Guardians of the Galaxy, by all accounts, is a really good movie, which just goes to show that talented people can make a good flick about anything and it’ll make bucketloads of money. Basically what I’m saying is, I want a video game movie to get dat Guardians of the Galaxy money. Which game would be the best candidate?
My feeling is that Uncharted is still our best bet. The characters are well defined, and it has the best pure dialogue of any game I’ve ever played. It’s unpretentious and, best of all, its action sequences play to Hollywood and the three act structure. Nothing about Uncharted is laboured or clunky, it flows fast and light. I think, of all the games out there, it’s the movie I’d be most keen to see. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know if any other video game suits the cinema?
Thoughts? What would you like to see?
Comments
114 responses to “Off Topic: What Games Would Make A Genuinely Good Movie?”
Goat simulator.
Plz stop.
Mass Effect
Street Fighter oh wait that’s right.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a MGS movie or maybe even something like Assassins creed or Watchdogs, quite hard to think of games that would make good movies though.
I love the Street Fighter movie, even with all its inaccuracies and campiness. Plus Raul Julia nailed the role of M. Bison.
Seen it too – not bad, could have been better though.
MGS soooo…. Escape from New York?
I think the interactivity is what makes the best games so good. It’s what makes a good game different from a good movie. When you strip that away you’re losing something. I don’t think they need to make game movies or movie games.
Yeah, because what is often lost and missing in films is the elements that made the game fun to play. You can’t put that in a movie.
This x1000
This. Video games are an entirely different medium from film. They combine writing, visual arts and music and then ask the audience to decide on the final form. There is always room for crossover between games and films but I don’t think it will work until people understand what games are as an art form. Can you imagine a Minecraft movie directed by Michael Bay? *Touches wood*
I’d really like to see a film based off the Legacy of Kain series. And it would work, too.
Yep. totally.
I think the best bet is for someone with some actual talent to make a film that isn’t directly trying to port a game to the screen, but rather use a franchise like GTA where it’s an established universe but not established characters.
Not necessarily GTA mind you, not really sure that would translate all that well but it’s the first series I could think of with that sort of set up.
I’ve always liked this idea with GTA, something like a Guy Ritchie crime movie, with more of a slant towards that Rockstar satire and humour.
Wolf Among Us.
There was talk of a Fables TV show a while back, but it fell through. And then oddly similar shows appeared on the networks that decided not to go through with the show (Grimm & Once Upon a Time).
WB are currently developing a movie.
Mega Man. Because robots fighting.
Super Fighting Robot – Mega Man!
Wait. Wait. This was a thing?
Oh my god.
Yep. There’s a 100% legit Mega Man morning cartoon series. It even has a crossover with X. It’s pretty much what you’d expect after seeing that intro.
Done that:
Pacific Rim
Atlantic Rim
Real Steel (not bad actually)
Actually Real Steel was Teleroboxer: The Movie. And it was awesome!
Sadly never got to see Pacific Rim, really wanted to though. My friends are jerks.
Battletoads
Michael Bay to direct? 😉
Betrayal at Krondor
I agree with Uncharted, because it’s already pretty cinematic.
It’s hard to say though, with video games you have around 10 hours + on average to tell a story, establish a connection with the characters and hopefully find some kind of emotional resonance with what’s happening, which is made all the more easy as you the player is in control to a degree of what’s happening, and much of the characterisation comes from our own projections and expectations on the character which is essentially a fantasy version of you, so that connection is more easily made.
Alas, you have ostensibly 2 hours nowadays for a movie, to do all those things, and the viewer is so much more passive in this situation, it’s somewhat more difficult to form that connection.
But this is all getting off track, my vote for game to movie is Zero: the Kamikaze Squirrel on SNES.
OR, Marble Madness.
Your image makes me think of Spec Ops: The Line.
I could go for a The Line movie very muchly!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/
Did Apocalypse Now have a White Phosphorous incident? I still need to see that.
Touché! Didn’t think of Apocalypse Now. That being said, I still think an adaption of this game set in a deserted desert city would be pretty fresh and different enough.
If i’m not mistaken, I think Nolan North voiced the protagonist of The Line too.
