John Rhys-Davies Notes The Pitfalls of Game Movies

Veteran actor John Rhys-Davies sat down with GameDaily Biz to talk about his role in Uwe Boll's latest failure of a movie, 'Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King'. Davies is surprisingly candid about his interest in the role, and pretty much nails the numerous problems of making film adaptations of games. "One or two may succeed, and I hope this is one of them, but the structure of a game is completely unlike the structure of a film. And it shows the despair of the studios and producers that these movies even get a look at. If we had good writing, it would not happen. I think that right at the moment, the film industry in Hollywood is in a crisis because we have successfully excluded young and able talent for so long that now there is nothing left."

Comments

Re:Uwe Boll?

[Have Blue]

He's using literally the same trick as in The Producers. There's a loophole in Germany's tax laws that allows him to come out ahead while making terrible movies on tiny budgets.

Wing Commander

[DarthBender]

I loved him as Paladin in Wing Commander III and IV. Of course I am biased because I LOVED Wing Commander III and IV. So for such a prolific actor/voice actor I will absolutely listen to his opinions. Aside from his most famous roles, I respect him as a prolific actor. Like Christopher Walken, he takes many many roles, and executes all of them so incredibly brilliantly.

Here's what I don't understand

[sesshomaru]

Here's what I don't understand. You're Uwe Boll. You've gotten fabulously rich with a simple formula, buying the names of somewhat popular video games, and then slapping them on whatever vaguely connected movie you feel like making. Ok, so far, so good eh?

But for this movie, you don't even use the title of the videogame for the title of the movie, you just put it in the subtitle. So the movie isn't even called "Dungeon Seige" it's called "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale." I mean, partly I think he's hoping that someone's Mom, on hearing her son wants "Return of the King" for Christmas, will accidentally buy "In the Name of the King" instead. In that case, though, why bother with paying for a Dungeon Seige license?

It's a puzzle that must be solved!

Polar Opposites

[dazedNconfuzed]

A movie is interesting because the protagonist screws up at some point.
A game is interesting because the protagonist (you) must never screw up.

"Romeo and Juliet" the play/movie is interesting because the characters make tragic mistakes and suffer horribly.
"Romeo and Juliet" the game would suck precisely because they would all live happily ever after.

"Doom" the game was cool because you ran around killing monsters, and tried repeatedly in difficult scenarios until you overcame the scenario.
"Doom" the movie sucked because watching someone else playing a game perfectly for 2 hours is enormously dull so the scriptwriter threw in unrelated "and the protagonist screwed up" material.

Some may counter by tweaking game rules so that "correct" behavior includes "screwups"; no, "screwing up" means failing to exercise "correct" behavior (whatever the system defines that as).
Some may counter by inserting "and then something horrible happens" moments in a game; no, the tragedy comes from the protagonist messing up, not by Demonos Ex Machina events being thrust upon him.

People want to hear stories about how someone else screwed up (regardless of whether they overcame the screwup in the end).
People want to do things correctly and successfully.
Implementing these to cross-purposes is not interesting ... but Ewe Boll has made a bundle from our deeply-ingrained erroneous expectation that if something is fun to do then it _must_ be fun to watch.

Re:Polar Opposites

[naoursla]

As a counter point, the film theory I've encountered says that film narratives are interesting when the protagonist goes through an emotional change. The plot of the movie exists only to distract you from this emotional change so that the change doesn't seem droll.

Many games have slim to none emotional arc. That is okay. There is nothing wrong with an action game like Doom not having much of a story. But when you make it into a movie, you need to add an emotional arc.

Some games do have emotional arcs. They are usually preplanned scripts though -- sort of like a movie. I don't think I've seen any games where the player is actually a participant in creating the emotional arc.

The emotional change does not occur because the protagonist messes up. Instead he is operating effectively in his world when suddenly the rug is pulled out from under him in some way. Suddenly, the way he operates no longer works the way it used to. He has to find a new way in this new world. I think that principle could work very well in a game.

One of the past Ultima games (six maybe?) started by asking you questions that sorted the "virtues" in the game according to what was most important to you -- the player. It made you choose between scenarions like: "Would you rather turn a friend into the police or allow a crime to go unpunished." I would like to see a game that gives you choices like that so that the game can build a profile of your personality (within the context of the game). Then it would set up scenarios that use emotional attachments to game characters to challenge and attempt to change aspects of that profile.

Re:Uwe Boll?

[SatanicPuppy]

I don't know if you read this article today on Reuters...But I'm afraid they have closed that loophole now.

If you hate Boll, read the article, it's like hot cocoa for the mind. He's pretty much done, as far as wide distribution goes.

Re:Wrong Games

[MeanderingMind]

Portal could work as a movie, but it would be a very different movie than the game.

Part of the game's excellent story came from the fact that you were the lab rat. You could watch GlaDOS peering at you, waiting for you to complete an objective before voicing her sarcasm laden approval of your success.

Another part of the game's excellence is how it was about learning. You had to continually learn how to use this nifty device you were given. This was, of course, backed up by the lab rat atmosphere.

How do you translate these things into a movie?

The answer: You can't, directly. At best you can indirectly translate the game by putting a similar character into the same situation, and somehow compel the audience to feel involved as that character runs around solving the mystery. That is to say, something that would be very, very easy to screw up.

And that points to something about all games, they don't have to involve their audience in the same way movies do. The audience for games already wants to be involved, by default you have something every Hollywood film dreams of. You lose that something the instant you translate back.