NEWS: Chris Gore's Footage Fetishes: The "Best" Video Game Movies?

CULTURE: Chris Gore's Footage Fetishes: The "Best" Video Game Movies?

At the recent E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo, I had the opportunity to speak with Cliff Bleszinski, or Cliffy B as he is widely known among gamers. Cliff is the lead designer of the best selling game Gears of War on the XBox 360, which is in development at New Line to be translated to the screen. Strangely, for those who have played Gears, the experience is often described as being cinematic. When I asked Cliff about the movie-like elements of his game, he was very adamant that “…if game designers want to make a movie, then they should make a movie.” Good point.

Super Mario Brothers

As someone who at times, straddles the line between various industries, I have always admired the video game business. When a game is not ready, sometimes having to do with bugs, but more often having to do with concerns regarding the quality of the game itself, that game is delayed. Schedules are often pushed back, and while marketing departments at game companies push for release dates centered on prime holiday buying periods, a game that is not ready will not ship. Not every company in the games business sticks to this philosophy, but it seems to be a sound way of doing business when reputations are built and destroyed over the quality of one title.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

It might be nice if, say, the film business adopted the same philosophy. If a movie is not ready, if it’s not up to quality standards, then the release date should be pushed back. That might have improved films like Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which was entertaining and fun but clearly not good. A test audience might have mentioned that the inclusion of Galactus as a character would have added more weight to the story, but this is wishful thinking. Films are rarely ever delayed these days, and the quality, or lack thereof, would never impact the release date. The film business is so costly when it comes to major theatrical releases, theatrical releases that are tied into ad campaigns that must be booked months in advance, merchandising tie-in deals, partnerships with retailers or fast food franchises, to delay the release of any movie would ensure that film never made a profit. But it might make a better movie.

Wing Commander

Still, why is it that movies and video games, mediums that are so closely linked, just can’t seem to work when translating from one to the other?

Resident Evil

The history of video games made into movies is a very rocky one. In fact, compiling a “Top 10” or list of the “Best” video game movies is a complete waste of time. The simple reason is that there has hardly been one good film made from a video game, much less one that is remotely watch-able. The evidence is clear when simply creating the list from which to draw the “best.”

Street Fighter

Consider examples like Street Fighter or Double Dragon or Super Mario Brothers or Lara Croft: Tomb Raider or The House of the Dead or Mortal Kombat, which was kind of fun, but ultimately cheesy and tame compared to the game. You might find a list of the “Best” somewhere, but it’s more like reading a list of films made from video games, none of them rising to the top as being films worth seeing when separated from their video game roots.

The House of the Dead


Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Oddly enough, gamers will tell you that there has never been a decent game made from a movie, which is probably true. Most games made from film franchises are rushed to meet a release date coinciding with the theatrical release and include familiar, yet not particularly challenging gameplay resulting in a mediocre game at best. Still, like an idiot, I play them. I happen to enjoy video games based on movie franchises because they are not very challenging. They often result in games I can finish because my limited skills as a gamer would definitely keep me from being considered as a back up for those players in the MLG. (That’s Major League Gaming, and yes, it really exists.)


Gears of War (left) is in development at New Line, while the groundbreaking Halo franchise is in the able hands of Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, who is executive producing. Will either translate into a decent movie?

As my conversation with Cliffy B wrapped up, he did express enthusiasm about the Gears movie. He told me that a script was delivered by screenwriter Stuart Beattie and that it was going to be a good film first, not a video game movie. In fact, Cliff was adamant about staying focused on his career as a game designer with no aspirations about being in the film business. It’s a lesson many learn to late – just stick to what you know.

Gore gone.

In addition to being a movie geek, Chris_Gore continues to battle a lifelong addiction to video games.

I agree with this.
There are too many games where you sit and watched most of the time, these days.

and at the same time, most video game movies blew because the people that made the games have nothing to do with them.

That's why Final Fantasy: Advent Children was so good. . .Square finally went ahead and did it themselves instead of handing it to some random studio.

The best part of The House of the Dead, was seeing Erica Durance in a thong and topless. Period.

residdent evil is still the “best” video game to movie translation IMO and no i dont mean the sequels just thee first one.

i cant wait to see a GoW actor utter the famous line : “eat shit and die” perfect.

