Okay so apparently there are video game movies out there, and most (or all, depending on how you look at it) are utter shite. So this thread is dedicated to putting down ideas of how to take existing games/franchises and successfully translating them to film in a way that doesn't come off as something Michael Bay would come up. In other words, how would you translate x "arty" game (this could mean anything to different people but for my purpouses it refers to games that successfully blend gameplay, story and design) into a film?
Anyway. The reason I came up with this thread is because I've been playing Deus Ex lately and it got me thinking again about how I would turn it into a movie. I've long believed that if Deus Ex were to be at all successful* as a movie it would have to be three movies. The first movie would be the entirety of New York. The second movie would be from Hong Kong up until the supertanker blows up, with the scene at the cemetary as a finale. The third movie would encompass Paris to the end of the game.
* By successful I mean telling its story well and being an actual film worth watching, not by how much money it makes in the box office
The first movie would play to the strengths of the setting, turning it into a futuristic film noir, with Denton playing detective as he tracks the Ambrosia through the city and largely keeps out of the fighting in the streets. Characters like JoJo would play a larger role (JoJo's supposed to be an NSF commander, after all) so his much-deserved getting shot in the face wouldn't feel as arbitrary. Denton wouldn't be the kind of person to engage in a firefight, preferring to sneak, or snipe from afar. I would probably cut the generator building scenario and have Denton join in the fight on the NSF warehouse instead- this would mean he, and the audience, gets to see Paul sabotage the raid and thusly help establish closer ties between the two that are more obvious to the audience. What's important is that it must be established that Denton is unsure about UNATCO and suspicious of its motives, as well as curious about his own past- this must be established early on so that his inevitable defection doesn't seem so arbitrary. Daedalus would make his appearance in the MJ12 cells- a true deus ex machina played completely straight, as in the game.
The second movie would be a slight shift in tone. As it's set in Hong Kong with Denton infiltrating Versalife as well as dealing with Triad politics, it would play out more like a spy movie. And because of that, the opening would have to be somewhat action-packed. I would cut the heliport section as it really has very little to do with any other part of the game, and instead have Jock drop Denton off in the middle of an open area like a city square- just in time to watch two groups of opposing gangsters go at each other with swords. This would help establish the setting (gun-free Hong Kong in the grip of organized crime) and also provide a lead-in to resolving the Triad war. Maggie Chow would have a slightly larger role in this, playing the villian for most of the movie until she's eventually killed. The last act of the movie would be a short sequence in New York City where Denton meets Stanton Dowd and finally infiltrates the Supertanker, the climax being his escape from the ship as it blows up. To wrap up the film he would go to the cemetary to meet Dowd, and fights off an MJ12 ambush. Also, I would introduce Icarus much, much earlier, to establish the AI as a sinister villain of sorts that would spy on Denton- and mess with him a bit. Most importantly Icarus and Daedalus would conflict- a little bit at first, but with growing intensity throughout the second and third movies, culminating in the creation of Helios in Vandenberg.
The third movie would be a mix of both the film noir element- he is in Paris after all- and a bit of spy/action towards the end. There are a few sections I would cut for time- first, the cathedral. After the chateau Everett would just put him through a wringer of getting to telephones and subway stations on time- this would keep the action going and include a layer of suspense. I would also cut the missile silo and the ocean lab, again for time. A good chunk of the second half would be the siege on X-51, and from there Denton would head straight to Area 51. As the site hadn't been nuked, he'd have to be more careful in his infiltration. The final sequence would be the bunker proper, and it'd be eerily quiet- except for Walton Simons, who'd of course have to die, and towards the end it'll become apparent that Page himself has control over large parts of the bunker itself, throwing spiderbots at Denton in an effort to slow him down. The final part of the movie would be a sequence of big reveals until finally Denton steps into Helios' chamber and we all know what happens next.
