story was just horrible it was way to abstract to say the least. I played it again before watching it so I guess I enjoyed it a bit more. Personally I think they just made that for the hardcore fandom. =\

 

[only1Z]

FFVII:AC imo, showed why video game movies can be good. *I REALLY liked it, REALLY* I also hope SH movie will restore some of the easily lost faith in the fact, that video games can make good movies.

 

[uremog]

i think xenosaga counts as a movie.

 

[falcophantism]

I heard there is a Metroid Prime movie in the making. This was yonks ago so I dont know if the idea went through.

Other than that there has yet been a decent video game movie made.

 

[NinjaFoxX]

VG movies can be better than they are now

 

[COMMOFDOOM]

The potential is there, but most people just don't find it. Videogames with stories could make good movies, but games like Mario Party 6 or Tetris would just bomb.
If they found a way to put a story into SSBM, THAT could be pretty cool- maybe we could make movies out of fanfics. Who knows?

a movie about tetris would kick butt.

 

[Mic_128]

The potential is definetly there, it's just that they don't actually stick to the videogames story enough. For example. Doom. Should be so easy! On Mars, teleport experiments open a gateway to hell. Simple solution: Battle to the teleporter and shut it down, closing the gateway. What do they do? Sure, it's on Mars, the only teleporter is what takes them to Mars, and their isn't even deamons, just wierd zombi-mutant type things that would fit more into Resi Evil. What a waste.....

 

[Dibs]

The potential is definetly there, it's just that they don't actually stick to the videogames story enough. For example. Doom. Should be so easy! On Mars, teleport experiments open a gateway to hell. Simple solution: Battle to the teleporter and shut it down, closing the gateway. What do they do? Sure, it's on Mars, the only teleporter is what takes them to Mars, and their isn't even deamons, just wierd zombi-mutant type things that would fit more into Resi Evil. What a waste.....

I agree completely. They do stray away from the movies alot. If they stick to the game storyline, then the movies would do alot better. Good Storylines in Good Games make the game good a lot of times, so they should use the Good Storyline in the Movie about the Good Game. I mean... Come on... Did anyone see the super mario bros. movie? I forgot what happened in it.. But I think they didnt use the story.

 

[I_LoVe_PuNk]

The potential is definetly there, it's just that they don't actually stick to the videogames story enough. For example. Doom. Should be so easy! On Mars, teleport experiments open a gateway to hell. Simple solution: Battle to the teleporter and shut it down, closing the gateway. What do they do? Sure, it's on Mars, the only teleporter is what takes them to Mars, and their isn't even deamons, just wierd zombi-mutant type things that would fit more into Resi Evil. What a waste.....

Yeah, that movie completley sucked (well i diddnt even like DooM) but RE movies arent bad, i like them, good action and zombies!!!

They do stray away from the movies alot. If they stick to the game storyline, then the movies would do alot better. Good Storylines in Good Games make the game good a lot of times, so they should use the Good Storyline in the Movie about the Good Game.

This is completley true and thats why i would have liked FFVII: AC would have sticked to the original sotry coz its judt pretty **** good!!! i loved that game and im still loving it. Of course AC was good in graphics but the storyline was kind of weird, fight were entreteining and yea, u must play the game to understand it (i played it but dont understand AC at all )

 

[Yloh]

The problem with video game movies is they try to attract as many people as possible. What I mean by this is they don't focus on the gamer, but the general public. Video games don't appeal to the general public, so Hollywood changes the story around to attract them. What ends up happening is the changed story ends up screwing up the whole concept of the origional story, which screws up the movie. Look at Street Fighter and Super Mario Borthers. They are some of the worst movies ever, but they are still fun to make fun of.