I agree with you on this, but I thought Resident Evil was a shitty movie. That it's the best of the bunch isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.

It's mostly true, but there have been a few exceptions. Most notable is probably the Chronicles of Riddick game for XBox and PC (which wasn't a direct movie -> game translation, but rather an addition to the continuity.) It was actually much better than the movie was. And there have been some good Star Wars games (some shitty ones, too.) But for the most part, it's true. Movie games are usually just quick cash-ins.

you forgot:
* Doom replete with the first person view (and chainsaw)
* Dead Or Alive, which managed to cram gratutious fan-service, ludicrous wire-fu, beach volleyball (ie. more gratutious fan-service) and Eric Roberts slumming it (again)

granted, both are crap, but I think that both know and accept their limitations, unlike most of the films mentioned...

as is, I'm struggling to think of a top five video game movies, never mind ten...

I am afraid this is all too true. I have tried to compile a list of my top game-based movies before and ended up with maybe three, and the only reason I liked those three movies was because they were based on my favorite games or were the closest ones to actually resembling the game they were based on.

Soon we will find out whether an accomplished filmmaker can translate his skills to the game world when Spielberg releases his games.

I still think the first Mortal Kombat movie was pretty entertaining and fitting for that franchise, and Silent Hill turned into a pretty decent flick as well.

Man, those were all horrible films. The only one I've seen more the once is Street Fighter. At least that had Raul Julia and Van Damme. It still sucked, of course. And then, as I recall, they made a video game of the movie. So we had a video game about a movie that was about a video game.

alternately i think the only movie based game that would be MLG caliber

is goldeneye

its also the only movie game i can think of thats not a flop

- Alecks

Street Fighter killed Raul Julia

Tron gave birth to some pretty entertaining game spinoffs, I loved using the paddles on the old arcade version. I wish they'd make a movie of Pong, with Bruce Willis as the left paddle and Alan Rickman as the right one...

D.O.A. Beach Volleyball. now there's a movie that should be made.

but really, Silent Hill was pretty sweet. and i've always kinda dreamed of a Metroid movie.

I want a Baldur's Gate movie dammit . Go for the eyes Boo !!!

+1

If anyone can find and post a clip from Street Fighter where Guile is telling Bison that he "knows he likes to look at himself in the mirror" and "what does [he] think of this you snuff beach" and Bison looks scared, it would be truly appreciated.

That has to be one of the most hilarious moments in cinematic history, if only for Bison's reaction.

Silent Hill kicked ass. I am disappointed that it was not mentioned as a rare example of a good video game movie.

The reason films are never delayed is because it's so hard to lose money on them. Even the shittiest releases end up making money after the DVD release. If everyone would just not go see shitty movies then the rest of us would end up with better films.

I still think Resident Evil was a fun flick.

Last I heard, HALO was off the table after some investors got nervous. Is it back in development?

-TTm

"We are butt kicking for goodness!"

Yeah, i heard the same thing.

Say what?

I agree with you about Silent Hill. I really enjoyed that movie. There were some ridiculous parts but overall, probably the best video game adaptation I've seen.

Still, most are terrible. Two of my bottom five movies that I've seen are adaptations of video games. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. I heard both were bad and rented them to see just how bad. Funny enough, Mortal Kombat: Annihilaiton's tag line is actually "Destroy all Expectations!"

glaring homophone error in the last sentence.
was gonna actually say something useful, but then i saw that and my mind wiped.

The Sega Genesis Aladdin was pretty commonly considered great, even a little revolutionary. Of course, a great version of Aladdin is still Aladdin. But yeah, it is mostly true.

Deus Ex would make a fine film. One of the best story-driven action games ever made, IMO.

Actually, at E3, they had some short Halo films that Bungie financed. Peter Jackson is pushing this director named Neill Blomkamp.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=ethreeblowout

I assume that they were trying to get investors.

There's no aliens or actual fighting...or dialog, but I gotta say, it looks promising so far.

On the topic of aliens, Grant Morrison is writing the Area 51 screenplay, so that makes it somewhat hopeful.