They Remember Jedi, Jaws And Indiana Jones
1975, Jaws — “It was the Village East theatre in Birmingham, Alabama. And we rode in my sister’s husband’s Trans Am…I have certain flashes of scenes, like the scene where Roy Scheider pulls the licence plate out of the stomach of the shark. I remember that. They’re just flashes. I remember it being very scary. My brother was traumatized, to this day. I loved it.” — Twisted Metal and God of War creator David Jaffe, born in 1971
Video games all but smell of popcorn. They have been influenced by the movies, arguably more so than they have been by any other art form, save for other games. And the movies that influence them most appear to be the biggest, the summer blockbusters.
Play a game or simply visit a game development studio — watch for the posters, the action figures or listen to the mentions in casual conversation — and the influence of summer movies is apparent. A week can’t go by without noticing the sway big movies have on creators. Last Wednesday, while showing Kotaku his game The Saboteur, Pandemic designer Tom French cited Indiana Jones’ bigness and coolness of action as an influence on his game’s anti-Nazi adventure. Over the weekend as I neared the end of Ghostbusters: The Video Game — itself an offspring of summer movies — I saw a late-game scene in which one of the heroes flees from a massive rolling boulder.
“[Summer movies] are touchstones in a sense they are generational touchstones,” Stephen Alexander, veteran gaming artist at 2K Boston told Kotaku. “Games tend to reference them a lot, because the people who are making them are making them for people who are like themselves. Or they make the assumption, that because I like this, the audience will like this.”
Prints of Aliens and Star Wars can be lifted from Gears of War and Halo, Star Fox and Final Fantasy. Also, the Indiana Jones films and Predator. T2 and Tron. Jaws. Top Gun. Independence Day.
1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark — “Indiana Jones meant nothing to me. It looked like a boring Western. I had no interest in it. I remember watching the review on Siskel and Ebert in the house with my parents — the whole family was over — and I was like, ah that seems kind of cool, whatever. My dad said, ‘Yeah let’s go see that.’ …It was sold out, so we sat in the car, which I think was this 1970s-era brown Cadillac. And we just sat there for two hours, hanging out as a family, waiting for the next show to start. Eventually we got in, and, I’m not shitting you, it changed my life. It changed my fucking life. This is what I want to do. To live in that world and to be in that world, not so much Indiana Jones’ world — though that would be great — but the world of creativity and escapism and summer excitement in terms of film and video games… It just opened the world of geekdom and film-loving and it affects me to this day.” — David Jaffe
Summer movies touch everyone, not just game creators. But they may have a stronger grip in a community where it’s not uncommon for a development studio to shut down for the afternoon so the team can catch the latest summer flick at a rented theatre. That was a mandatory outing just a few Fridays ago, for 2K Boston, when they went to see Up.
“The great thing about the blockbusters is having the common vocabulary,” 2K Boston designer Bill Gardner said. “Who doesn’t talk about the Predator’s cloaking device, whatever the hell it’s called? And the T1000 and all that stuff, constantly touching on these reference points.”
In the lingua franca of video games, George Lucas is king. “Star Wars pops up all the time,” Gardner’s colleague at 2K Boston, Stephen Alexander, said. “And that’s where a lot of games draw from because it is such an iconic journey to go on and it has such emotional resonance and pays off so well.”
But game creators don’t borrow from all the summer hits of the ’80s and ’90s. Alexander may see some Goonies in Zelda, but he guesses that’s just him. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off doesn’t seem to have informed many games. Back to the Future’s influence, if it exists, is subtle.
1982, E.T. — “I remember seeing it at the Brooklyn Mall theatre and [film company people] handing out the buttons and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, I got a button.’ And now the PR department is like, ‘Big fucking deal, we made a million buttons.’ But to a kid in Alabama who was in love with the movies, especially Spielberg and Spielberg’s movies, this was like the Holy Grail.” — David Jaffe
For all the love E.T. gets, it’s had only a light touch on games. Alexander has a theory why. “The real power of E.T. was that emotional bond between E.T. and Elliott,” he argued. “Emotional resonance is something that games are still wrestling with… I haven’t seen too many games that have managed to pull that off.” Ico is the only game he can think of that fits.
