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Hollywood's Video Game Era Is Here. Will It Be Any Good?
- redsocksfan45 20d ago[dead]
- lemoncookiechip 20d agoNo, and neither will be the anime Hollywood adaptions which are ramping up. For every one good movie or show you get ten bad ones.
- johnnyanmac 20d agoThat's just sturgeon's law. You can argue that for anything whatsoever, regardless of source material.
- jayd16 20d ago> For every one good movie or show you get ten bad ones. Executive: So what you're telling me is I only need to make 11 movies to per hit.
- contravariant 20d agoIf only. Accepting failure likely wouldn't have resulted in so many mediocre movies. Huge losses on movies are rare I think, but being risk averse comes at a cost.
- everdrive 20d agoAre there _any_ good video game movies whatsoever? The 2005 Doom film was the easiest miss I'd ever seen. All they needed to do was remake Aliens, but with Doom. Instead of ending up in the Alien nest, you end up in hell. No idea how they managed to drop the ball on that one.
- johnnyanmac 20d agoThere are decent ones as of late. The key revolves around not trying to tell a video game story in a different medium. Mario's movies, for instance, aren't trying to recreate mario 1 or whatnot and are just telling a story around the environments and motifs of Mario. Not a Movie, but Arcane (from League of Legends) seems to be the peak example of a video game adaptation. Take the universe of an IP and tell a separate slice of a story within that universe, in a way where fixed pacing and cinematography can flex its strengths.
- alephnerd 20d agoThe Last of Us [0], Fallout [1], Wreak It Ralph [2], Pokémon Detective Pikachu [3], Sonic the Hedgehog 3 [4], Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [5], Sonic the Hedgehog [6], Mortal Kombat 2 [7], Gran Turismo [8], etc. Cynical content from the 90s and 2000s that lack "heart" like Quake, Doom, and the like are difficult to tie a cohesive story with because there was no story or plot underlying those IPs. [0] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_last_of_us https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_last_of_us [1] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/fallout https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/fallout [2] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wreck_it_ralph https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wreck_it_ralph [3] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pokemon_detective_pikachu https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pokemon_detective_pikachu [4] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sonic_the_hedgehog_3 https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sonic_the_hedgehog_3 [5] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sonic_the_hedgehog_2 https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sonic_the_hedgehog_2 [6] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sonic_the_hedgehog_2020 https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sonic_the_hedgehog_2020 [7] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mortal_kombat_ii https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mortal_kombat_ii [8] - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gran_turismo_based_on_a_true_story https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gran_turismo_based_on_a_tru...
- chomp 20d agoThese had a lot of blood sweat and tears poured into them. Most Hollywood game adaptations are the same as the Disney live actions. They have their hands on an IP, they want to flip it into easy money. Those turn out excruciatingly bad, because for an easy flip, you need to target for mass appeal, which waters down the material.
- ParentiSoundSys 20d agoThey're not going to drive much "I went to see this movie because I loved the video games" traffic, but I've always thought the Gabriel Knight games could be great IP for a movie series.
- expedition32 20d agoThe problem is that Hollywood writers are extremely arrogant and refuse to simply adapt the videogame script that millions of people love. They have to prove that they are better- after all despite being a huge industry they still look down on the gaming industry. So usually you end up with a piece of shit that nobody likes.
- fsuts 20d agoFallout I would say is the benchmark to beat for video game adaption to screen. Much easier to make a kids movie based on a franchise like Mario than a more complex game like Fallout. For those who haven’t seen it, recommended https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12637874/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12637874/
- alephnerd 20d agoOkey Dokey --- Much of Fallout's success is also because Bethesda also puts effort into worldbuilding and supporting a community. Contemporary boomer game franchises like Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, etc just don't have "heart". They were games that were created as technical demonstrators but with no care or input for story writing aside from being edgy for the sake of being edgy, and as a result were unable to age well. Meanwhile, Fallout and Half Life are both products of the same era that were also technically demanding (especially Half Life) yet they have actually been able to stand the test of time.
- ilamont 20d agoTFA starts with a picture of Last of Us. Season 1 was amazing for the most part. Even my spouse who has zero interest in video games loved it. And then season 2 started. They forgot their core audience (gamers, horror, fans of post-apocalyptic themes) and tried to make it a soap opera that appeals to everyone. At one point the main character spent 5 minutes sitting on a couch talking with a therapist. It was more slick, less gritty ... the cast was wearing brand-new jackets and backpacks and boots, 20 years after the mushroom zombie apocalypse. What a disappointment. Yet that's pretty typical for Hollywood suits. They want to expand the audience or chase some trend, push the creatives out of the way, and end up ruining it.
- superxpro12 20d agoI'm going to defense s2. season 2 was ok. it followed the 2nd game pretty closely. The problem was the age gap, and the cast just didnt match that jump, and I understand why. Ellie just looked too young.
- chistev 20d agoSeason 1 was one of my favorite TV shows ever. Season 2 was terrible, I'm not sure I even finished it.
- throwfaraway135 20d agoWestern game studios are failing, look at Ubisoft, Bungie, and a dozen Xbox studios, most of which are collapsing due to a sheer lack of creativity. How Hollywood, which is going through its own dark patch, expects to find creative inspiration in a dying (western) video game medium is beyond me.
