Games and movies; is it always going to be a terrible relationship?

Two of the universal truths in the media world: (1) a game of a blockbuster movie is nearly always rubbish. (2) a movie of a blockbuster game is nearly always rubbish. It’s happened time and again, and with both Bioshock and Halo movies in the works the same cycle will happen again – heightened expectation followed by dour disappointment. Alan takes a look at this phenomenon and asks the simple question – why?

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If you asked anyone that knows me what two of my biggest interests are you would probably hear a lot of them say ‘computer games’ or ‘films’ and they’d be right, I’m a massive fan of both, so why then does the thought of the two being combined make my asshole clench more than receiving an invite to a pool party at Michael Barrymore’s house?

With the release of Resident Evil: Afterlife, the latest in the puzzlingly long-lasting franchise, I thought I’d take a look at why computer game films are almost all rubbish and what could be done to make sure the next wave don’t follow in these oh-so terrible footsteps. Maybe first of all we should take a look at some of the previous offenders. I can’t claim to have seen every film of a game and I’m sure if I had then I might have given up hope a long time ago.

Street Fighter: This is my opinion the worst of the bunch (though I have heard truly terrible things about Alone in the Dark, oh Christian Slater what happened to your career).

As a kid I loved playing Street Figher 2. I had the game on my Amiga 500+, it came on 4 disks which you had to swap at least a couple of times between every fight. That didn’t stop hour after hour being spent kicking my dad’s ass. When I found out a film was going to be released I couldn’t wait. I was so excited about seeing all my favourite characters brought to life on screen. I was 11 years old when the film came out (in 1994) – I remember it clearly, my family were on holiday in America and through constant bitchin’ I managed to convince them we should go and watch the film. If only I could travel back now and warn myself not to open that Pandora’s box of shit.

The thing that always strikes me about that film is that even at that age I came out of the cinema knowing I had just watched a really bad film. At that point I wasn’t focusing on the hammed acting or even Kylie Minogues terrible attempt at a British accent, I was annoyed that many of the characters weren’t who they were supposed to be.

I’d spent hours as Blanka (a large green half human/gorilla) electrocuting peoples asses, and when he appeared on screen for about 5 seconds I was seriously pissed.

Seriously, look at this. What the hell:

Amazingly this dire film went on to spawn an even worse game.

So there you go, the circle of life was complete and all Street Fighter fans had received one massive nut kick.

The next film I’m going to talk about is probably the strangest, as most people remember it as a terrible movie but to be honest when I saw this back in 1993 I was no where near as disappointed as I would be a year late by Street Fighter.

I’m talking about Super Mario Brothers the Movie: I actually haven’t seen this film in about 15 years so everything I say is purely coming from that memory, and maybe that’s the reason I don’t think it’s quite as awful as other people. It is however a very strange film.

The Mario games have always been very colourful and light-hearted, as you know, but this was one hell of a dark film, where (from what I remember) it’s based in some kind of alternate dimension where dinosaurs hadn’t died out but instead evolved into a very greasy haired Dennis Hopper (King Koopa) and company. For some reason Mr Hopper wanted to merge the two dimensions, though I cant remember why (probably just to piss everyone off), and it was up to Mario and Luigi who were dragged through to this dimension to stop him.

The film suffers from a strange case of juxtaposition flipping constantly from slapstick humour to some very dark locations and quite scary creatures. Again the film just wasn’t loyal to the fans, characters had been radically changed and kids felt short changed, and we held out for every glimmer of a character we knew or something that was actually close to the games we loved.

This seems to be a mistake made by most films of games; if you’re going to adapt this source material then you need to stay loyal. That doesn’t mean it has to be a word-for-word copy but please don’t turn the world on its head, the players are the people that are going to watch this film (for the most part) – don’t piss them off.

So where can we go from here?

There are a number of hugely successful games out there right now that studios are climbing all over each other to get at – Mass Effect, Gears of War, Uncharted to name just a few. All of these have the potential to make amazing films but will they? Probably not. Game developers are starting to realise more and more that there IPs are worth a hell of a lot and aren’t willing to sign them over to make some half assed movie for a quick buck. Just a couple of months ago a movie based on the already-mentioned Gears of War was put on hold by its developer Epic due to the first script feeling more like ‘2012’ than ‘District 9’.

To me this can only be a good thing; developers that have poured years into a game shouldn’t jump at the first chance to turn their work into a film if it’s not true to their vision – I say more power to them.