The more bombastic, escapist summer movies exert the most influence. They are, according to developers like Alexander and Gardner, parallel works to video games: They share the goal of escapism. The best blockbuster movies and the best blockbuster games take you out of yourself, on a ride.
1983, Return of the Jedi — “[My mom] had come to check me and my neighbour out of sixth grade. We were going to go to like the first show at one o’clock. …I was so excited, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. The word got out and my math teacher, Mrs. Vance, who to this day I don’t forgive, basically had a shit fit about it and ended up calling my mum and stuff. It became this big deal and she wasn’t going to let me — whatever the fuck — graduate sixth grade. Ultimately, I ended up going to the movie, and I remember waiting in line. It was all the people who show up for a summer movie the first day. It was a big deal. …And I remember, after that point, really trying to recreate that for the rest of my junior high and high school experience. I remember hoping — hoping so bad — that Willow would have this huge line and it never really did.” — David Jaffe
Some developers bristle at this or at least laugh off the overwhelming influence the summer movies have. Alexander and Gardner’s boss, Ken Levine, said as much to me in January 2007: “Most video game people have read one book and seen one movie in their life, which is Lord of the Rings and Aliens or variations of that. There’s great things in that, but you need some variety… Look, I just steal from other sources.”
Aliens is the one that gets the eye-rolls a lot. Another drop-ship? Another group of space marines? Another tough-talking black sergeant? Another drab colour palette? “When it came out, Aliens’ visual design was so amazingly fresh and almost mind-blowing, it’s not surprising that so many people have taken it and used it to make their space game,” Alexander said. “It is a rich ground to place a game in, but it seems like people have gotten a little bit lazy in using this visual language at this point.”
But don’t blame the summer movies alone for this, Alexander said. “A game creator has a brilliant flash of inspiration and they mimic something from Aliens, for example, and it’s incredibly successful and then other creators mimic that game. I don’t know that it’s everybody drawing from the same source. I think games are maybe borrowing too much from each other in some ways. You fall into the ‘it worked once — let’s not be risky — and do it again.’”
1989, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — “When Last Crusade opened I was such a total fucking geek. I didn’t care. I was in high school. The cement had dried on what kind of geek I was going to be. My brother, with me and a couple of my buddies, we all had logos of Last Crusade painted on the back of our cars like it was homecoming.” — David Jaffe
There’s another draw the summer films have for game creators and the publishers they work for: Bigness.
There’s spectacle that surrounds the release of the film expressed in long lines, big ads, talk-show guest appearances, commercials, souvenir cups, national — international — media attention. It’s natural to want that.
“The spectacle around the summer blockbusters is something to envy,” Gardner said. “You want to break into the mainstream and get people talking, but when you come down to it, as envious as I may be, I try to focus on what we’re doing right more than anything else. When it comes down to it, I don’t know if we’ll every be able to emulate that type of hype.”
Still, while the siren song of summer movie status can be hard to resist, it can cause problems when game companies misuse the model. Taking the rate of explosions from a Michael Bay movie and injecting it into a game won’t make the game as exciting as the Bay movie. Even a summer movie fanatic like David Jaffe knows this. Borrowing a key scene — the visuals, the audio — doesn’t play to gaming’s core strength, interactivity. So developers should best bear their influence with caution. A little nod here or there can be a nice touch, of course.
2005, God of War — “God of War is the game I always wanted to make. And there’s a huge influence of Raiders of the Lost Ark in God of War. Pandora’s Box is the Greek mythology version of the Ark of the Covenant. Actual moves that Kratos does in God of War are directly an homage to what Indy does in Raiders of the Lost Ark. When Indy kicks over that statue when he’s in the Well of the Souls, it’s the exact same animation — obviously Harrison Ford or the stuntman did it for real — we had Kratos mimic what he did with his body with the giant column when he first gets to Athens.” – David Jaffe
So maybe the summer movie blockbusters are safe from video games ripping them off wholesale. And maybe games will continue to find their own way to develop as a unique medium. In fact, games have already been seen to be exerting their own influence on the summer films: see the sidescrolling action sequence in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones or the increasingly video-game-like action scenes and car chases in so many other summer films, like Terminator Salvation and The Bourne Ultimatum.
That doesn’t mean some creators won’t want you to feel that summer movie feeling when you settle down in front of one of their games.
