I think that a lot of your
concerns over the track record of video game movie adaptations from
Hollywood are warranted, to say the least. It is frustrating to see
Hollywood repeatedly ruin great IP's and rich detailed worlds over
and over again. And most definitely in the coming years we will,
unfortunately, expect to see many more cinematic disasters that will
be titled Half-Life, Fallout, The Legend of Zelda, Grand Theft Auto,
etc, etc. There are many cherished and beautiful game worlds just
waiting to be raped and pillaged by the bland, beige monetary
demi-urge that is Hollywood. Just you wait and see: Gordan Freeman is
going to be played by Shea Lebuff, so you might as well get used to
the idea now.
I think of all the spectacular failures of the
past, be it a video game or comic book adaptation, how the movie is
terrible and why it seems counter-intuitive that they turned out to
be bad movies in the first place when you consider that the setting,
plot, characters, conflict- everything that makes a movie a movie-
has already been laid out, worked over, tried tested and true. All of
the pieces are already there. Not to mention already loved by a mass
number of people in the millions.
The predominate failure of
video game adaptations are not a symptom of the video game medium but
of Hollywood and the American film-going public at large. There is no
need to turn The Prince of Persia into a white American to sell the
story: the character already works wonderfully as a Persian in a game
series that is, most likely, predominately played by white people
anyways. Why did they do that? The world is not lacking Iranian
acting talent (watch any movie by Abbas Kiarostami if you want to see
genuine human emotion portrayed on the screen.) American pride has
always been allergic to portraying foreigners as heroes or main
protagonists in their own movies; which is a whole other off-topic
discussion on it's own.
I don't want to give the
impression that Jake Gyllenhaal most likely got the role because he
is white, although my gut tells me being white was always a
prerequisite for the role from pre-production. He got the role
because he already cut his teeth with nerdy cinema on Donnie Darko so
obviously he is a great choice for a video game movie. There lies the
thought process going on with video game movie adaptations and why
they always fail.
As it has been pointed out in other replies
above, most of the blame for all the terrible video game movies lies
on Uwe Boll's shoulders. The man seems intent on ruining the image of
good games with millions of fans. However, this is only a small
fraction of the problem (and yes, Uwe Boll is the platonic ideal of a
hack, maybe even a archetype.)
If you follow IMDB and look at
the rest of the cast and crew on these movies you will see many of
the same names involved in every video game movie. There are a number
of go-to guys and girls in Hollywood for writing, set design,
costumes, effects, make up, producers, and of course actors who are
tapped on the shoulder to work on the next video game movie
adaptation seemingly every time. This also applies to comic book
movies as well. In fact you can look at the entire Sci-Fi/Fantasy
genre in movies this way. Well, actually this applies to all movies.
People find work within the genres they worked in the past. This is
how the industry works, and it works from an emotional state of fear
of failure.
Let's take a look at Francis Ford Coppola.
Undeniably he sits at the top of a small list of international
director auteurs, who are still living, with a degree of enviable
respect and a record of very high quality movies in the past which
have made a lot of money. If he wants to make a drama about anything
it will be greenlighted on his name alone. But, did you know he tried
to make a science fiction movie called Metropolis for decades and he
never got funding for it? It would have required a large budget,
state of the art special effects and would be very ahead of the curve
in terms of what the American movie going audience expects from a big
budget science fiction movie. He never got the money for it because
Coppola does not make science fiction movies. You do not associate
his name with it, so it's a bad marketing idea. Even if his movies
consistently make money, it doesn't matter. That's Hollywood.
David Fincher is another interesting director in this way. He started as an
junior FX guy on Return of the Jedi and got his break directing
commercials which in turn got him the job of making Alien 3, which
financially was a failure (but a really good sci fi movie in my
books, anyways.) He is of course immensely talented and brilliant so
he got to make more movies regardless which I'm sure you have on your
DVD shelf and watch over again every now and then. But, he always
wanted to go back to making another sci fi movie and redeem himself
this way (like Rendezvous with Rama) yet these projects always linger
in development for years until they finally disappear.
Hollywood
is very much like the Mafia and you do what you are told. Video game
movies, and comic book movies as well, are 98% always terrible (this
is a very scientific number, btw ;-) because 98% of the time
they utilize the same "talent."
Now, back to
the Mass Effect movie.
I actually have a little more faith
already in this movie than all the other video game movie adaptations
combined. Two reasons:
1. Legendary Pictures. They definitely
are not perfect (Spider Man 3 is a ****ing abomination) but they do
respect their source material. Zach Synder is no Kurosawa (he's not
even a Sam Fuller) but the movies he's been involved with that
Legendary have funded do show they fully get behind the universe of
the property they are making. The Watchmen certainly nailed the look
of a Watchmen movie, even if it didn't end up feeling like one. Not
to mention the massive success of Dark Knight has shown them the
value of not diluting a cinematic experience with kid friendly vibes.
Action movies can be successful when they are made only for adults
only. Leave the kid movies to Studio Ghibli and Pixar, they do it
best anyways.
2. Bioware are executive producers. I don't
really need to inform anyone on the Bioware forums of their
commitment to their fans, do I? And as a Cinephile, I Heart
Bioware in a major way.
Like I said above, all the
pieces are already in place for a fantastic, epic Mass Effect movie
because Bioware have already laid out all the groundwork for one in
the Mass Effect games.
Who do I think would be the
best Director for this film? Chris Cunningham. You want someone
who would NAIL the look and feel of the Mass Effect universe with a
high degree of success and realism then this is your man. Of course
this would never happen.
And I prefer Sheppard as a
woman.
Modifié par postretro, 05 juin 2010 - 12:48 .
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