There exist GOOD video game movies

[Mace121]

According to everyone: Video game movies SUUUUUUCKED! We know that movies based off books, comics, and sometimes TV shows would work. Video games based off movies (or other licenses) can work 50% of the time, but why not the other way around? Remember the infamous Super Mario Bros. Movie? It had an interesting concept, but was completely butt-fucked by the directors, crippling the potential of a good film. Movies with plots centered around video games can work, like Tron, War Games, and Wreck-It Ralph, but those are not based off a particular video game. Of course there's your usual Mortal Kombat & the original Resident Evil, which were good at the time, but seemed dated, nowadays. If you look at the IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes ratings, they're ranged with average to bottom-of-the-barrel low ratings, and the ones that's pretty much the highest in that category are Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (which had little to do with the franchise), and the most baffling: Angry Birds... But the ones that people are talking about are the ones released INTERNATIONALLY. But little do they know that there's more that didn't have a international release.

Mace, what are you getting at?

What I'm getting at is that there's more good video game movies elsewhere (usually Japan) than a decent Superman game (I want to say that). Take Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie for example. The Rotten Tomatoes rating is 70%, along with Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture which had a 6.8/10 according to IMDB. In my mind, ratings don't matter, and you like what you like. Pretty bizarre, I know, but the biggest video game adapted masterpieces (according to otakus) is based off visual novels, Clanaad, and Air. Yeah, games which I barely call them games have a better adaptation than actual games.

Crazy enough, there's some decent direct-to-video movies, but not a lot. Street Fighter: Assassin's fist is considered the best adaptation in the franchise. Also, Batman: Assault On Arkham... Which is set in the Batman: Arkham games, so it counts as a video-game movie.

So what the hell are your opinions, and what is the best video game movie?

[Mrccbirdguy]

This is a hard question for me. Most of the video game movies I watched were simply because I played the game and wanted to see the movie. My first example on this is the Super Mario Bros. Movie.
As a kid (I was 5 at the time of its release), I didn't quite get it but there was something about it that I liked. I overall thought it was "Meh."
After I got older and discovered that the internet was a thing, It made sense that they were making a cyberpunk story and just tacked on the mario angle, despite it not making sense.

I've never played many of the fighting games that movies get based off of and I really don't care to. I just read down the list of Movies based on games. My biggest problem is that I haven't played most of the games that the movies are based on, so it would be lost on me anyways.

Now, I'm sorta into the movies that have gaming as a plot. The last starfighter I felt was pretty good, but the game was sort of a minor aspect of the movie. My thoughts on decent game adaptations is probably TV shows, but one stands out for me. Mega man.

The Mega man show came out in 1994 and I was a hardcore mega man fan. It had the characters, the silly plots that a 6 year old wouldn't get lost in and in every episode good triumphed over evil. They even had an episode that featured Mega man X.
There was a toy line that came out along with the show, but the show wasn't really preachy on buying it.

Movies are hard to do. Especially with something as simplistic as video games. There usually isn't enough time to form a coherent plot, characters with good backgrounds when you're relying on the audience to know what happens in a video game. Even so, If you don't match up what characters do in a game, the audience that is loyal to the original subject may hate it more.

[ninjamuffin99]

Personally I like movies with video game elements, such as Wreck It Ralph and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Those types of movies have interested me a lot more than adaptations. Also Hardcore Henry should be mentioned, but I haven't seen it yet

[Chdonga]

It doesn't matter if it's a video game, a book, or an anime. If something's getting a movie adaptation my default expectation is that it'll be crap. But I often manage to find something good out of video game adaptations. Everything else seems to be full of blatant product placement but with vidya adaptations, the game is the only product placement.

I genuinely enjoyed the Ratchet & Clank movie. It was a bland & safe sci-fi children's flick so I had to do some mental acrobatics to enjoy it unfortunately. It was so obviously a cynical executive cash-grab that I had to pretend it was satirizing what the series had become.

I liked the Street Fighter movie and the Mario Bros Movie. They were campy little 90s action flicks that were great for a laugh with friends.

If you enjoy campy garbage as much as I do, there was a Donkey Kong Country movie. I don't know if it was in theaters but it had some great musical numbers and had great CGI for its time.

The only video game movie I don't have a single fond memory of is Warcraft; because all I remember from it was a bunch of gratuitous scenes of a pregnant orc woman's belly jiggling around.

[Mace121]

At 5/24/17 12:17 AM, Chdonga wrote:
If you enjoy campy garbage as much as I do, there was a Donkey Kong Country movie. I don't know if it was in theaters but it had some great musical numbers and had great CGI for its time.

It's actually a TV series... "I shower you with coconut cream pies."

[lumiorfo]

I liked DOOM.

[Painbringer]

At 5/24/17 12:37 AM, Mace121 wrote:

At 5/24/17 12:17 AM, Chdonga wrote:
If you enjoy campy garbage as much as I do, there was a Donkey Kong Country movie. I don't know if it was in theaters but it had some great musical numbers and had great CGI for its time.

It's actually a TV series... "I shower you with coconut cream pies."

Yeah, but the CGI had so many flaws...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACR1ODcds9Q

Just look at the green guy's floating bellybutton!

[Auz]

Well, I'd definitely agree that video game-to-film adaptations have had a very disappointing track record so far when it comes to gaining critical acclaim.

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like they always seem to pick the wrong games to do this with. One or two exceptions aside, I think none of the games that saw theatrical film releases were hailed for having a particularly strong and highly original plot, fantastic character development or just being well written to the point where they're a cut above or even on part with most original films.

Admittedly, I have a hard time thinking of video games that could match up to AAA film standards, but I can sure think of some more interesting and more suitable games to adapt than Street Fighter, Angry Birds or Prince of Persia (with all due respect).

[Mace121]

At 5/24/17 06:38 PM, Jotaro97 wrote: Live action films based on video games tend to suck. Everything has its exceptions though.
I'm not sure why you'd list the first Mortal Kombat movie as an example of a good game-based movie.

I think I did said that MK was a good movie for it's time, but seemed dated. I actually own this... Along with Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Doom, Bloodrayne, Prince of Persia, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

[orangebomb]

The only two good movies that were based off video games were Mortal Kombat and Prince of Persia, and even the latter was mostly mixed. The rest of the movies tend to fall between mediocre and awful. Granted, most of the games didn't have much plot to begin with, or was in some sort of alternate continuity, so creating a story off of something that most people probably don't know in the first place is a rather difficult task. Also, trying to adapt a 10-60 hour game into a 2 hour movie means that a lot of key plot points are generally going to be compressed or omitted altogether, which most fans disapprove of, especially if it is part of the game.

Ironically, Warcraft and Assassin's Creed failed largely because they were too close to the source material, and the fact that they weren't well acted or the writing was dull doesn't help.

[MuramasasEdge]

Wait is this about anime? Of course it'll have a leg up on any other mediums. It. Is. Anime.
Hell, it's the only reason why Halo: Legends was any good.

I also recall Avatar was supposed to be Halo. So just imagine that with like Warthogs and Grunts.

[Mace121]

At 5/25/17 11:33 AM, MuramasasEdge wrote: Wait is this about anime? Of course it'll have a leg up on any other mediums. It. Is. Anime.
Hell, it's the only reason why Halo: Legends was any good.

I also recall Avatar was supposed to be Halo. So just imagine that with like Warthogs and Grunts.

Any medium which is a movie based off a video game. So take Fatal Fury for instance.