I think Metroid Prime could be made into a pretty sweet movie. Although it’d have near zero dialog.
An almost silent Metroid Prime movie would be pretty cool.
inFAMOUS? BioShock? Crysis 1? Mirrors Edge?
BioShock could be awesome! I feel like Mirror’s Edge might end up being too cheezy once Hollywood got their hands on it but who knows eh. Surely would look cool as.
Yeah. I feel like Mirror’s Edge would end up coming out looking like a cheesy 90’s rollerblade commercial. Like Hackers for parkour.
I guess it doesn’t really have enough story element to work with, even by Hollywood standards. Plus, if there was actually any first-person segments it’d make half the theater feel woozy probably haha
FWIW, if I was a studio exec and you opened your pitch with “…like Hackers for parkour”, I’d throw a briefcase full of cash at you before yelling at my assistant to go get me a clean pair of pants and an appointment with David Belle’s agent.
Mass Effect, except that it isn’t just trying to take the game’s story and hack it down to a fraction of what’s in the games. Take the universe, and tell us a DIFFERENT story. Picking one of the main characters and tell us what happened before the events of the game (A movie about Captain Kirrahe and the STG? I’d watch that). Or take one of them and show what happened in those 2 years while Shep was dead (A movie with Tali as the star maybe?).
Will never happen, I know, but I can dream 😛
There’s already an animated movie based on Mass Effect. It’s a prequel for ME3, looking at a previous mission by James Vega, the marine who hacks around in the ship hangar.
That actually fits what you’re asking for pretty closely.
It’s not great, but it’s not terrible either. I’ve certainly seen worse game-to-movie conversions.
Yeah I’ve seen it, it was an okay diversion. What I mean is something along those lines but with a character that ME fans care about more (Vega was alright, but his history wasn’t that interesting. He was a military dude doing military stuff *shrug*), like Garrus when he’s Archangel or something like that.
You’re right though, it did match up pretty close to what I described. But getting a more first-hand look into some of the alien societies, like Tali’s people, would be more interesting than a focus on a human military story ImO.
Tell us the story of Garrus while he is Archangel
I really think Alan Wake would work well. The good thing is, anyone who remembers the gameplay knows it sucked a little. Only has the story to live up to.
I think one based on Assasins Creed 2 could work well as well, but I think you would have to almost ignore Desmond completely. I like the Desmond storyline, but not sure how well it will translate to a movie.
I really enjoyed the gameplay of Alan wake…I think it would make a great movie.
Ghostbusters : The Video Game
Yeah they should really make that into a franchise and use actors like Bill Murray, and Dan Akroyd Those guys would be fantastic!
LA Noire would make a good TV miniseries like a few of those UK ones eg. State of Play.
On a standard movie, my gut says something like Dragon Age in the style of Kingdom of Heaven.
But is there that much point in a movie based on something that’s already very cinematic like Uncharted, Heavy Raid, Metal Gear Solid, etc movie? You could stitch cutscenes from most of them into a movie.
Personally I want Fable The Animated Series. A moderately adult (or childish, depending on how you feel towards fart jokes) 14 episode animated series set a few hundred years before the first game.
A series based on the fable universe could be pretty cool
I think something like that was done for LEGO Batman 2. There is a LEGO Batman movie which is literally the cut scenes from the game stitched together
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the movie you’re talking about but I’ve got no idea how close it is to the game. My copy of LEGO Batman 2 is still sitting unplayed on top of my XBOX (it’s been the next game on my list for a long time). From what I remember it wasn’t too wildly incoherent and there were proper action scenes and stuff that I’d expect to be playable, so I’m guessing there was a reasonable amount of new content made for the movie.
Mass effect, Assassins creed, Metal Gear.
I think they would be fantastic movies, IF they stuck to the lore of the game, Not some half assed re imagined version from a director/script writers that knows nothing of the franchise.
This is my Petpev with Super hero movies. Directors think we want to see their version, NO! I wanna see the comic come to life.
But why? You’ve already seen that movie.
Wouldn’t you much rather pay to see an entirely new story?
