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Is the Age of Bad Video Game Movies Finally Over?

Is the Age of Bad Video Game Movies Finally Over?

Everybody “knows” that game movies are bad, but why is that? Most of them are bad because of low budgets, inaccuracy to the source video game, a lack of innovative adaptation to film, and superficially portrayed characters. The increasing popularity of games might be changing that, however, providing larger budgets and higher-quality direction to the films. Hopefully the new Warcraft, Assassin’s Creed , and Mortal Kombat movies will take history into account and not make the same mistakes.

So far, films that have more or less succeeded in their conversion from video games will never win any Oscars, but they pave the way for improvement. One such film is Halo: Fall of the Reach, based on the Halo prequel novel of the same title by Eric Nylund. Perhaps the film’s merit lies in the source material being a book rather than a video game, but still, Halo: Fall of the Reach is almost entirely accurate to the characters, appearance, and lore of the game series. Dr. Catherine Halsey is a reoccurring character in the Halo games, and she looks and acts exactly as she should in the movie. The animation of each of the characters is certainly familiar to the game, along with scenery and technology. The origin of the Spartans, Dr. Hasley herself, and the Covenant are certainly quite accurate. The movie’s tale is told in a believable and logical manner, lending to a coherent narrative throughout. That narrative could have been executed more smoothly, however, and used less exposition. It was often difficult to decipher who was telling the story and why they were telling it instead of the main character, John, or Hasley. Nonetheless, the film presents a main character clearly in John, and even allows experiences to change him as the entire story unfolds.

That being said, bad film adaptations of video games are easy to come up with. An iconic example is the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie, directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel. Though this movie does not commit the sin of excessive narration, the story could not be further from the source material. Instead of the usual story of rescuing Princess Peach from the evil Bowser, Super Mario Bros. introduces a parallel universe and curiously “evolved” dinosaurs. Creating a unique universe based on the Super Mario Bros. game is all well and good, but this 1993 film makes a spectacular mess of this. The “evolved” dinosaurs replace the game’s enemies, mainly the Goombas and Bowser. This is not explained in a plausible manner at all; the audience is told and expected to believe it without any real explanation. To add to the strange story, there is also a King and he had been so “devolved” by Bowser’s weapon that he turned into fungus. There isn’t much more context than that. Furthermore, the characters of Mario and Lugi do not reflect their video game counterparts and are equally flat and superficial. Needless to say, the movie bears no resemblance to the video game.

Is the Age of Bad Video Game Movies Finally Over?

Despite Super Mario Bros. being such a horrendous example in video game movies, there is redemption in movies like Halo: Fall of the Reach . Movie adaptations of video games do not have to be bad. Furthermore, with video games becoming more and more cinematic, the cutscene compilations on YouTube are nearly films themselves. Thus, it should be easier to adapt video games to movies, especially with the upcoming Warcraft, Assassin’s Creed , and Mortal Kombat movies. Let’s hope they turn out more like Fall of the Reach and less like Super Mario Bros .

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