Why did I pick the Helios ending? Firstly because Deus Ex is first and foremost a cyberpunk story. Transhumanism is a big part of cyberpunk, and what's more emblematic of that than becoming the internet? But also the other endings just don't fit with the theme nearly as well. The New Dark Age ending is a disappointment- it almost feels arbitrary. Tong had so little characterization as the kind of person who would buy into that sort of thing that it really could've been almost anyone suggesting Denton blow up Area 51. But even if we do characterize him as such, the ending still sucks because it's utterly nihilistic- like, what the fuck was the point of doing three movies (or a whole game) if we're just going to blow up the whole joint? Even Denton pointed out that it's overkill. The Illuminati ending is a bit better, but in the end the Illuminati were just background- Everett and Dowd attempting to manipulate Denton to their own ends. I just don't see Denton buying into the status quo anymore than he does blowing everything up. The Helios ending is in the middle- it keeps the established structure, but it fixes it. Add to that the cyberpunk element of it all and the Helios ending is the only one that makes sense.
The tl;dr of this is, what game would you moviefy and how would you do it?
none
though I acknowledge the already demonstrated potential of adding new interesting elements to something already good, I don't believe remakes from one media to film format are desirable in general, especially when what makes the media interesting in the first place is interactivity
i would enjoy a feature length animated movie in the world of psychonauts though
Last edited by Briareos H; 24th Nov 2009 at 23:24. Reason: "in general"
I actually read all that. Three movies is a lot to invest as a viewer, knowing you're starting on a plot that won't all come together until two movies later. But hey, Lord of the Rings did it, so anything is possible. And to be fair, DX would be hard to capture in one sitting.
I have to think about what game I'd like to moviefy. Maybe Anachronox, since I loved all the characters, situations, and settings in that game.
We should also crosslink the Dark Project Screenplay thread here. I liked reading what was posted; but there's also the argument that if it sticks too close to the game, there isn't enough dramatic drive. But I hope for the best for it.
The way I have it split up, each section is somewhat self-contained. The first part has to do with the revelation of the conspiracy- Denton escaping from MJ12 and finding himself back in UNATCO would be quite the shocker to the audience if done right. The second, likewise, would be about the secret behind the virus and Ambrosia, and stopping an attempt to infect the United States. The third, of course, uses MJ12 taking over Paris to set the tone for the rest of the film as well as establishing Denton's goal- stop MJ12 by stopping Bob Page- while at the same time, being the end cap of a trilogy, wraps up loose ends from the first two films.
I like the idea, but I don't see the point. Better to have a fresh start and not be bound by the original work, which is in a completely different medium. I just think that there are things that get lost in translation and you might as well start off with a new idea and not have to worry about staying true to the source.
That's actually pretty decent - personally I think that you need to create different narratives in there to make the story compelling enough for a movie, but I wished him well anyway.Originally Posted by demagogue
I think 3 movies for the DX movie is overkill, personally. I think you have to strip the movie down to its core and actually tell one part of the story well. The problem (and joy) with DX is its shaggy dog story telling nature. It's okay when you're playing a game for a few weeks, not watching three two hour movies spread over a 3 year period or something. I'm just not sure if it's a story that would hold up well to adaptation.
Videogame movies are generally doomed to fail because the whole point of the game is putting the actions of the protagonist in your hands, unless you create new and compelling narratives and dramatic forces to charge the protagonist you run the risk of just having an iconic-looking character without any real depth running through a bunch of scenarios with an obvious outcome (you win the game).
I start doing one for Half Life in here but stopped after two pages because no one's going to pay me to spec that shit and I'm at work.
I liked your idea for the DX movies dethy. I think it could work if you could find a way to wrap up the story by the end of chapter 1, and make it more self-contained. Like, just make it seem like JC and Paul getting out alive is the big triumph at the end of the movie, and the uncovering of the conspiracy a less important un-accomplished secondary goal. Then at the start of movie 2, play up the significance of uncovering the conspiracy again.
I would say the real reasons videogame movies are currently doomed to fail are:
a) they are given to hacks who haven't played the game or even many games at all.
b) the games chosen are based on popularity and not what might actually be a suitable candidate for a film.
Every videogame film I've seen hasn't sucked because it stayed to true to the source material, on the contrary they usually diverge quite drastically, but because they are simply awful films. They added new characters and dramatic forces but just extremely poorly executed ones. I mean games like Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Silent Hill 2, Thief have great stories and characters that any decent script writer could easily sculpt into a film.
