Why are videogame movies so awful?

I have been trying to figure out the answer to this question as soon as Resident Evil Extinction ended. Why are most of these videogame movies so awful? I mean most of these movies are not average movies, but they are really bad.

I could only think of one videogame movie that received any sort of praise from fans and critics: Mortal Kombat (the first movie). How could all these other movies like Bloodrayne, Resident Evil, Super Mario Bros., In the Name of The King: Dungeon Seige Tale, Alone in the Dark, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat Annihilation, and Double Dragon be so bad? Is it a lack of understanding of these games? Is it a director problem? Are the directors even familiar with the games? What is the problem and why are these movies so bad? Forget them being great movies, they aren't even average. A good videogame movie would aspire to be average.

Take Resident Evil movies for example. The first Resident Evil game was in a Mansion. The first movie was in an underground Hive. Is this really a Resident Evil movie or just a horror movie? If it's a horror movie and it's not going to include any of the game's characters and it isn't going to take place in the Mansion, then don't call it Resident Evil. The movie producer said he didn't want to include any of the game characters in the film. That's ok, but then in the next Resident Evil film we have Jill, Nickolai, Nemesis, and so on. A complete contradiction.

Does anyone else wonder why these type of movies are so bad? Opinions are most welcomed.

Before you call ALL video game movies bad, look at Final Fantasy: Advent Children. That game is everything a video game-to movie translation should be. It didn't try to recreate the story of a game, nor did it deviate so far away from the source material that it really wasn't related to the game. What it did is make a continuation of FF7's story.

Anyhow, there are several problems plaguing most game-based movies.
1. crappy director
2. low budget
3. trying to either re-create the story of the game, or on the other extreme completely deviating away from the source material.

Just do the opposite on all 3 of those problems and you'll have a good game-based movie
1. hire a good director like steven spielberg, peter jackson, robert rodriguez, etc.
2. get approval for a high budget
3. make the story a sequel or prequel to the game (like advent children)

because a "good" video game story, is still a crap story by movie standards....

and some of these adaptations, have choosen a video game with no actual story...like Resident evil, Doom, and Farcry.

Before you call ALL video game movies bad, look at Final Fantasy: Advent Children. That game is everything a video game-to movie translation should be. It didn't try to recreate the story of a game, nor did it deviate so far away from the source material that it really wasn't related to the game. What it did is make a continuation of FF7's story.UT_Wrestler

I recognized Advent of Children as a great movie, but it wasn't released in movie theatres. So I excluded it. I'm talking about box office movies.

Because most video games have very little dialog and you're just moving from location to location fighting things. Basically the story is that you're this guy who needs to save the world now go do it. It doesn't translate well to video games because your character is the only primary character and there are very few secondary characters.

There is a reason, and it is actually quite obvious! Here, let me explain!

Usually, it costs more money to make a good film than a bad one. Usually, they have to try harder to make a good movie because that is what will bring in the customers. With movies based off of video games, the actual quality of the film doesn't affect its take at the box office nearly as much because fans will see it regardless of quality. You wrote like you have seen most of the movies you were talking about, and if that is true, you have only yourself and people like you to blame who give the studios money for lame movies.

Because they cram a 20-30 hour game into a 1-2hour movie. It is like eating a super whooper with one bite.

Unlike Mortal Kombat, because it has no story to begin with.

GAMES main focus is rarely the story, and would never be accountable for a game success.

Even BioWare stories would need major stuffing (either with in-game stuff or out of game). You would also need to re-arrange the story. See, the watcher isn't playing anything, the story has to be it all.

I think Spielberg would find it hard to take a BioWare product and makes a good story out of it...I mean, we are talking about Spielberg! :) So you will end up with peoples with a lack of vision and/or absolutely no experience.

Again, if I play a GAME, the story is an extra. If I watch a movie, the story is everything.

i thought the tomb raider movies were really good. they had good writers who made the movie interesting. they had good effects. i generally prefer other types of movies but tomb raider and tomb raider 2 are really good.skyyfox1

Lot of stuffing/re-arrangements + Angelina. :)

Double Dragon is one that would have been better if it stuck a lot closer to the games plot. Like someone said before Mortal Kombat wasn't really bad that's also cause at that point it really didn't have much of a story to screw up.

I think a majority of these movies get made like someone else said before, it is because they know that fans will still see it regardless of how bad it is. Granted a majority of fans see it because they think it can't be as bad as they think or heard. It's one of the reasons why I think the Dragonball movie (if it sucks) will still make enough of a profit for the studio to make the sequel.