2009, Eat Sleep Play — “There is a literal aspect to the influence these things have had. But then, more importantly, there is a philosophical impact that the summer movies have had from a standpoint of wanting to provide, for my audience — look I understand that we don’t make movies, we don’t reach as big of an audience — but I still take the responsibility of the audience we do speak to very seriously. And, as much as I look at the works of [Flow and Flower development studio] That Game Company or [Ico creator Fumito] Ueda when he does Shadow of the Colossus, I’m so okay leaving that level of emotion and that level of meaning to someone else. I want to be the guy who provides the escape. I want to be the guy who provides the video game equivalent of the summer blockbuster.” — David Jaffe, co-founder of game development studioEat Sleep Play
(Movie poster images via the Internet Movie Poster Awards site.)
2k boston
aliens
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et
indiana jones
jaws
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@SilverFireshot: Ooh they wouldn't dare...
ricardofreitas
@(Zombie) Jolan: I've said that to everyone that I've described Uncharted to.
@Mister Jack Wants Blazblue Challengers: No, but I remember the shitty Jaws game that released on the original Xbox. The graphics were terrible, made it look like a PS1 launch title.
is it only me or anyone else think God of War can only be enjoyed by people who love metal music?
I personally thought the game was a mindless dumped down action game with bad artistic direction...flame on!
@Fernando Jorge: Apparently we didn't play the same game
This scene especially are pretty emotional
Yuna sending ritual at kilika Village
The farplane scene at guadosalam
The scene at Al Bhed when they teld tidus about Summoners fate at the end of their
journeys
the romantic scene after the battle with seymour natus
I can go on and on, if you didn't like the game fine but to me this game was excellent.
Very nice read! And yes, I LOVE Indiana Jones! :-D
@UncleMark: Heh, I never understood that game. :P
@UncleMark:
I liked that game too. I even streamed me beating it online one day. Why the hate? T_T
I like that last quote from David Jaffe (even though very often I don't like what he says :-)). I am all for the trend seeking to make games an art form, and have them contain more emotional meaning, and so forth... but at the end of the day, we must not forget that video games are a form of entertainment. We also need those games that provide that escape, just pure unadulterated fun.
Again, I'm also very supportive of the artsy games trend. I loved Braid, but when I see Jonathan Blow and other developers calling all other games "infantile" and "immature", I can't help but think they are a little out of touch. Just as in the movies, there's space for both kind of games. And just as in the movies, it is often the action packed, fat on entertainment, lean on 'meaning' that sell better. Why? Because more often than not, we go to video games seeking entertainment. Of course, in the case of movies, there are a few gems that have been able to pack both things at the same time (like "The Godfather"). We're still waiting for that gem in video games :-)
@Fernando Jorge:
I don't know if Alien is a "cult classic" or not (the original, not Aliens, which is a summer blockerbuster type), but any survival horror game in space seems to take a lot from it. Actually, much of anything scary-related to space comes from Alien, not Aliens.
@Orionsaint: You only ruin the movie for yourself by following it on the internet, it's nobody's fault but your own and spoiler trolls'. These blockbusters have been selected from a 14 year time period, so the impressions left by each individual summer for the past few years is definitely going to seem lacking, but it's probably far more level than it seems.
robbo_the_hood
@Snappywave: Subtitle option for the Deaf please: Cameron can do no wrong in my mind. So I'm pretty eager to see what he has been working on myself.
@LedRush: Oh yeah, blade runner is practically by itself responsible for every cyberpunk visuals we have. Any visual material for any cyberpunk city will borrow some from blade runner.
Fernando Jorge
@Curse_Lily: except FFX was very lame. Annoying characters with bad voice acting.
Fernando Jorge
@Curse_Lily: I think most games are slim on the emotional resonance because it's a lot easier to make you feel other things such as fear, anxiety, excitement, etc. These things can be manufactured immediately while any sort of serious emotional reaction requires a much longer/more intricate setup. It can be done and has been done very well in past (you've already provided the examples), but it's riskier and doesn't always pay off. It's a shame, really.
It's funny how being able to change facial expressions has been huge in game development for a while now, but it doesn't seem that our characters display any more emotion than they always have(n't).
@gold163 (° д° ): But Shia LeBeouf is just about the right age. ;)
@Orionsaint: Maybe if you didn't look for all the information on the internet about the movies, you could enjoy yourself more. I'm a movie freak and I end up draggin oblivious friends and family to movies every summer and they seem to have a much richer experience.
