| Transferring Medium from games to movies |
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TV and cinema screens have come a long way since the old black and white sets and programs they’ve originated from. A revolution in technology and picture quality had been colour screens, and now it’s a new standard of High Definition and large flat screen. However another major transformation, yet less noticeable, has been the use of media source material for these movies.
Originally experimentation could be found from new writing, inspired and iconic life hood, or often a popular book series, now producers have branched out and are taken the odd risk of dabbling in the world of computer games. The issue is, and what happens to be the discussing topic of this article, are video game scripts of a high enough standard to be portrayed as films? And if not, will they ever be?
The first thing to point out is that there really isn’t a break point of acceptability when it comes to bringing the gaming world to screens, as long as the producer likes the sound of the script and thinks it has the potential of a few sales, then it has a chance of making it to DVD, or even cinema. Thinking back, even the most unlikely of games have been able to make it into production. Wing Commander, which was a 1990 space simulation game, had made to screens in 1990 starring such fairly well known names as Freddy Prince Jr. and Saffron Burrows. Another being the Super Mario Brothers, and we’ve also seen the controversial and questionable Postal turned into a movie; however that almost doesn’t count seeing as it was produced by Uwe Boll as well as directed by him.
However to back the point of why there’s a game to movie breakthrough, there’s also the fact that there has been some success within this movie criteria. One of which, and probably of most popularity, is Tomb Raider. The Tomb Raider games managed to render a steady following and Lara Croft became a well known vixen from the original series because of them, and I think it is for that reason, and the momentum of Angelina Jolie being the main role, that gave this film the surprising or unsurprising success – depending on which way you look at it – it needed for there to be another film. It may have been the accomplishments of the Tomb Raider film, and maybe even Street Fighter, that encouraged the more ambitious and adventurous directors to crawl out of the woodworks and continue the production of poor game to movie translations, and pursue larger and more promising deals with bigger game names.
You may ask that if the majority, if not all, these movies are poor, then how are they even making that much money? Surely the reputation of the games themselves isn’t enough to generate large revenue. Well, arguably now they could, but going back to the mid nineties with the Street Fighter flick you also had some well known actors in that film. Jean Claude Van Dam and Kylie Minogue may not be the most well known for their acting, but, watching a movie knowing full right it’s going to be on the cheesy side when it’s a movie about fantasy street fighting, and that Jean Claude Van Dam is in the movie, may entice you to watch because you know it’s going to be awful.
Whether games are of the cinematic or written quality to become a movie doesn’t necessarily matter, as long as the game has sold well, is known enough, and can get a few familiar actors in the mix then you can have the potential of a successful movie. The truth is that straight translations of most games to film just don’t work, as a general overstatement, game characters don’t need fancy lines and personal relational scenes as most of the immersion is brought to you via interactivity, you progress the story yourself. It is only very recently we’re starting to see games of a more serious and cinematic nature, games such as Heavy Rain and Alan Wake, these can potentially be turned into movies without too much adaptation, which is ironic, as much of the inspiration of these games come from the movies themselves.
So, to answer the original question, are video game scripts of a high enough standard to be portrayed as films? Well, in the context of a ‘serious’ and a film of cinema screen standards, and if it’s a film converted straight from the original material of the game, then most likely not. Will there ever be a day when games will be on par? Most likely so, with the directions of ideas many developers are having and the amount of money that’s being put in some of these titles, professional screen writers being hired and so forth, then we’re very much on the road to playing the movies themselves, never mind seeing adaptations of them.
Posted By: Lee Burton
Date: 2009-08-15
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