There are some good video game movies out there. Mortal Combat, in my opinion, is the best video game movie ever. The story line was not screwed up, and the movie turned out great. I thought Resident Evil was good too. It is too bad that these movies had bad sequels. I was embarrassed when I saw the second Mortal Combat movie, and I was dissipointed in Nemesis (I wanted to see him kill people with his tentacle not with a machine gun.). Resident Evil 2 was still a good movie, but I understand there are things in video games that still can't be seen in the movies.

This subject is not just limited to video games and movies. I find anime and video games to work together like soul mates. It almost always works together, and I can't think of one being bad and the other being good. I think it works like this because anime and video game makers don't really try to screw up with the origional artwork when creating their master peace.

 

[that 1 guy]

Personally I didn't really like FFVII:AC. I mean, yes, the graphics were awesome, and the fighting was really cool, but the storyline sucked, it was too messy, and it didn't make sense unless you had played the game earlier (which I had, but since it was so long ago I forgot everything and everybody, so I was just as lost as my non-playing-FF7 friends who saw it).

Kinda reminded me of the previous FF movie that bombed...

I totally agree. It was really lacking as far as character development and a plot. That is the problem with almost every video game movie. I really think that they have potential, but they keep approaching them the wrong way. Tomb Raider is closer to a success than the ff7 movie. People just like the ff7 movie because of the popularity of the game and the fact that it had a lot of action. The thing is I want to see a movie where I actually get pulled into the video game world. Which usually means a lot of action, but also a good story. They have turned movies into video games so I am pretty sure you can make a good movie from a game.

 

[no. 1 smash daddy]

a movie based on a videogame isn´t compared to a videogame, but there not that bad, the movie I most liked based on a videogame, was mortal kombat

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Are there good ones out there? Yeah, some. Resident Evil turned out pretty well, and the Super Mario Bros. Movie wasn't THAT bad.(but could've been better...a lot better) Sonic The Hedgehog: The Movie was actually pretty cool...except the main character voices, but otherwise, great movie.

There's some gems here and there. Let's hope they can actually make another good translation.(the Final Fantasy Movie wasn't bad...it was actually an excellent movie overall, just didn't scream Final Fantasy, which was its only problem)

 

[TheCatPhysician]

Yeah, Sonic was a great movie, but I don't know if that counts because they were already making Sonic cartoons, and still are. So they didn't do anything particularly new like they did with, say, Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter. But yeah, the Sonic movie was really good.

I thought the Mario Bros. movie was actually really good. Of course it was cheesy in some parts, but eh. The only thing I didn't really like about it was the lack of Mario music. Why the heck did they come up with new (stupid) music for it? The scene in the elevator where Luigi slowly gets the Goombas to start dancing to the elevator music would have been SO perfect if they used the Aquatic song from Mario Bros.

 

[shogun]

video game movies can derelict my balls, I guess they have a little potential, but to this day I have not seen ONE good video game movie.

 

[theaftermath]

i think that games do have what it takes to be blockbusters, some of them hopefully could be Metriod (john woo has the rights for the movie), Splinter Cell, Halo, and Silent Hill. lets not even talk about the super mario brother movie XD!

 

[FLCLalex]

I just pray to God every night that the next day Nintendo doesnt anounce a new Zelda movie coming out soon.

 

[FastFox]

The potential is definetly there, it's just that they don't actually stick to the videogames story enough. For example. Doom. Should be so easy! On Mars, teleport experiments open a gateway to hell. Simple solution: Battle to the teleporter and shut it down, closing the gateway. What do they do? Sure, it's on Mars, the only teleporter is what takes them to Mars, and their isn't even deamons, just wierd zombi-mutant type things that would fit more into Resi Evil. What a waste.....

I agree. I have been a RE fan ever since the first game came out, and own almost every one after it. When I heard that movies were being made, I really got excited, but that excitement soon turned to disgust when I actually saw the movie. I have always loved the characters in the game, and was heart-broken when they did not appear, and were replaced with "Alice". The skank who wishes she was Jill. Even though the second movie included Jill and Carlos, Alice was still the main character, which pissed me off once again.

