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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."
Watch it John! He'll challenge you to a boxing match!
Speaking of John Rhys Davies and games, he was the narrator for Sierra's Quest for Glory 4, one of the best adventure games ever. His deep, slightly creepy voice really added to the murky atmosphere of Mordavia. Too bad no one cares to make a movie out of QFG.
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...really nailed this one: comic.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
How does this guy get anyone to take him seriously?
I saw trailers for Dungeon Siege and wondered how something like that could get a greenlight, and then I find out its Uwe Boll's project, and for a while it makes an eerie kind of sense.
But now that I think about it, it doesn't make sense. How does he still get a studio to pay him anything?
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Just because the structure of a game and the structure of a movie doesn't mean all video game movies are crap. There have been some successful ones, after all.
No, the reason a lot of video game movies flop is because a lot of them are made by Uwe Boll, who is a complete and utter retard.
Dear John,
Your talent dwarfs your competition. You were the bomb in "Sliders", so I'll kindly look the other way whilst you make some bankage.
Keep on truckin'!
Sincerely,
Jesterboy
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.
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!
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Ignoring that they tend to use terrible writers, I can't help but wonder if they are just choosing the wrong games.
Mario doesn't really have a story, so it's not that surprising that it was hard to make a good movie out of that. Games like the Final Fantasy games or Mass Effect have good stories, but they would lose too much if you cut it down to even the length of a long film (2.5 hours).
What you need to do is set it in the universe. The Resident Evil movies got that part right. There is no reason those couldn't have been made into good movies. Get good writers, it could have worked.
Portal would be interesting. It has a great character, interesting special effects, but it's too short. You might be able to make an interesting mini-movie out of it (say a half-hour TV show?). I don't think you'd be able to make a decent length film (1.5 hours) out of what's there.
You could expand it. Start with a little of the back story of Aperture Science (maybe show the introduction as a new employee comes in?) As things go on you could see the guy work on GlaDOS a little and her development and as the tests on previous subjects. You move on to GlaDOS doing what she did and then finally Chell and her attempt to escape. Basically GlaDOS is the main character of the movie. I could see it working, but keeping that great dark humor balance as well as the creepiness balance through the whole movie would be an incredible challenge. I don't know how you'd fit in the description of the portal device ("man-sized ad-hoc quantum tunnel through physical space with possible applications as a shower curtain") without breaking any sense of reality. Since part of the mood of Portal comes from having no idea what is going on, the script would be a real departure in some ways which would make it even more challenging. I think we all know that GlaDOS could be the next HAL easily. HAL didn't have cake.
Set a movie in the world of Ivalice (from FF: Tactics/XII). Maybe something set in the Ratchet & Clank universe. Heck, make one of the Phoenix Wright cases into a comedy/drama. There are options.
Instead, producers find the biggest game they can (let's take GTA), then conceive a movie that fits in (a gangster plot!), then make it fit in more (we'll have him not own a car, he'll just take them when he needs one), then beat it with a bad script stick ("You can't tell me what to do, I've already committed Grand Theft Auto..."), then add some flashy effects (everything blows up, lots of blood) and there is nothing to differentiate the movie from any other bad formulaic summer movie except there is a video game's name on it.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I hate to rain on your parade, but while John Rhys-Davies is great, he's not nearly enough to offset the giant suckig sound that is Uwe Boll. 100% guaranteed Dungeon Siege is going to be awful.
Who else didn't think that the DS movie was still in progress?
I hoped it had gotten dropped. Is that the same thing?
Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, while not universally liked (some hate one, some hate the other, some like both, some hate both), were successful enough.
The Resident Evil movies make money.
Silent Hill was generally well-accepted, even by critics.
These movies are all far from good IMO (though Street Fighter does have a hilarious Raul Julia as M.Bison), but they were successful as far as I know.
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And honestly, for brainless mind numbing I was bored and there was nothing to do movie, that I went into with 0 expectations, it was not half bad. Granted there were a good dozen of so movies I could have gone to see, but going alone while wife is at work.. would result in a serious drop in my life expectancy.. okay maybe not that bad.. but plenty of nagging.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
A movie is interesting because the protagonist screws up at some point.
... 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.
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
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
There's no reason whatsoever why a game can't be made into a movie. The problem isn't the medium at all it's the writing and directing. Uwe Boll's movies are crap for the simple reason that he's inept. Chances are that any movie he'd make would be bad regardless of the source material.
That aside, let's take any story-driven game. Regardless of how a player is allowed to complete the game a fairly linear story is told. Mass Effect, Halo 3, Bioshock, Half Life 2 all provide straight-forward stories. How the story is told may differ from a movie, but otherwise there's a progression to the plot that is essentially the same as most movies and novels. A setting is established, a conflict is presented, there's a gradual buildup, a climax and resolution.
Really, the only games that are difficult to base a game on are those with randomly generated content and perhaps MMOs. However, even with MMOs there's generally a rich enough setting and back story that a creative writer has plenty to work with.
If anything I'd argue it's easier to base a movie on a game than a novel. Remove the gameplay and enough story is provided to easily fit a standard-length movie. I'd argue it's far more difficult to effectively condense a 300+ page novel into a two hour film.
The challenge in basing a movie on a game is the often weak and generic source material. Also, often just enough content is provided to meet the needs of the game essentially forcing a movie writer to expand on it. But again, it goes back to creativity and skill. A great writer and director could make a movie based on anything with compelling results. Of course, once a movie studio gets involved all that goes out the window. But again, the problem isn't the medium.