Another thing to keep in mind is videogames are relatively young and still seen as an immature medium by much of the public. Superhero comics have been around for what 60-70 years? They've been many generations of film-makers/writers/actors who have grown up with them and they are very much ingrained into our culture. Conseqeuntly we have talented people interested in and making some good/great films based on them. Eventually I think this will be the same for videogames.
Doom, just imagine 90 minutes of non-stop carnage!
Oh wait
Over the years of dreaming about this stuff I've concluded that to do Thief justice on screen, in terms of storytelling and theme, the film would have to be so detached from the game it seems the movie came first. That should be the goal of the adaptation actually; make it seem as though the game came second. The fan adaptations I've seen so far stick too close to the rails and spend half the time trying to reference the game at as many points as possible. It might be just me but the voice change when they start introducing new stuff to make it work is very jarring.
I reckon that's true of most video game adaptations too, but only really those where there's a solid story and world to work from. With say Doom they've got to get inventive and it could still end up like Doom (the movie).
In theory, I'd have thought the best games to turn into films would be RPGs, because there's generally a world that's been thought out in some depth, meaning that you can expand upon, or deviate from, the game's plot while still staying in the familiar game world.
That's why I think the best hope for a videogame movie currently in production is probably Warcraft - there's enough backstory and world development that an original story can be told in a traditional film style.
Wouldn't most games be best converted to TV series? (if at all)
It leaves a lot of room to add to the story and its characters, instead of cutting stuff and/or cramming it into too few scenes.
The full story would be easier to follow for newcomers to the IP, and the expanded story would be more interesting for those who already know the IP.
Tomb Raider: The Curse of the Black Panther
- Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft only not shit.
- Lara should have an fiercely loyal black panther as a pet, just because she can
- She should put some weight on though because at the moment she looks like a frigging skeleton.
- Michael Caine can feature as Bruce Wayne's Moonlighting Butler
- And it should be more like Indiana Jones and less like The Mummy Returns
- Aliens, Landrover Freelanders and Ricky Gervais should not be featuring in it fucking anywhere
- Bridget Moynahan features as the bad 'guy', but falls for Lara and they get it on, this should be a critical plot device somehow otherwise people will complain about a gratuitous display of boob quartet and Guardian journalists will have a coronary
- Not produced or directed by Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer or any other vacuous turdburglars
- Monkeys and explosions must be in it somewhere, apart from the sex scenes, where they should be at the very least out of shot
That's the only criteria, just needs a plot and we have a winner
The Longest Journey pretty much is a movie. So eh, a proper game movie needs a good story...
Psychonauts would need Tim Burton.
The problem with Hollywood is it usually chooses games with non-existent/utterly shit stories to turn into movies. Super Mario Bros? Doom? Tomb Raider? STREET FIGHTER/MORTAL KOMBAT???
And when it does choose something with potential, the soul of the game is usually lost in translation due to writers that aren't sympathetic to the material or lobotomise/aggressively adapt and chop it down to its basic theme/concept so the teeming masses can be spoon-fed the plot. Witness: Silent Hill, Hitman, Max Payne.
Silent Hill would've been a pretty nice movie if it didn't treat its viewers like retards in its final third and pretty much spoon-fed its viewers everything with a flashback of 'HAI THIS IS WHUT HAPPUNED BEFOAR HOAP U UNDERSTAND NOW U DUMB FUCKS' proportions, and then plugged in an ill-advised Revenge of the Tormented Demon Child scene for good measure.
I'm not even going to talk about Uwe Boll.
Movies of games would work if the writers played the games and, in the process of adapting them, trusted their audience to fill in the gaps and actually make the script smart and interesting instead of rote and by-the-numbers.
Half Life, for instance, would make for a brilliant sci-fantasy movie if it had enough creative investment and some amount of taste and intelligence in choosing which bits to adapt (I wouldn't want to include the bit where you have to zap the gigantic blue monster with a satellite beam, for instance).