GoonerVance
@gold163 (° д° ): Which, of course, is why Nathan Fillion's going to play him.
/and if he doesn't I will give into my origins as an anime fangirl and go on a rampage
//with cat ears
"Aliens" gets the eye-rolls a lot because it is the greatest movie EVER created in the history of cinema!! In fact, I'm going to watch it for like the 100,000th time tonight in honor of this post. :)
I was playing Dead Space over the weekend and while playing it I always get that Aliens vibe from it.
Pizookie
@Curse_Lily: Σ(゜д゜;) is an awesome face
kilikafinal
@Shadowstitch: He was four years old. Let the man misremember!
@Orionsaint: Yes, right on the nail.
I am trying to be just as excited for James Cameron's upcoming "Avatar".
Right now, Resident Evil 5 is doing it for me instead of blockbusters.
Snappywave: Subtitle option for the Deaf please
@(Zombie) Jolan: said that many times so i totally second that.
StickyGreen
@Ad-hominem: Jessica Rabbit=Lara Croft ^_^
@Mister Jack is Stalking Konata: I never understood all the hate that game got. I played the crap outta that game. I thought it was awesome.
The Summer Blockbuster experience is basically dead these days. The magic and wonder of movies is gone. Before the Internet you didn't really know what expect when you watched a blockbuster movie, just what the trailer showed. You were left in awe as you wondered how that stunt or special effect was done. These days we know the plot before hand. We know it's all done with computers. It's all so shallow. I'm so glad I grew up in the late 70's and 80's and got to experience the golden age of the Hollywood Blockbuster.
Haha...except that Roy Scheider isn't the one who pulls the license plate out of the tiger shark's guts. It's Richard Dreyfuss' Hooper. Way to misremember, Jaffe. ;)
Σ(゜д゜;) So the fanboys and trolls were right all video games are just a ripoff of movies and other games ^_^
Emotional resonance is something that games are still wrestling with
I find it pretty damn hard to feel any attachment for any character in a video game except for those in Ico,SotC and FFX especially now with all this heavy action games and all.
I loves me a good blockbuster, but sometimes the rote dependence on blockbuster cliches has wounded otherwise solid games (Looking at you Killzone 2). Gaming's solid audience and surrounding culture aren't a luxury most other art forms have, so I just hope that developers like Ken Levine and the Bioware crew keep making their explosions smarter, if they need them at all.
until.december
@Mister Jack is Stalking Konata: hah! i loved that game! not for how awesome it wasn't, but because of how hard it was. ugh, the memories of trying to actually kill that bastard!
@Mister Jack is Stalking Konata: Trying to remember that game isn't helping anybody. Let's try to keep it in the forgotten parts of our minds, shall we.
@'360 Fanboy: Uncharted is probably one of the best reasons to own a PS3. But, I think Harrison Ford would be too old to play a Nathan Drake. :P
I'm that way with the original Star Wars. The first movie I was taken to see when I was just 4 years old. I remember flashes of scenes. R2D2 and C-3PO walking in the desert. The sand people, Darth Vader, the attack on the deathstar. After that movie I remember more watching Empire and Jedi. The first Star Wars game I played was Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600. A redundant game as you all might know, but I played the heck out of it.
I enjoy Jaffe's rants on his blog. Fortunately, he doesn't appear to have stayed secluded to Twitter for too long and is posting on his own site again :)
kobeashi
@Save me: Yeah, in the droid factory
@(Zombie) Jolan: Has there ever been a more disappointing sequel? I haven't played Uncharted, but anything would've been better than Indy IV's plot.
@Mister Jack is Stalking Konata: I owned that game and beat it multiple times. I saw a crazy, crazy speedrun of the game too, some guy beat it in lke 4 minutes.
Revenge_of_Nekojin
There was side scrolling action in Attack of the clones?
David Jaffe and Michael Bay need to team up on a super summer blockbuster movie-game combo. Swearing, explosions, and boobs everywhere!
Okay, all the classic 80's movies had a huge influence on gamer's especially Al Jaffe.
Now, I want to know why "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Dirty Dancing" have not caused incredible changes in the gaming world.
Because, we need more games like them.
Ad-hominem
Great article.