The games industry has changed more than any other form of entertainment in the last 10 years or so. Yes, when Mario and Street Fighter were developed it must have been a hell of a job. Mario is hardly Shakespearian in it’s story so depth and character building clearly needed to be developed to work within the confines of a film. And Street Fighter obviously couldn’t be based completely around the fighting, and most of the film’s influence was arguably taken from the small segments after fights that gave a glimpse into the characters life.

Now, however, we have games such as Mass Effect where developers ‘Bioware’ have spent a head spinning amount of time fleshing out races, planets, history…. You name it they’re probably already thought about it. So all of this should be a God-send to Hollywood! Just run with what you’ve got, you don’t need to suddenly think up a character’s surname (I’m looking at you again ‘Mario Mario’) – they already have them.

How’s this for a crazy idea – maybe movies isn’t the way to go at all! Some of the games with the most fleshed out backstory can easily clock in at over 20/30 hours,  which is going to be one hell of a job to fit into a film and obviously some crucial elements would need to be missed out.

So what about television? The already-mentioned Mass Effect could make for an amazing science fiction TV series; sure it would have high production costs but I really think it could be the next Star Trek or Firefly (hopefully minus the premature cancellation). And with the quality of television growing and growing is it really that unbelievable?

– AC

The top 10 ‘must-see’ shows that I have never seen…

Casting doubt on my worth to be able to talk or work within television, I thought I’d share (in no particular order) the shows that are massively critically acclaimed but that I’ve just not got around to seeing (or don’t plan to).

You may scroll down and think ‘this is the cream of the crop of television history, what HAVE you seen?!’ and I’d tentatively agree with you. I have a majority of the shows on either DVD or my hard-drive, often for years, but I’ve just never found the time and dedication to sit down and watch them. Some of them I have started watching, some of them I watched a few of but didn’t like but most I have genuinely just not had the time to see (yet). I do plan on watching most of them one day soon though…

Anyway, I may as well start with probably the biggest omission from my repertoire…

10. The Sopranos

HBO’s masterpiece, the ‘greatest television show ever made’ (according to countless lists, including The Guardian) and the show that went head-to-head with the awards critics against one of my favourite ever shows – The West Wing.

Why, then, have I not seen it? I don’t even have the excuse of having no access to it, as my mum got me the first season on DVD two years ago.

I just haven’t found the time to dedicate to it. I watched the pilot episode about a year and a half ago but, as they do, things came up and I never got further than that episode. I will try again with it though, someday…

9. Battlestar Galactica

This is the show that has probably been thrust upon me by friends and work colleagues most of all. I’m not a massive fan of sci-fi shows so when this first aired I had no yearning to watch it, but since then countless forums and friends have proclaimed this (also) ‘the best show ever made’. Whenever I state my neutral feeling towards sci-fi shows they always tell me it is ‘way more than that’ etc etc.

I believe them and think I’ll enjoy it a lot more than I expect to right now, but with an hour and a half movie to watch before the first episode (that apparently began the whole series) it seems a daunting thing to even begin…

8. Firefly

This was (and probably still is) my housemate at University’s favourite show, and when I first revealed I’d never seen this (which was shortly after it was released on DVD) he was flabbergasted. So much so, in fact, that he lent me the DVD – many times. But with studies and that whole socialising thing happening around those times, I never got round to it.

This is, realistically, the show I’ll watch first on this list. At 14 episodes long, a cheap price on Amazon and the promise of being ‘even better than Serenity’ – which I watched with the aforementioned housemate, who dragged me along as propaganda to watch the series, and enjoyed the film a lot but was obviously not compelled enough to follow-through watching the series it was based on.

7. The Wire

I have about five work colleagues and friends that proudly proclaim this as their favourite show, and also keenly observe The Guardian constantly banging on about this as the best show since sliced bread. I listened to all those people and gave this a go and just… simply couldn’t get into it.

I’ve tried it twice, in fact. The first time I got to episode two and then lost time again, a few days passed and I never went back to it. That was, until a few months ago when I tried again. I started a new job and heard, again, how good this show was and that I was basically breaking the law for not worshipping it too. I also read about Treme, the new HBO drama that just ended it’s first season that’s set in New Orleans just after the Katrina hurricane, and was eager to follow that as each episode played out.

My second attempt was better but, again, it didn’t compel me enough to watch an episode (or two) after work. I got to around episode five or six and decided, after a few days away, that I wasn’t particularly bothered about going back. Maybe it’s because it’s so far away from my status quo – be it the setting, the language, the goings-on – or I just prefer shows that don’t require such dedication and memory (I’m terrible with names for at least the first season of a show).