See, I would say that it's a good idea to choose games with little story, because then movies are free to capture the atmosphere of the game instead of trying to hit all the plot points and characters that fanboys will be looking for.
Where video game movies go wrong is that they all try to make a traditional movie movie out of the game instead of a movie that feels like playing the game. Silent Hill is an example of taking elements from the game and saying, "Let's watch and see how our actors react to these game-like things!" instead of creating a nightmarish, surreal movie that would make the viewer feel like he/she is in Silent Hill themselves.
I mean, stuff like Half Life (1) is pretty shallow no matter how you slice it, so there's not that much to work with, but just as an example: what should a Half-Life movie be like? Lots of shooting, but fairly grim. Exploring, problem-solving, making progress, and scrappy survival--it's basically a disaster movie like The Poseidon Adventure. Set pieces would focus on strange and precarious locations (e.g. Blast Pit's giant ventilation fan / shaft). Bullet time is right out.
In video games, you are the protagonist. That's not something that can transfer to film, but it's possible to make sequences where the viewer feels like he/she is right there in the action with the hero--see: the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
If you do want to follow the game's plot, Deus Ex is a strange example because it's got one of the most interactive/elastic plots (albeit mostly in small ways) I can think of. dethtoll's mini-treatment sounds pretty cool though. It's a shame that there's a lot of exposition that'd be hard to skip, because otherwise I'd say just kick off the movie in Hong Kong. Hell, maybe you could do that anyway with liberal use of flashbacks.
To answer dethtoll's question, I'd have to go with a remake of Max Payne. It's a damn shame that with all of Hollywood's big-budget special effects and action expertise, no one's been able to do John Woo like John Woo. Bring back the slow motion and style, please. It's not that hard.
Last edited by Wormrat; 26th Nov 2009 at 01:20.
Yeah it is. Not even John Woo can do it like John Woo anymore. That stuff from the 80s is not just slow-mo and style. It's also very much stuntmen/Chow Yun-Fat being absolutely crazy and ready to put their life on the line for a good shot. I don't think we'll see actionscenes like those in John Woo/Jackie Chan films from the 80s/early 90s anymore. Certainly not from Hollywood. Their stuntmen are too concerned with not dying.
Fixed.
My crazy idea for a Thief movie would be to stick basically with the story, and shoot it fairly straightforward. But the sound field is entirely in the first person from Garrett's perspective. Let audiences try to wrap their heads around that.
If I were to executive produce a Thief movie, I'd get the original writers, Eric/Terry Brosius, and Terry Gilliam together and wait for them to go 5 years and millions of dollars over budget before putting together a steampunk masterpiece.
Why Terry Gilliam? I like his movies, but while he's great at creating worlds, I think he's not all that great at creating believable, realistic(ish) characters - even the characters I like (e.g. Sam Lowry, John Cole) are pretty stylised and cartoony in some ways.
Doesn't he have one-foot-in-the-grave anyway? Better hurry...
Funny you mention that, since seeing it in machinima form really, REALLY makes me want to play the game. I mean, the cutscenes alone are just comedy gold. (Too bad the obvious sequel hook at the end never really got fulfilled.)
Anyway, I'd have to agree that translating a video game to the movie theater is quite a difficult task, especially since the one thing that sets video games apart is the interactivity aspect. If it was a very plot-centric game, it could work, but those that get more of their "art" status through gameplay obviously wouldn't work.
OH! I recommend watching the "Doomsday Arcade" series on The Escapist website. It's every two weeks on a Thursday. INCREDIBLY entertaining, might help you. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/
What? Other than the occasional explosion or high fall, the stunt work in John Woo's movies is not particularly dangerous. Most of the mooks are just catching some bullets and falling over. It doesn't require a brave stuntman to take a few squibs and flop over a counter or whatever.
For Jackie Chan's work, you are absolutely right, but I don't think the comparison is very apt.
I just had an epiphany moment a while ago.
What if The Movie Of The Game took a different character's perspective-one that wasn't the player character, since we already know what (s)he did in the game already?
It might actually add something and flesh out the setting that way rather than just shoehorn something into a different medium.
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