Regarding DOOM - I didn't bother to go see it because it had The Rock in it.

 

[quak]

i think that there are three rules to follow if you ever make a movie. 1) No video game movies, 2) No documentaries, 3) No super hero movies unless you have a good plot

 

[Penetrago]

the reason video game/movies and movie/video games suk is because the people who decide to make the movie kow nothing about video games usually and just see it as a quick way to make money, and with movie-based video games it is idiotic companies who just do a half arsed job of it and dont really care or have so much money they dont have to care.

DEATH THE UWE BOLL!

 

[Penetrago]

i forgot to say that video games and movies are completely different , video games are interactive where as movies arent. Therefore the way they come out is different that is why the resident evil films sucked even though the director of gladiator did the second one!

 

[McFox]

Silent Hill just bombed.

But seriously, what actor would consciously make a decision to appear in a movie being directed by Uwe Boll? Who's that stupid?

Well, the entire cast of the upcoming Dungeon Siege movie is that stupid.

 

[the_suicide_fox]

In order for a videogame movie to be successful you would have to follow the original story as much as possible. Mortal Kombat did a great job of this for the first movie, and even had Reptile as a "hidden" character which was hot. RE was ok as a movie, but they could have done better. It turned into more of an action movie than a survival horror. IMO if they had stuck with original story and made it more of a horror movie than an action movie it would have stayed with the original theme of RE and been a lot better. Most other VG movies are horrible. They could have been a lot better. Granted the Mario Bros. movie storyline was pretty original and a good movie, but it lacked that Mario feel, probably because it was live actors. Some games just wouldn't make good movies no matter how good a story you have. They are working on a Halo movie right now, and the only way they can be successful is to stick to the original story as much as possible. Granted by the time it comes out H3 will already be out so they can't give any spoilers away. And if they try to combine H1 and H2 it will just be too fasted paced. Hopefully they will just do a movie version of Halo 1, although since your mostly running around shooting stuff it may be hard to stretch that into a full length movie. So IDK what to think of it. I hope it's good, but things like this need a lot of consideration.

 

[BlitzkriegBus]

I must agree that some video game movies eithyer look really good or they just bomb like others. I think directors are given alot of freedom when creating video game movies. HOwever, the biggest challenge is deciding on if the movie is full CG, Half CG, or real Like the Super Maroi Bro's movie. It was cool when I was 8 and I still get some kicks out of it when I watch it but there are some major problems (like 8 ft tall goombas) The only concern I have about video game movies isthe Halo movie. It should follow the Reach-Halo1 story line and have tons of action and explosions and stuff like that.
If they f-up this movie, it can never be forgiven...

 

[Skylink]

They suck. They are ment to be played, not watched.
Thats all I have to say.

And Toomin, try cropping that pic

 

[Kokichi]

But seriously, what actor would consciously make a decision to appear in a movie being directed by Uwe Boll? Who's that stupid?

Well, the entire cast of the upcoming Dungeon Siege movie is that stupid.

I was refering to these links from Kotaku.

 

[McFox]

That's Stay Alive, not Silent Hill.

 

[Kokichi]

*Looks* Oh ya. Regardless, videogame thriller flick gone bad.

In that case, best to Silent Hill - hope it does well.

 

[Armygeddon Bomb]

I think they should keep it interactive, because the Mario movie was good, but no Bowser, no natural jumps, no cute dinosaur, only a guy named Koopa, a preasurized jumper, and a friendly raptor.

 

[Vasilicus]

Legendary Frog made some little movie where at the end he threw in an extra little skit about a Tetris movie - look it up on the 'net.

 

[McFox]

Silent Hill is actually supposed to be good. The guys who are writing the script actually know the series, and played Silent Hill 2 repeatedly during their writing as a reference. That gives me a little hope.

Granted, horror isn't my genre, so I won't see the movie. But it should still be a good movie.