"What do you expect, its based off a video game/cartoon"

[dmario]

There are quite a few people who will accept syrup covered shit if you feed it to them and say something along the same as this topic.

Question is,

Why are video game/cartoon movies SO bad? Especially these fighter ones?
Random fans and even the actual DIRECTORS often say "Well its a fighting game with no story/background, so we have to flesh it out"
These games and animations HAVE stories. They may be surreal but how is it that gamers and the average person can say "Hey whats this game about?" and you reply what the story is about....but Hollywood directors say something different.

What games are they basing these scripts off of? WHY is it so hard to actually follow the game no matter how surreal?

If anything the SF: II Movie should give an idea of what would be great on film. (not dialogue, but story and action pacing)
As would Resident Evil: Degeneration for the Resident Evil(INO) franchise.


If it's a game about FIGHTING, how about putting some actual FIGHTING in it? Fans and average moviegoers aren't looking for deep plots or intricate character developments, we are looking for a GOOD FIGHTING/ACTION movie and that is not what Hollywood has been bringing.


I'm quite certain that if any of these directors were actual gamers or fans of these games they would have handled them differently.

In wake of this new Chun Li movie and the upcoming GIJOE and Dragonball movies, what say you?



ps: and although we know the Japanese make more enjoyable films in regards to videogame/animation adaptations, we know they aren't going to do anything but make money licensing their "beloved" properties to anyone who will pay them a pretty penny.


I'm just heart broken

[kman]

I think it's because they want to make whatever property they're adapting appeal to a broader audience. So they take a property, like street fighter, attach a writer that the producers think will make the property appeal to a broad audience, attach a director who they can market to a broader audience, etc. I dunno, just a theory.

[NickRocks]

i think it has to do with the fact that a long time ago, when videogames first started, they had little to no plot...so when a movie was made it didnt have much to go on.

however, video game storylines have gotten better and more complex...but hollywood still views them as stupid little things.

[Huerta]

Its quite easy. The people involved in most of these flicks have no talent and no passion for the source material.

If you had Tarentino, Rodriguez, Zombie, Del Toro or Snyder directing these things they would be better Why? because all those guys are nerds.

[ScottEwen]

Yep. When you've got the Uwe Bolls and Paul W.S. Andersons of the world making video game movies, they're going to be terrible. Until the Tarantinos and Snyders make a video game movie they'll continue to be crap.

[WolfSpiritZero]

A lot of the people who work on these movies feel compelled to deviate from the source material so they can put their own mark on the property. So if it does do well with fans their name is connected to that version of the character(s). And most of the time it back fires because fans don't want to see them change characters they love. And the whole "broader audience" is their excuse when the movie sucks. Movies like Ironman, Sin City, and the likes didn't cater to a broader audience by changing the characters backstories or costumes or physical attributes. They stayed true to the source material and they still did great with audiences.

[weirdozhead]

hollywood is run by idiots, that's all u need to know

[Guru_George]

Hollywood is just not ready to put real money into a video game movie. The first MK was possibly the only real movie based on a videogame. Then SF came right behind and smashed everything, now no real investor is going to try there hand in a video game movie.

[Tight-Pants Jack]

I think when big studios are put in charge of fighting movies these days, they go over the top with wires and special effects, and focus less and less on ACTUAL martial arts. Wire-Fu and CGI fight scenes are becoming the norm in American films, because they think that's what audiences want to see.

As far as the rest of video game properties, these things are bought and sold by studios who are only interested in making a quick buck. Simple as that.

If you really want to send a message, then don't watch any of these movies. Don't buy them when they come out on DVD, don't watch them on On Demand, don't even rent them. That's the only thing big studios care about, and so long as you keep feeding them money, then they don't give a shit if you like it or not.

[Carter]

I don't even know why people want to see their favorite things from other media translated into the big screen. I love Street Fighter and Mario and Ninja Turtles with all my heart, but I've really got no desire to see it 100 feet tall in front of god and everybody. Just because something works well as a comic or video game or cartoon, it doesn't mean it's going to translate into a fantastic piece of cinema.

The only exception to this is the Fight Club movie. Both the movie and the book are pretty much perfect.

[Spooko]

I thought the "Silent Hill" movie was pretty good for a video game movie, it had some genuine effort behind it, I believe, and was not ultimately horrible and unwatchable , there were flaws of course but it was pretty decent .
There is a pretty common ideal that the problem is the executives in HOLLYWOOD f**king everything up, but that is pretty universal isn't it? Isn't it always the executives behind whatever company making whatever to blame? It is not just movies, but video games, and comics, and books, and tv shows, and toys, and clothes, and shoes, and whatever you can think of , everything gets ruined when the creative force is financial rather than quality.

[Johnny Blaque]

I agree with Carter, especially in the case of video games and cartoon movies. Both those things have motion already, voices most of the time, and in games case, YOU play a vital role in the story! Why you would want to sit back and watch something you've already seen or played a million times already doesn't make a lot of sense and it's going to breed disappointment for a lot of people.

And Hollywood forgot how to make fighting movies a long time ago.

ANd Uwe Boll's Postal movie was pretty awesome and hilarious. He finances his movies with jewish gold teeth. LOL

[Chris Major]

One of the biggest problems is that if they grab the video game writer's script and work on that, if after rewrites there's 1/3 of the final script that comes from the video game writer, he gets his "written by" credit.

Now obviously, the Writer's Guild isn't keen on letting "pedestrian non-members" get a big screen credit for something they didn't work on specifically for the movies, so they change every single ****ing thing in the script so that the game dudes can't claim anything. So, it throws everything we know and love out the window.

As for fighting games, well d'huh, there's NO story. What the hell are you gonna do with that? You need a story to tell. I know everyone loves a little punching and kicking but it's just not feasible to have that for 2 hours, with no plot to boot.

Personally I like something like DOA: they remade a game into a movie, they had a couple dozens of millions to spend on it, it looks good, and most importantly, it doesn't take itself so ****ing seriously, and why is that?

Because the source material is a fighting game. Easy.

[WillTurner]

The problem is that there is no real deviation in the source material. Iron Man, Dark Knight etc balanced a need to attract mainstream audience with respect to the medium they're based on.
It wasn't so long ago comic films were tat and the major difference has been the treatment and the level of quality cast/direction.

[MC Fumunda]

I'm about a half an hour into Resident Evil: Degeneration and so far I'm totally digging it. The mouth synching sucks, but I think it was originally made for a Japanese audience anyway, right? So I can get over that pretty easily. There's really nice direction in this flick so far, and the animation is pretty top notch. The only shittyness I've noticed in the animation is the way arms look and move, but I see that in a ton of video games, too. For some reason they can't get those joints to move naturally.

Up next is the Dead Space animated movie (that PJ's own hyperjack worked on), and I've heard good things about that, too.

Most other video game based movies are pretty effing bad, unfortunately.

Alone in the Dark is a fun one to watch with a group of people, though.