I think it's the diametric nature of providing fanservice (i.e. service to the fans) and building a compelling story. Take Warcraft for example, this movie while not outstanding was a giant...
I think it's the diametric nature of providing fanservice (i.e. service to the fans) and building a compelling story. Take Warcraft for example, this movie while not outstanding was a giant wank-off to Warcraft fans. The problem is that for this story to be compelling to a new audience, there's SO MUCH exposition that's needed.
I found that afterwards most people who'd seen the movie complained that the story was a bit flat, or not super accurate, but loved all the little things like the murlocs and seeing various places they knew.
And people who didn't know about warcraft overall liked the story but had NO IDEA who anyone was, why they were doing things, what certain things were, how the magic system worked, what the fuck fel was, etc...
I think the biggest issue is trying to walk the line, if you pick one audience over the other you alienate 1/2 your potential viewers, and if you try to cater to both you end up short.
Sometimes the stories they are adapting aren't very good to begin with. Interactivity and fun can excuse a lot of otherwise forgettable storytelling. Cliches don't feel so tired when you're...
Sometimes the stories they are adapting aren't very good to begin with. Interactivity and fun can excuse a lot of otherwise forgettable storytelling. Cliches don't feel so tired when you're personally involved in them.
Even if the source material does have a good story, the pacing is all wrong. What makes a good story when delivered in intermittent voiceovers, cutscenes, and set-pieces for a 20-hour game doesn't necessarily make a good story for a 1.5-hour movie.
Finally, even if you have a good story and you get the pacing right, the sorts of stories that games embody are tied to the gameplay in ways that make them difficult to translate. You can happily play 40 minutes of Starcraft and worry the whole time about where to put your buildings, whether your mineral gathering rate is fast enough, and whether you are building the right mix of units. Watching someone play a game of Starcraft is interesting too, since there's the whole latent possibility space of things they could have done but didn't. But if you try to take a Starcraft match and translate it too far out of the actual gameplay space, and make it a story about a plucky group of space marines or whatever, you're unlikely to get far, because you no longer are able to relate the story to the logic of the world it comes from in the same way. Your best hope is to make it still be a story about troop placement and weird space economics, and that's not a story that's likely to be legible to moviegoing audiences.
It doesn't help that there was a couple decades of Uwe Boll taking advantage of loopholes in German tax law and desperate and/or unscrupulous game publishers looking to make some money selling him...
It doesn't help that there was a couple decades of Uwe Boll taking advantage of loopholes in German tax law and desperate and/or unscrupulous game publishers looking to make some money selling him the rights to their IP.
Edit: To elaborate tax laws in Germany were such that Germans who invest in a movie can write-off the production cost, and delay paying their taxes. The German investors in a movie only pay tax on any returns the movie makes, their investment is 100% deductible, the minute the movie makes a profit, said investor has to start paying tax, so it was in Boll's interest to make mediocre movies that ideally would break even.
Because they're very unoriginal. Everything from the story to the gameplay to the graphics are usually copied from elsewhere, so you're not experiencing anything new while playing. Especially...
Because they're very unoriginal. Everything from the story to the gameplay to the graphics are usually copied from elsewhere, so you're not experiencing anything new while playing. Especially given that they're usually marketed to young kids with short attention spans to begin with, it's not a promising recipe for success.
This is a shot in the dark but I think it's has a lot to do with what OP mentioned with the loss of control of the narrative. While various cutscenes and tidbits of lore may provide great amounts...
This is a shot in the dark but I think it's has a lot to do with what OP mentioned with the loss of control of the narrative. While various cutscenes and tidbits of lore may provide great amounts of story, it's really what we do in between those moments while we're playing that gives it meaning. Take that away and a lot of times you're just dealing with, oftentimes, mediocre action/fantasy/scifi/whatever story that filters out what players oftentimes like about the games.
Add that in with production companies trying to appeal to a wide audience who has no interest in the source material and you've got a recipe for a contrived and generic story that doesn't appeal to the original audience or those who have no knowledge of the source material.
You either tell the same story you've told in the games, and then the gamers aren't happy because the game just did it better, or you tell a new story within that game area, and it falls flat...
You either tell the same story you've told in the games, and then the gamers aren't happy because the game just did it better, or you tell a new story within that game area, and it falls flat because the game did it better. Most video games tell the story really well, and also in a long and drawn out way with splices of information as you play.
Every time they talked about the halo movie all I could think about was how unneeded it is. It's trying to cash in on popularity of the game, but it doesn't translate well into a movie. Books make good movies because people want to see the characters on the big screen. You can already see games, so switching it to a movie often makes the story worse. It's not a medium anyone is clamoring for, yet they keep making them.