Dan, The problem at the moment is the people who write the scripts/directors/Producers/actors are not people who know anything about the Lore of the franchise, They have heard of some of it thought, Hey I like that, but what if this was to happen, without actually doing any research into it, play the games or at least having a huge fan explaining things.
i would be open to Original scripts if they followed the Lore or at least got the nod from the Author/Producer/Fans of the franchise.
Case in point – Dragon evolution – A massive shit. Even the creator Akira Toriyama said it was nothing to do with him after fox ignored his advise on the making of the movie.
I’d actually like to see a Metal Gear movie.
Not MGS, but the original Metal Gear. Doesn’t need a game, just a movie to cover the story.
Bonus points: Do it in a semi-cheesey 80’s style (Escape from LA) to match the influences of the original game.
I don’t even play the damn game but I’d have to acknowledge that Star-Craft would be a pretty boss movie.
Already done – it’s called Starship Troopers. Best damn love story of the 90s!
My vote goes to Pong. Just coz. 🙂
The Fallout Series would make for great tv series in the vane of GoT, the same goes for Warcraft and Starcraft if they use the universe
For something fan made but pretty well done…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout:_Nuka_Break
😛
GoldenEye!
But seriously, I want to see a StarCraft movie just based on the cinematic cutscenes from Starcraft 2. Or a Diablo movie.
I’d also love to see a Warcraft movie based on Lord of the Clans. The game was never released, so there’s much more room to take artistic license without pissing off the fans, and it’s using one of the series’ most iconic characters (Thrall). I believe the new movie is looking at the medivh / lothar angle, but I personally think Thrall’s story would be more compelling.
Other than Blizzard… Deus Ex would also make a great movie. I’d also love to see just a completely balls-to-the-walls over-the-top movie based on BulletStorm.
The Witcher with a proper AAA production would work. Surprised no big Cable studio grabbed it after GoT got so huge.
Mass Effect is a no-brainer too.
But just to mix it up I’d like to see the entire film shot through the eyes of Shepard, so the viewer becomes Shepard much like the player was through the customisation of the character. The first-person view would be a refined version of the found-footage style, ditching the shaky-cam and using space-opera type cinematography instead.
There already was a TV show back in 2002. It’s in Polish (since they are Polish books). I’m pretty sure I watched them as a kid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hexer_%28TV_series%29
I doubt that the Witcher movie would be popular in a post GOT world though. I feel like it’s a missed opportunity.
Ha I just posted this suggestion, must have been at the exact same time…….great minds and all that jazz.
Didn’t the Doom movie have lots of action scenes shot from the first person perspective?
And also, didn’t it suck dead bears in swamp water?
or maybe one scene that last 2 minutes?
“This one thing did X and was bad, so all things that do X will be bad.” Classic, narrow-minded gamer logic.
This is why I posed the question. I genuinely did not know. I had heard there were lots of FP Perspective scenes… now you say it was one 2 min sequence. I am therefore better informed. Also… did the movie NOT suck ?
I watched it because I like crappy C-movies, was presently surprised by the quality.
It was on par with most sci-fi movies (the ones without big name actors). Good camerawork, no overblown CG and for the most part it played like a good story, if a little shallow.
The one FP scene I laughed my ass off. It was out of place; just there to let the gamers know this is still DOOM.
I saw the picture at a glance (the thumbnail sized one) and it looked roughly like the movie poster for Star wars episode 1 with young Anakin walking in the sand, then I tied that with the movie franchise and thought any movie based around a star wars videogame is kind of strange given the universe extended from the movies. I assume it is a Nathan drake pose though?
Tomb Raider was from a video game adaptation and I liked those.
I haven’t really played any of those big budget games (Uncharted, assassins creed, mass effect etc.) as my gaming extends to Wii (U) and SNES.
But I would be intreagued by a chronotrigger storyline, An anime movie though rather than live action as you can have a lot more creative flair with art pieces while still holding to the storyline in an animated movie better than restrictions of live action.
Basically anything from the Warhammer 40K universe would make a great movie. I know it’s not technically “from a game” but you didn’t specify it had to be a video game =)
GW already has so many excellent books. There’s so much lore and history and the special effects would be unreal. Needs someone who’s not Michael Bay to make it great though. And would require a huge amount of effort, time and money that I doubt GW would want to contribute.