I would also be interested to see which "Cult Classic" movies have exerted an overly influential shadow on gaming. The movie to come to mind is "Blade Runner".
@(Zombie) Jolan: Preaching to the choir.
Robotic Bilbo Bagins has no use for fleshy ones
@onomeister: I meant that we need more games that model themselves after the movie, Terminator 2. Sorry for the runtime error. >.<
SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME...
Esper mind tricks
@gold163 (° д° ): Your statement does not compute. You state that we need more games like T2, but then you say we need more movies like T2. You're contradicting yourself... Do you perhaps mean that we need more games that mimic the storyline and scenarios that were created by James Cameron in the movie T2, where you're Edward Furlong or Arnie?
@(Zombie) Jolan: I have often said this very same thing myself.
Mister Jack Wants Blazblue Challengers
Jaws not so much for me, but Indy and God of war make some flavorful memories rise from their grave.
We need more games like Terminator 2. The movie, of course. :P
Anybody else remember that shitty old Jaws game that appeared on the NES? That has to be one of the most boring games I've ever played. And god help you if you fuck up when you have to hit him with the boat.
Mister Jack Wants Blazblue Challengers
Uncharted is what Indy IV should have been.
Fantastic article Totilo. Things like this are why I love Kotaku.
@robbo_the_hood: It's very difficult to avoid spoilers compared to the old days. Today, it requires effort to do so.
Anyone seen trailers of "Avatar" yet? See... James Cameron's smart.
Snappywave: Subtitle option for the Deaf please
great Article. Loved it.
Thanks for the article Stephen, i'm always quite curious about how two mediums interact and I will definetly keep an eye out for that Kratos Kick. Though it makes me wonder how Jaws aside, that his games became so gory and morbid themed when his influences were ET and Indiana?
@Curse_Lily: Indeed I was pessimistic towards FFX for a fair while, being a fan of the PS ones but now that i've started playing it properly, i'm really enjoying. I'm warming to the whole cast and the moments cited are quite brilliant however its almost painful to look at the voice sync but it would've been difficult to do anything about it really.
@until.december: Charmander Char :D
Agreed.
Red_Dragon
snatcher by hideo kojima has alot of influence from blade runner.
LeithHamit
Jaws: "Look at that swimmer up there. She looks kinda sexy, sexy not to me though, I think she is full of calories... I could probably work it off swimming around the ocean for a couple hours. That makes her kinda tempting... naw I think I just want a snack, some tasty kids... Is this girl anorexic? If she is, she is probably low in fat, then I can eat her... So many things to consider."
VitasJebberz
Interesting article.
It reminds me a post on my own blog -- "ten movies video games have completely ripped off and what we can still steal from them": http://mrbossdesign.blogspot.com/2009/03/ten-movies-video-games-have-completely....html
Boneyard
@Orionsaint:
I agree. Shallow is a good word to describe it. They don't make movies like they used to...
"Pandora's Box is the Greek mythology version of the Ark of the Covenant."
Er, no it isn't.
Tdawwg
Agree. Raiders... sure changed my life forever
shadow_judge
@Shadowstitch: Hey man, when I was 4 and saw Scarface for the first time, the only thing I remembered was Al Pacino saying, "Say hello to ma lil' friend!" and then making a huge explosion by shooting his shotgun.
Ofcoarse when I saw the movie again, I notice that it was obviously not a shotgun but an M203 grenade launcher attachment.
See, when we're little we always seem to misremember stuff all the time. Even someone as awesome as Jaffe.
Krimmson
Keep making those games about different worlds far beyond our reach and I'll be there waiting to play them.
Zero-D
It's one thing to have blockbuster-style games. It's another thing to have nearly every game that comes out be a blockbuster-style game. We could use more games that focus on things other than killing dudes and aliens with guns.
@Mister Jack Wants Blazblue Challengers: I had that game and loved it. I guess when you're a wee lad, any game, bad or not, can be magical. Heck I even liked playing that game Athena back in the day.
I was born in '79 and I remember going to the theater to see many of these movies with my family. The funny thing is that I remember the video games the different theaters had as well.
Games have always been such a huge part of my life. I could probably get a pen and paper and draw the floorplan and games from the arcade that used to be in Hulen Mall even now, 15 years later....and all the different iterations and the same Tilt as it moved throughout the mall.