I might have a ‘third time lucky’ again sometime. Maybe.

6. Six Feet Under

This may be the show I’m most eager to get into, with funds and time mainly holding me back from watching it. I followed the first few episodes when it first aired on Channel 4, back in around 2001, but was way too young to be able to commit to a serious TV drama – my only commitment on television then was Jonathan Creek and BBC2 comedy nights.

But with Michael C Hall’s brilliant casting in Dexter, which is one of my favourite shows currently on air, and also seeing Peter Kraus in Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night, I am eager to see what by many is seen the epitome of both their careers.

I think, if I find the time to watch it, this could turn into one of my favourite shows – I hope irony doesn’t strike and I die before I getting the chance.

5. Entourage

I don’t have much knowledge about this, other than it’s one of the only shows in this list that is still airing and it has a huge list of brilliant guest stars including:

– Jessica Alba

– Val Kilmer

– Scarlett Johansson

– U2

– James Cameron

– Peter Jackson

– Kanye West

– Martin Scorsese

– Aaron Sorkin

– Mike Tyson

It’s mental. I’m not particularly drawn by celebrities in TV shows (though I thought they were a nice addition in Studio 60 From The Sunset Strip) but that’s a helluva list (and I’ve taken off loads of worthy editions, just so this article doesn’t stretch on forever). I, perhaps foolishly, assume a show that attracts that calibre of star must be pretty brilliant and respected within the industry.

So mainly on that basis, and various positive accolades from friends and random internet people, I’d love to find time to get into this too. I regret, though, not starting from the beginning as it aired and being able to relax with the ‘one episode a week, with a break of 24 weeks a year’ I so enjoy.

4. Seinfeld

I own the first four seasons of this DVD, after spotting it on Amazon for a ridiculously priced £9.

But it’s still in it’s wrapper, until the day when I finally break it out. I just figure an American comedy from the nineties is gonna be quite difficult to watch, at first anyway, and I’ll need to have a bottle of wine and a friend to spot it in my collection and say ‘oh we should watch this and finish the wine!’ and then, in my drunk way, I’ll find it hilarious and that will be that push I need to then watch the rest of it very quickly (I had similar ways into a comedy with Arrested Development and Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place).

3. The Shield

This is another of the shows that I just arrived into television too late to really watch as it aired, so therefore by the time it ended and everyone was raving about it (as ‘the best cop show ever!’ etc) I knew this was another added to the growing list of classics I need to buy and watch.

To be honest, I think it’ll take me a few episodes to get through the numerous parodies on animated shows of Vic Mackey to take him completely serious (and will he ever surpass the coolest bald cop characters ever, currently held by Hank in Breaking Bad and Doakes on Dexter?). But I do love that type of show, and if it’s as gritty and compelling as everyone seems to say then this will be essential viewing (when I finally get to it).

2. Buffy The Vampire Slayer

This completely overtook me at school. Everyone was into this at one time, raving on about ‘Buffy’ and ‘Willow’ and ‘Angel’ and a whole host of other names I’d never heard before (outside of hippy parents). I think now, without the promise of extra social points at school, I’ll probably never get to this. It’s still well regarded, I know, but I think the whole Twilight crap that’s spewed onto literature and films in the last couple of years have completely ruined vampires for me (which is also why I have yet to touch True Blood, although I’m more tempted to watch that as it’s not aimed primarily at teenagers).

1. Mad Men

I’ve slightly cheated for this final entry, as this is the show I’m currently (slowly) going through.

I’ve heard from many, many people that this is the best show out there right now and have seen the billions of awards that the show gets every year. I’ve fell to peer pressure and now have the first season, in Blu-Ray, comfortably in my collection. I’m up to episode six and am loving it so far…

… and if the rest of the shows on this list are as entertaining as these first few episodes of Mad Men have been then I have literally thousands of hours of enjoyment in the future.

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So is it such a bad thing I haven’t seen these shows?

I remember when I watched the final episode of Lost, West Wing, Arrested Development, Spaced, The Office (UK) and countless other shows. I wished so much that I could have my memory wiped and watch them all again from the start; relive those hilarious, touching and down-right genius moments with no recollection and expediency at all. But I lost that gift for those shows I know are my favourite shows, but I still have clear memories of many of my future favourite shows.

So that’s that (and if I remember, I’ll cross these out if I ever get round to seeing them).