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It's kind of ridiculous that 50+ years of gaming and we're just now getting quality Video Game TV and Movie adaptations.
- Thread starter Bman94
- Start date
It does kinda feel like we're in a moment where studios are collectively realizing "oh if we put in the effort/time/talent/money to make them actually decent, people will turn out for video game shit." Seemingly not unlike what happened with superhero stuff 15 years ago.
First Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil film were great. Especially considering the storytelling in the games. What is Bman94 smoking?
As others have already said, gaming has now become so mainstream and people in the film industry have grown up with it now, so using it as source material is much easier.
As others have already said, gaming has now become so mainstream and people in the film industry have grown up with it now, so using it as source material is much easier.
wouldn't say it's great but it definitely came out at the wrong time, like two or so years earlier a full CGI sci-fi movie would've been a fairly big deal
i like the movie but weird they got that check to do a "final fantasy movie" and that was what it was. i respect the decision but the history is what it is
Yeah, for the longest time Silent Hill was my personal high water mark for best video game movie/TV series.
But then Netflix Castlevania, Arcane, and The Last Of Us came out over the last while (ugh, Castlevania was 7 years ago, I hate how quickly time passes now).
I think it's just similar to the trajectory of comic book movies finally being good, it took awhile for the idea to percolate and for studios to start putting at least some people in charge who actually cared about the source material and understood it.
But then Netflix Castlevania, Arcane, and The Last Of Us came out over the last while (ugh, Castlevania was 7 years ago, I hate how quickly time passes now).
I think it's just similar to the trajectory of comic book movies finally being good, it took awhile for the idea to percolate and for studios to start putting at least some people in charge who actually cared about the source material and understood it.
The first Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil movies are...fun, sure, but c'mon. They don't have the kind of writing, characters, and storytelling that The Last of Us or Fallout shows have. Go back and watch em if you haven't seen them in a long time.
I feel like some of the takes here kinda diminish the point.
Like you can like the Super Mario movie but that shit was so ass at the box office that Nintendo decided to take a more active role in their adaptations.
In a Dragon Ball Evolution way.
I swear we're gonna get into "Legend of Chunli was great" territory soon.
Like you can like the Super Mario movie but that shit was so ass at the box office that Nintendo decided to take a more active role in their adaptations.
In a Dragon Ball Evolution way.
this for example, I remember when this was released and NO ONE would have watched this if it wasn't for the name attached to it.Everyone's going to talk about Mortal Kombat but hello?
I swear we're gonna get into "Legend of Chunli was great" territory soon.
That comparison doesn't work for too many reasons to count.
Recently rewatched it and have no problem saying it's good, actually. It works well as a prequel to the original games.
I mean board games existed for forever and we only finally got Battleship and Jumanji and what not in the 90s/00s right?
Everyone's going to talk about Mortal Kombat but hello?
Even stepping away from the GOATs, the SF5 movie is fantastic and goes a long way to humanize that entire cast.
People out here being like, "I could fix Juri" and it's like, "dude she would steal your wallet and push you out of a moving car going 80."
TL:DR - There are tons of amazing video game adaptations out there, they just didn't have HBO or Amazon money to make them household names.
Even if you want to discount stuff like Mortal Kombat (1995) or Resident Evil for being cheesy genre films, we had a legitimately fantastic, serialized adaptation way back in 2003 with Gungrave. And that was based on a game with the absolute flimsiest premise.
So I don't think the problem has ever been the source material not being filmic enough until recently. It's about money. Video game movies and TV are just the latest goldrush now that people are sick of comic book movies.
So I don't think the problem has ever been the source material not being filmic enough until recently. It's about money. Video game movies and TV are just the latest goldrush now that people are sick of comic book movies.
Given the source material at the time, I don't really see how it could have been much better than it was. There's the live action movie as a comparison.
TV Shows yes, we've had some truly good ones.
Movies? I still think we're a couple of years off on that to be honest. At the moment most movies are in "Leo pointing" meme territory.
Hopefully we can get a truly great movie before too long, but I worry we might just be in a gold rush phase of low quality video game films at the moment, especially after Mario and FNAF last year.