The Horus Heresy alone could provide a saga that would rival Star Wars. Perhaps it’s the similarity with human history, myths, legends and other sci-fi that makes it undesirable for a mass audience??
For a video game answer… perhaps Bioshock? Deus Ex is right up there too, but possible not unique enough. Great game but fairly common sci-fi subject matter.
+1 to the horus heresy sooo much in there from the main story with the primachs being corrupted to the siege of terra to the side stories with erebus and his schemes
Always thought that the Devil May Cry series would make a great movie…
I’ve always thought that the witcher universe is ripe for the picking. It has pre established characters, a backlist of stories (via novels) to draw upon and lends itself to the Hollywood CGI craze with epic monster battles. Even if they left Geralt alone and made a new character in the same universe just for the big screen (and possible game tie ins once Geralts storey has concluded) I am not sure if they have had any polish movies made about it/set in the universe, but it seems ripe for the money bag stuffing to me.
A xenoblade adap 4-part film series in the style of the lord of the rings could be great..
Space Quest 🙂 Any of the old Sierra/LucasArts adventures would be awesome. Read years ago about a Grim Fandango movie potentially being made, that would be awesome.
Here’s an interesting observation. Not too long ago I was telling someone how some games are much better than movies with really good stories like Max Payne 3, Tomb Raider and some others. The friend then followed this up by asking what were the stories. I could not explain more than the thinnest of basic premises. I couldn’t remember any detail of the story the same way I could about a movie or tv series I had just seen.
The Modern Warfare games, can anyone describe the plot of those three games? They’re big, cinematic, the single player is largely driven by a story.
So here’s the thing while a good story can make a game great, game play is what makes most games good. Often it’s just using story telling tools and dramatic cinematic moments and dialogue to sweep us into the action and game. We’re all kind of fooling ourselves when we go, ‘this would make a good movie.’ I think lots of elements are getting there, story telling is getting better, the voice acting and animation definitely is. The end of the day though, they are not films.
Game developers have to stop thinking they are making movies. Just incorporate movie elements, story, acting and so forth into games. We’ve all played a boring ass game to play where you can tell who ever wrote the game was really trying to write an action movie. Game play comes second.
So I really think to make a good game into a movie, we need to take the basic premise and then let talented film makers run with it. As well as not being afraid to make changes. They can’t get lazy and rest on the game. I have made some comments in a couple of posts but I will restate some.
Max Payne as a movie sucked because they cast the character wrong, the story of the film was boring and the chore game play characteristics of bullet time and action was missing. The story was changed, but probably was about as strong as the original game, but it needed to be stronger. The game play was a key aspect to the game, especially in the first more than the third. So that did need to be represented more than one lame gun fight.
I personally think Prince of Persia got the approach right. That could have been an adaption of any property, not just a game. It didn’t feel tied down to a video game, it was just a big entertaining, well made action adventure film.
I quite like the Assassin Creed games and would love to see a film. Some of the videos Ubisoft have made have been quite good. The film however needs the budget. Here’s the thing, the Animus works in a game but would be stupid in a film. People will check out when it’s just a lame matrix and nothing is real. You can’t put a, ‘if you die in there, you die in real life’ thing. So there is a core obstacle with the game and what you’d need in a movie. So they need to just get rid of game elements that can’t translate unless they think of a clever way. Something you’d write for a film not for a game. I personally think ditch the future stuff. Then when it comes to free roaming, parkor stuff. This works in CGI trailers but will be dumb as hell in a historical setting if people are doing parkor. So encorporate a roof top chase, show some skills, have some scaling stuff, all fine. Just don’t then have a cgi character doing gymnastics across roof tops because it’ll look like the game. Focus on the story and the character. Don’t go silly like you can naturally do in a video game. Adapt it like it is a short story, a comic book or something. Don’t try and literally translate and make changes for the better.
The fact you can’t remember the plot of some games is hardly evidence that game plots/stories are thinner than movie plots. Sure, the game is principally about the action but the plot of Modern Warfare for instance is that there’s an ultranationalist movement in Russian which has resulted in a civil war that is on the brink of tipping from conventional to full-scale nuclear. That’s only the briefest overview but I’ve seen war movies with much thinner premises, many of them based on actual historical actions such as the Battle of Midway or Hamburger Hill.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of the Max Payne movie. I don’t blame you for not remembering the story of MP3, though. The writing and plot were terrible, and regularly at odds with the gameplay.