That movie really doesn't hold up, in any aspect. I remember the reptile fight scene it was so rad, now it's just bad :( I just avoid watching it ever again and continue to pretend it's as awesome...
That movie really doesn't hold up, in any aspect. I remember the reptile fight scene it was so rad, now it's just bad :( I just avoid watching it ever again and continue to pretend it's as awesome as my teenage self though it was.
I think it's the diametric nature of providing fanservice (i.e. service to the fans) and building a compelling story. Take Warcraft for example, this movie while not outstanding was a giant wank-off to Warcraft fans. The problem is that for this story to be compelling to a new audience, there's SO MUCH exposition that's needed.
I found that afterwards most people who'd seen the movie complained that the story was a bit flat, or not super accurate, but loved all the little things like the murlocs and seeing various places they knew.
And people who didn't know about warcraft overall liked the story but had NO IDEA who anyone was, why they were doing things, what certain things were, how the magic system worked, what the fuck fel was, etc...
I think the biggest issue is trying to walk the line, if you pick one audience over the other you alienate 1/2 your potential viewers, and if you try to cater to both you end up short.
Sometimes the stories they are adapting aren't very good to begin with. Interactivity and fun can excuse a lot of otherwise forgettable storytelling. Cliches don't feel so tired when you're personally involved in them.
Even if the source material does have a good story, the pacing is all wrong. What makes a good story when delivered in intermittent voiceovers, cutscenes, and set-pieces for a 20-hour game doesn't necessarily make a good story for a 1.5-hour movie.
Finally, even if you have a good story and you get the pacing right, the sorts of stories that games embody are tied to the gameplay in ways that make them difficult to translate. You can happily play 40 minutes of Starcraft and worry the whole time about where to put your buildings, whether your mineral gathering rate is fast enough, and whether you are building the right mix of units. Watching someone play a game of Starcraft is interesting too, since there's the whole latent possibility space of things they could have done but didn't. But if you try to take a Starcraft match and translate it too far out of the actual gameplay space, and make it a story about a plucky group of space marines or whatever, you're unlikely to get far, because you no longer are able to relate the story to the logic of the world it comes from in the same way. Your best hope is to make it still be a story about troop placement and weird space economics, and that's not a story that's likely to be legible to moviegoing audiences.
It doesn't help that there was a couple decades of Uwe Boll taking advantage of loopholes in German tax law and desperate and/or unscrupulous game publishers looking to make some money selling him the rights to their IP.
Edit: To elaborate tax laws in Germany were such that Germans who invest in a movie can write-off the production cost, and delay paying their taxes. The German investors in a movie only pay tax on any returns the movie makes, their investment is 100% deductible, the minute the movie makes a profit, said investor has to start paying tax, so it was in Boll's interest to make mediocre movies that ideally would break even.
Because they're very unoriginal. Everything from the story to the gameplay to the graphics are usually copied from elsewhere, so you're not experiencing anything new while playing. Especially given that they're usually marketed to young kids with short attention spans to begin with, it's not a promising recipe for success.
This is a shot in the dark but I think it's has a lot to do with what OP mentioned with the loss of control of the narrative. While various cutscenes and tidbits of lore may provide great amounts of story, it's really what we do in between those moments while we're playing that gives it meaning. Take that away and a lot of times you're just dealing with, oftentimes, mediocre action/fantasy/scifi/whatever story that filters out what players oftentimes like about the games.
Add that in with production companies trying to appeal to a wide audience who has no interest in the source material and you've got a recipe for a contrived and generic story that doesn't appeal to the original audience or those who have no knowledge of the source material.
Silent Hill, WarCraft?
You either tell the same story you've told in the games, and then the gamers aren't happy because the game just did it better, or you tell a new story within that game area, and it falls flat because the game did it better. Most video games tell the story really well, and also in a long and drawn out way with splices of information as you play.
Every time they talked about the halo movie all I could think about was how unneeded it is. It's trying to cash in on popularity of the game, but it doesn't translate well into a movie. Books make good movies because people want to see the characters on the big screen. You can already see games, so switching it to a movie often makes the story worse. It's not a medium anyone is clamoring for, yet they keep making them.
You take that right back.
Mortal Kombat is a cinematic masterpiece.
That movie really doesn't hold up, in any aspect. I remember the reptile fight scene it was so rad, now it's just bad :( I just avoid watching it ever again and continue to pretend it's as awesome as my teenage self though it was.