Movies? I still think we're a couple of years off on that to be honest. At the moment most movies are in "Leo pointing" meme territory.
Hopefully we can get a truly great movie before too long, but I worry we might just be in a gold rush phase of low quality video game films at the moment, especially after Mario and FNAF last year.
I love how in the english dub they were trying to decide on the voice for King Dedede and decided on Colonel Sanders lol
Movies have been adapting other media since basically day one. Movie creators have always had their own stories to tell; they still adapted a million books, plays, etc.
Ngl I kinda want someone to take another crack at the vibe the 90s Mario movie went for, just cause its such an absurd fever dream of a thing. The world wasn't ready for cyberpunk reptile human hybrid Bowser.
THIS! Also, what are people's thoughts on the Street Fighter II V series?Everyone's going to talk about Mortal Kombat but hello?
I personally don't like it, but only because I find ryu struggling with the satsui no hado to be super boring and evil ryu to be lame.
Sf6 makes good on that story though.
Comic books had the same problem for the longest time. So I guess let's hope they do some good work in the next decade, before video game adaptations become completely and sickeningly inescapable.
The series finale was also turned into a movie in America.
Excellent post and strongly agree.
The Angelina Tomb Raider movies are good goddammit.
OP
OP
So there's exceptions of course like Pokémon, and I'd argue Sonic SATM and Sonic Boom, but the majority are still extremely lack luster. I re-watched Mortal Kombat a few years ago right before the reboot came out and outside of it being campy and fun to laugh at, it doesn't hold up well, nor does the live action fighter movie. I haven't seen the Tekken movies since I'm not into Tekken so I can't speak on them, but I don't recall them ever being super highly rated.
Like that gif from the resident evil movie of the cop guy getting sliced, like why is that even in there lmao, just give me creepy horror not these weird super cybernetic shit lol
Like that gif from the resident evil movie of the cop guy getting sliced, like why is that even in there lmao, just give me creepy horror not these weird super cybernetic shit lol
There's probably some solid anime or OVA adaptations of video games.
Do visual novel adaptations count? There's a few that wound up becoming more well-known than the originals.
Do visual novel adaptations count? There's a few that wound up becoming more well-known than the originals.
I felt like videogames had "made it" when the Tomb Raider film came out in 2001, right at the peak of the franchise's popularity. Earlier films based on videogames were B-tier, but Tomb Raider was an actual Hollywood blockbuster starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. FF Spirits Within also released that summer. Things were looking good for that short period of time!
Yeah this is difficult because we've had good videogame adaptations here and there, and others that while not "traditionally good" in any sense of the word, were still enjoyed by fans or just regular movie watchers (like Mortal Kombat as mentioned). I wouldn't even consider almost every single recent adaptation to be good, either.
I'm surprised how many people are bringing up Pokémon as an example of a good adaptation though. Successful? Absolutely. Good??? Some of the movies are alright. Non-main series Pokémon anime specials here and there like Origins were pretty good even if very simple and mostly a fanservice fest. The actual main Pokémon anime though is the very definition of grey mush, though. Unless you're watching the seasons you grew up with and through a very thick layer of nostalgia glasses, a lot of that show is straight up unfit for human consumption. I tried watching it as an adult, man, it just didn't work. Like, at all.
I'm surprised how many people are bringing up Pokémon as an example of a good adaptation though. Successful? Absolutely. Good??? Some of the movies are alright. Non-main series Pokémon anime specials here and there like Origins were pretty good even if very simple and mostly a fanservice fest. The actual main Pokémon anime though is the very definition of grey mush, though. Unless you're watching the seasons you grew up with and through a very thick layer of nostalgia glasses, a lot of that show is straight up unfit for human consumption. I tried watching it as an adult, man, it just didn't work. Like, at all.
Mario has a Rotten rating (albeit by only 1% away from). It's what caused critics to be harassed last year with people claiming that they were out of touch and just didn't get games. A particularly amusing argument considering just a few months earlier they gave TLoU a 96% rating.
Yeah using Sonic and Mario in the examples is just odd unless the point was commercially successful