I think that part of the problem with game stories is that they’re always stretched to breaking point by the insistence on making a game 20+ hours. TV series go that long too, but they’re a bunch of little stories with an over-arching plot. Games for the most part tell just a single story, and often one that would be flat out rejected if it were submitted as a movie script.
Wolfenstein: New Order
My personal opinion has been that pretty much any game with a developed universe can be successfully made into a movie, it’s just that film makers insist on trying to translate the game itself into a movie. If you instead focus on what isn’t shown in the game, or a character’s back story then you should have all you need to create a movie that doesn’t screw with the pre-conceptions someone who knows the game inside and out has. There are quite a few game universes that have novels and comics written in them, so it really can’t be that hard for film makers to do the same…
Naughty Dog games. Oh wait, they already are.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is so different from whats at cinemas and has a good story and style that could well translate to film.
I kind of feel you could create a DEHR trailer by combining shots from Blade Runner, Total Recall reboot and Minority Report and putting a yellow filter over the top of it all. Just saying, it’s not THAT different.
You wouldnt need to make a trailer for it the games normal trailer is the best game trailer ive ever seen its perfect for a movie
Eh, a handful of movies over several decades isn’t exactly a cliche though.
Castlevania!
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. I am pitching a heist/crime thriller with a chase across the world, stolen artifacts and a shady behind the scenes organisation employing CS to do their dirty work lest they out her to the authorities. Twist being that she actually works for the government and is leaving obscure clues to her whereabouts to lead them to both her, and her controllers capture before pulling an elaborate escape at the end and cold cutting to credits.
There have been two quiz shows and an animated series based on Carmen Sandiego, and supposedly there’s a movie in the works starring Jennifer Lopez.
Man… I loved that cartoon when I was a kid. I know that doesn’t really add a lot to this discussion, but I wanted to thank you for reminding me it existed 🙂
I just want to see how someone can steal the Mason-Dixon line.
Mafia……. first one mostly, though the second one could also work
OMG Someone make the Halo movie already!
As @cffndncr mentioned, a movie based on the first Diablo could work but only if the bulk of the film consisted of the backstory. Leoric coming to Tristram, Lazurus freeing Diablo, the possession attempts, The Darkening of Tristram, the war with Westmarch, Lachdanan slaying the king and so on. The stuff from the game should probably only be the last third or so of the film.
Dino Crisis, Parasite Eve, Abes Oddessy, Perfect Dark
Loom.
I think it’d be great. That or the Dig.
You, I like you.
I would like to see Day of the tecticle 🙂
Am I the only one that read that as ‘day of the testicle’?
I’m a bad speller, no autocorrecting function here 🙂
Superman 64 – Of fog and frost. Mister freeze takes on superman and seeks to obscure his vision by fogging up metropolis before trying to take over the world, or something
And he disables this weather machine by… flying through rings, I guess?
Can Neil Blomkamp -please- do a Halo feature film already? Can’t think of anyone more suited for it.
Kingdom Hearts
Far Cry 3. It had a pretty cool premise and story, and the original Far Cry movie sucked.
The Dig \o/
I reckon if people enjoyed Moon they’d go nuts for the Dig.
Dwarf Fortress. I find the characters very relatable.
Final Fantasy X – trilogy??
Blast Corps by Michale Bay…..oh wait….
Kingdom Hearts
Chronotrigger
Mechwarrior 2
Crusader No Remorse
I reckon the Fallout Series would make a great movie, or movies. Especially New Vegas and Fallout 3.
Skyrim or Morrowind would be awesome too.
You didn’t miss much – a movie with plenty of plot holes and questionable actions (like why do they fist fight instead of using blades like one of the bots, or why not use proper projectiles, or why not just wait at the gate and kill them when they appear instead of waiting for them to run rampant on earth?)
Double Dragon
Not a movie, but The Witcher should be made into a TV series I think 😀
Fallout TV series would be amazing, and a full hour and a half long, SFM Team Fortress 2 movie would be a sight to behold!!