There is no reason why video game movies can't be good. Sure they might not all have great story lines, but they usually have a cool concept. A talented director/producer can take a cool concept and run with it. Unfortunately, game movies don't seem to get respect. Instead they tend to get the same type of people who make the SciFi Channel movies instead of top talent.

Mortal Kombat actually shows what happens when you get talent versus no talent. Halfway through the movie the producer or director (I forget which one) quit and they replaced him with a less talented one. You can really tell which scenes were done by the original producer/director because they are of a lot higher quality than the scenes done by the later producer/director. Talent is mostly what video game movies are missing.

I read somewhere that this is partly due to the fact that many of the people who own video game rights don't really understand the movie business enough to ensure that their concept becomes part of the movie, or perhaps they don't care. They sell the rights simply as a way to make more money off the game. So the rights to the movies ends up going to whoever will pay them $. Usually, this ends up being someone who just wants to exploit the license for a quick profit (e.g. the Bloodrayne movie). So part of the problem is that the people who make these video games are selling off their rights without caring what will happen to the finished product.

Uwe Bol

Uwe Bol

Alter_Echo

ya some of the game to movie conversions are pretty cool, silent hill, mortal kombat, hitman, tomb raider, resident evil 1, 2, 3, all pretty good, admittedly could be better, but are based on the game, so long as they keep as much as possible then it will work. So long as the director isnt uwe boll....danny_dm_moore

Wow, you have a terrible taste in film... What most of you won't understand, is that the problem starts where the actual movie starts, the script. Most of these scripts are terrible, so that's why you have terrible movies. It's not about if the movie is low budget or has a bad director, if you have a bad script, almost nothing can save that.

IMO its because they dumb them down for the general public, and general public=$$$$. Its not just videogames, i find the comic book movies are dumbed down from there origional stories to, take spawn for example. Producers should take a chapter from the book of "FF advent children" and stick to trying to please to fans instead of every tom dick and harry.

[QUOTE="danny_dm_moore"]ya some of the game to movie conversions are pretty cool, silent hill, mortal kombat, hitman, tomb raider, resident evil 1, 2, 3, all pretty good, admittedly could be better, but are based on the game, so long as they keep as much as possible then it will work. So long as the director isnt uwe boll....TheGrayEye

Wow, you have a terrible taste in film... What most of you won't understand, is that the problem starts where the actual movie starts, the script. Most of these scripts are terrible, so that's why you have terrible movies. It's not about if the movie is low budget or has a bad director, if you have a bad script, almost nothing can save that.

Yeah, but when you have a thread that starts off by saying that Advent Children was good, the people here aren't demanding high art. I just think some people have lower expectations and would be satisfied by a movie that was mediocre based off their favorite games. Sad thing is, besides the Mortal Kombats of the world which realized they were just stupid fun, NONE of them have turned out well.

IMO its because they dumb them down for the general public, and general public=$$$$. Its not just videogames, i find the comic book movies are dumbed down from there origional stories to, take spawn for example. Producers should take a chapter from the book of "FF advent children" and stick to trying to please to fans instead of every tom dick and harry.

markebici

Just think, comics are story driven and they still end up with a lot of bad comic movies. I think that is proof that the problem with video game movies is not that video games lack good storylines.

I still say the problem is that the people involved in licensing and making video game movies focus on making a quick buck instead of making a quality product.

I wish someone with talent and a love of video games would give us a movie like the Michael Keaton Batman. Before that movie came out, comic book movies were pretty much in the same state as video game movies are right now.

... Take Resident Evil movies for example. The first Resident Evil game was in a Mansion. The first movie was in an underground Hive. Is this really a Resident Evil movie or just a horror movie? If it's a horror movie and it's not going to include any of the game's characters and it isn't going to take place in the Mansion, then don't call it Resident Evil. The movie producer said he didn't want to include any of the game characters in the film. That's ok, ... gr8scott

I was watching I Am Legend the other day and it occurred to me that this is a possible example of how a video game movie could be done with a big budget and a good actor. Actually, if they had wanted to they could have just slapped the RE name onto the movie and called it the next RE movie. It involved a (T) virus that essentially turned everyone into zombies and it focused on one character wandering around a city fighting the zombies. I know it wasn't a video game movie, but it was almost more of a RE movie than the first RE movie was and I thought it dealt with the concept of RE better than the RE movie.

The same reason why most movie/tv show based games are terrible.

They are two completely different forms of media. What works for a game in terms of story often times does not port over well to a movie due to the lack of plot in most games.