- hirvi74 20d agoI am not certain I would use any of the aforementioned items as a sign that western game studios are dying as a whole. Rockstar, for example, produced the highest grossing and most profitable piece of media of all time. If GTA VI delivers, then Rockstar might beat their own record. While I will hold back my comments on the quality of most EA games (Jedi: Fallen Order series was legit fun), EA seems to be doing just fine (sadly). The other AAA studios like Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog, CD Projekt Red, etc. are doing well too. AA studios like Sandfall and Warhorse are producing absolutely bangers too. As for the east, some Japanese companies have had mixed success during the same duration. Konami hasn't recovered from firing Kojima and Nintendo was going to pull out of the West if the Switch didn't save them. Sony's had some complete and utter failures recently, but the impact has been softened by the lack of competition from Xbox's colossal implosion. Some figures estimate that Sony spent of near $400 billion on "Concord" to only sell 25k copies and be pulled within 14 days of release. China and South Korea are really picking up steam, and I am excited to see what comes out of them. All in all, Empires rise, empires fall. (I blame corporate greed and the MBAs for most of the perversion).
- cpburns2009 20d agoNot a chance. Only the movies geared towards kids have been any good like Mario, Sonic, Wreck it Ralf, and the Lego movies. All of the teen/adult movies have been mediocre at best with maybe Resident Evil 1 being an exception.
- beloch 20d ago"I strongly believe that video games have a higher ceiling for storytelling quality. There are several reasons underlying my newfound evangelism: a larger built-in audience, a more robust market with hundreds of games appealing to many different types of fans, and, most importantly, demographic variability" ------------- These are reasons to invest in video game adaptations that do not necessarily lead to high quality storytelling. Hollywood has long looked to video game audiences as an untapped market that they desperately wanted to break into. Who doesn't want a huge, built-in audience for their new movie? The problem was that most video games used to have fairly simple stories and settings. e.g. Pacman. It's a circle with a mouth that runs from ghosts and eats dots. That's it. Somehow, that very basic concept has been expanded to multiple animated TV series and, amazingly, some live action appearances. Then video games started trying to incorporate cinematic story telling. e.g. Ninja Gaiden took a standard side-scrolling platformer and gave it cut-scenes that told a story. It was basic and low budget at first. Video games used to cost a fraction of what a movies did to make. Early attempts at storytelling in video games were often basic and, frankly, not very good. They real meat and potatoes has always been the gameplay. Even today, a game with a good story but bad gameplay is unlikely to succeed. Over time, games became bigger and bigger productions. "Silliwood" arrived in the late 90's, when bankable actors like Mark Hamill portrayed video game characters for live action cut-scenes. In this era, video games were a lot like TV during the golden age of film. They were viewed as being mostly for actors who couldn't find "real" jobs. The respect wasn't there. Video games may have ditched live action video for the most part, but the role of actors has simply become more and more essential. So too have plots and universe building really taken off. Modern video games can still be as shallow as Pac Man, but they can also have deep and compelling story lines set in universes that are incredibly detailed. Video game budgets have eclipsed and surpassed movies, and they often build worlds that players spend hundreds or even thousands of hours in. And yet, until fairly recently there were remarkably few successful adaptations of video games in film and TV. That has changed, perhaps mostly because television has embraced long-form storytelling. There are still people trying to make films out of popular video games that have little or no original story, and these are generally as bad as ever. e.g. I'll definitely take a pass on "Fortnite: The Movie". Trying to make a two hour film out of a video game that takes dozens of hours to cover just its early chapters is also unlikely to be successful. What we're now seeing is TV shows like Fallout making the larger time commitment necessary to really bring huge and detailed game worlds to life. They're succeeding, not just because of the built-in audience, but because the results of adapting such rich and detailed worlds is compelling. What I see going on now is more akin to the interplay between Chanbara and Westerns in the early 20th century. Chanbara learned a lot from Westerns. Kurosawa was heavily influenced by Ford. Then the influence went the other way, and back and forth. Both genres fed off each other and became better. I think that's what we're seeing now with video games and film. It's not just marketing and audience size. Both genres have something to give to the other.
- abeppu 20d ago> I strongly believe that video games have a higher ceiling for storytelling quality. There are several reasons underlying my newfound evangelism: a larger built-in audience, a more robust market with hundreds of games appealing to many different types of fans, and, most importantly, demographic variability. So none of the things listed here are clearly related to "storytelling quality" -- those are marketing advantages. I think the real questions for _quality_ for comics vs games are things like: - do games, which force players to explore and interact, forcing better world-building by front-loading some consideration of internal logic and mechanics? - do games, which put players more directly in the perspective of characters, at the level of having to choose actions, force writers to create more compelling dilemmas? - do comics, which have to give consideration to static visual images, make for better posters than films? - do comics, which world-build over long sequences, make for stories that feel too compressed in films?
- drop_star 20d ago> I strongly believe that video games have a higher ceiling for storytelling quality. I find the opposite. I play a game and get into the story only to put it down and totally forget what the hell I was doing the next time I pick it up (sometimes a week later). I really wish there was a re-cap feature in games. Playing Elden Ring required a guide since the game is incredibly dense and has little to no quest tracking. This is why as I get older and have less time I play more Fortnight and alike as I can just drop in and play for 15 mins
- danlivingston 20d agoto be fair, i wouldn't say that Elden Ring is generally known for storytelling in the traditional sense. it's (deliberately?) obtuse about storytelling in a way that most games aren't. so, not a great example
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 20d agoSome videogames that really captured me from the plot perspective have a relatively short plot if the gameplay is taken out. I am thinking of Outer Wilds and Blue Prince. Surprisingly Mario has essentially no plot, yet it turned out very fun. I guess it focused on characters rather than plot.