This isn't necessarily limited to book-to-film examples, but my favourite adaptations tend to be criticisms of their source material in some way. Any time I've felt the urge to adapt something, it has been because I've sensed some latent ideas in the work that aren't fully expressed. Being faithful to the book and trying to create good art is like trying to worship both God and Mammon. The book is merely a vessel. Be faithful to whatever the book stirred inside you.
Oh also the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie > the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie. But neither goes far enough down horror movie lane.
Can there be a good movie made about a video game? Taking away things like The King of Kong or Indie Game The Movie, you're really left with nothing of substance whatsoever. Even if you ignore Uwe Boll's entire foray into these films, you're left with some of the most gutwrenchingly bad movies ever - Mortal Combat Annihilation, Street Fighter The Legend of Chun-Li, Silent Hill Revelations, Super Mario Bros. Then you have the "so bad they're good" movies, Street Fighter, Double Dragon, etc. The best reviewed of video game films, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, is an animated film that, although gorgeous, was a box office flop. We've got 4 major movies coming this year based on video games, but I've yet to see anything I've liked out of these, which is rather a pity as it could very well work. Something like Shadow of the Colussus, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, or Bioshock have premises that could translate well to the silver screen, but with the way these films have been going, I would be surprised if any were made, and if they were if they were any good.
I think a really successful videogame adaptatation would likely have these qualities:
- The original game would be un-movie-like enough that it wouldn't be immediately obvious what the "right" way to adapt the videogame would be. Hardcore fans wouldn't be complaining about "inaccuracies" and people would be going in without strong preconceptions of exactly what they were going to get.
- The original game had a strong mood/setting/themes that the filmmaker effectively channeled using new elements.
- The movie protagonist would not be the player character. I'm trying to articulate exactly why I think adapting a player character as a film protagonist would be so jarring. It's as if watching the film would put you in the mindset of watching a cutscene and waiting for the interactivity to start again. Any time the character faces an obstacle you'd have to remind yourself to focus on what characteristics this obstacle is bringing out of the character instead of wanting to steal the controller from whoever is playing behind the screen. Building a story around an NPC or creating a new character is the only way I can think of to fully undercut this effect.
- Both the videogame and movie would be high-concept ideas-driven works.
Actually now I'm thinking maybe an adaptation of a franchise rather than an individual game would be more likely to succeed. If you got someone like Michael Bacall for example to adapt Grand Theft Auto, I bet the result would actually be really enjoyable as well as commercially viable. With all the journalism and controversy surrounding it, Grand Theft Auto has in a sense become a philosophical entity rather than just a piece of entertainment, and there's no limit to what a clever filmmaker could do with so much to draw from. A fuck you to censorship? A fuck you to GTA fans? The satirical skewering of American culture that the GTA games never quite managed to be? All promising avenues. And coming up with a unique protagonist would continue the GTA tradition.
I think a really successful videogame adaptatation would likely have these qualities:
- The original game would be un-movie-like enough that it wouldn't be immediately obvious what the "right" way to adapt the videogame would be. Hardcore fans wouldn't be complaining about "inaccuracies" and people would be going in without strong preconceptions of exactly what they were going to get.
I don't think this is necessarily a necessity, but would definitely make it easier.
SquishypuffDave wrote:
- The original game had a strong mood/setting/themes that the filmmaker effectively channeled using new elements.
This is what I thought worked well in Silent Hill, it wasn't a perfect movie but it got the tone down pretty well. I think that's also why Bioshock is one of the ones that comes to mind as something that could be good.
SquishypuffDave wrote:
- The movie protagonist would not be the player character. I'm trying to articulate exactly why I think adapting a player character as a film protagonist would be so jarring. It's as if watching the film would put you in the mindset of watching a cutscene and waiting for the interactivity to start again. Any time the character faces an obstacle you'd have to remind yourself to focus on what characteristics this obstacle is bringing out of the character instead of wanting to steal the controller from whoever is playing behind the screen. Building a story around an NPC or creating a new character is the only way I can think of to fully undercut this effect.
I think this depends on the game. Something like Dragon Age or Mass Effect could work without this because that Sheppard isn't your Sheppard the same way that the guy down the street's Sheppard isn't your Shepard. Something like the Portal: No Escape short film that was so good not long back works alright because it's a short film, but having a silent protaganist in a film likely wouldn't translate as well in a full movie (though let's see how Hardcore Harry turns out - more on that in a moment). A Dishonored movie could be interesting from Corvo's point of view even though he's not terribly verbal, because it's not a hard character to sell while still being an interesting character who would be invested in the world.
Other games, though, doing an NPC or new character I think does make more sense, I think that would've been a logical way to go about making a movie about a fighting game, frankly, as those exaggerated personalities don't exactly translate well to being a main character necessarily - a new character would work well. Games with strong NPCs make more sense to develop, which is what the Dragon Age animated films chose to do as I understand (haven't seen em). Borderlands or Fallout could be great properties to take an NPC/group of NPCs and flesh out.
SquishypuffDave wrote:
- Both the videogame and movie would be high-concept ideas-driven works.
Yeah probably.
SquishypuffDave wrote:
Actually now I'm thinking maybe an adaptation of a franchise rather than an individual game would be more likely to succeed. If you got someone like Michael Bacall for example to adapt Grand Theft Auto, I bet the result would actually be really enjoyable as well as commercially viable. With all the journalism and controversy surrounding it, Grand Theft Auto has in a sense become a philosophical entity rather than just a piece of entertainment, and there's no limit to what a clever filmmaker could do with so much to draw from. A fuck you to censorship? A fuck you to GTA fans? The satirical skewering of American culture that the GTA games never quite managed to be? All promising avenues. And coming up with a unique protagonist would continue the GTA tradition.
My worry with that would be that a GTA movie would result in what the Deadpool movie could be. R-rated action comedies rarely fair well, and the best are movies the ones that focus considerably less on the action and more on the people. It's what Kingsmen, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim, In Bruges, etc. do so well is to use action to further the characters or create humorous moments, to integrate it into the film. Movies like Kung Fu Hustle or Deadpool are fewer and farther apart because to sell that sort of "dumber" humor in with action generally results in a more childish movie. To be able to create something that's dumb fun instead of just dumb is a difficult line to walk. I was honestly somewhat surprised that Deadpool pulled it off, and I think that it could be an indicator of things like it to come. It could either serve as a lesson of how to pull off dumb fun or a recommendation of "just make R rated action comedies, as long as its a known franchise you'll bring in the bucks".
And I think that's where Hardcore Harry comes back. If that ends up working as a movie, and I think it has a chance to, as a dumb action comedy that's still an enjoyable watch, that opens up the possibility of a good GTA adaptation being made. I think it could exist but there needs to be a little more proof to Hollywood that 1 it can work and 2 how to make it work well. The GTA humor in the movie could be boiled down to "haha he cursed and then blew that guy's head off" and as much as I'd hope it wouldn't, I would worry about that.
I've seen a review and the trailer and honest I think it looks incredible. That's what a video game movie should be, true enough to the source material, even with its bizarre, exaggerated bits, but boiled down and movied up a little bit. It still doesn't look like a great movie, but it looks like a great video game movie. _________________
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Moved: 02/06/2017 10:31 by albummaster
