Is this the way all films are going? No more original story lines, just stealing already established narratives from successful computer games? Strengthening a franchise or boring audiences?
Come with me as I investigate how it began and where it is presently.
Computer games have been around for nearly 30 years. Starting out on large wooden arcade machines they were quickly developed to be used within the home. The first ever computer game was Pong (1972,) a simple tennis like system that was very popular at its time. The interest in these games from the public was very high and manufacturers placed a lot of money in developing them, making them bigger and better.
Pong was followed by classics such as Centipede (1980) and Pac-Man (1980), but soon died out when consoles like the Commodore 64, the home console, was released. This gave the public the ability to play games in the comfort of their own homes.
Since this pioneering technology consoles have leaped from generation to generation breaking new ground with graphics, sound and game play.
After the successful release of the Nintendo consoles and its hit game Super Mario Bros. Hollywood saw the potential of these characters and stories and began its venture into transferring games into films.
In 1993 the first ever film to be based on a computer game was released. Super Mario Bros. starred Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as the hapless plumbers/superheroes.
The story was very different to the game itself, the writers creating such a place as Dinohattan, a parallel universe where dinosaurs evolved into humans (seriously!) as opposed to apes evolving into humans.
Dennis Hopper was the evil King Bowser of the Koopas and other characters such as Princess Peach and Toad appeared.
The film stunned the public when released and created a lot of curiosity about how the game could have been transferred. Unfortunately for the producers the film was a major flop. The amount of wrongs certainly outweighed the rights. For starters Danny DeVito was clearly the best choice for Mario. Don't get me wrong Bob Hoskins is a great actor, but a bad choice for him. Also where was Luigi's mustache, it's the minor differences that can make or break a film. But we can't have a go at the makers, they tried something that had never been done before and failed. This would be the point where you would think, "okay, if we do this again let"s try and keep it as close to the source material as possible'. But they didn't
One year later another group of producers attempted to do what Super Mario Bros. couldn't. This time the concept was taken from the hugely successful Street Fighter (1994).
The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme (No surprise there), Raul Julia and strangely Kylie Minogue, certainly a strange choice. In my view apart from Raul Julia she's one of the high points of the film.
It was again another flop, it seemed making a film from a game was a clear risk and should never be attempted again, although Raul Julia gave a fantastic performance as Bison, unfortunately Julia died just after the film was completed. Not a good note to go on.
Exactly one year later Paul W. S. Anderson adapted the Street Fighter copy Mortal Kombat (1995), it seems he saw the potential and was hoping it would do better. In a way it did, becoming the most successful video game adaptation to date.
Eight years had passed and once again someone new was ready to step up to the jinxed podium of game to film and have a stab at it, or in this case stab it…to death.
That man was (regrettably!) Paul W. S. Anderson …again! The game was another hugely successful story, even more so than Mario and Street Fighter.
Resident Evil (2002) stunned audiences with its engaging game play and creepy storyline. Everything about the game was perfect and didn't need adjusting in anyway.
The film was rather successful, but still was not considered a decent adaptation. Hyped up to be one of the greatest game to film adaptations ever, people were soon struck down after witnessing what Paul. W. S. Anderson had done. The story was drastically adjusted and popular characters were removed. However it did gain two sequels both considered average RE: Apocalypse and RE: Extinction (2004, 2007). This could've been a one off for Anderson until Alien vs. Predator (2004) was released and we all began thinking "Is he doing this on purpose?"
He may claim he loves games and think they have interesting concepts and fantastic stories, but bear in mind that's only fifty percent, the rest is game play. The one thing that can't really be put into film, otherwise it would be a game. So if you change that concept or story you're pretty much screwed.
I'm sure by now everybody must have heard of Uwe Boll, if you haven't consider yourself one of the luckiest people alive. I must admit I have not seen any one of his films, the reason being the trailers actually put me off.
For those of you who don't know Uwe Boll is renowned for making the worst game to film adaptations, his tainted resume consists of House of the Dead(2003) Alone in the Dark (2005), Dungeon Siege (2008), Far Cry (2008) and Postal (2008).
I'm not sure whether I should mention the Tomb Raider films (2001, 2003), I mean everyone agrees they weren't very good, they were pretty bad. Saying that though Angelina Jolie was the perfect choice for Lara Croft and so I feel as though that balances out the bad points
Then out of the mist came a man, a man who believed he could eliminate game to film sceptics and make them believe again. Christophe Gans was prepared to take on the game to film concept with a different type of game, Silent Hill (2006). The game has a main focus on story and horror and Gans managed to keep true to the idea, yet much of the story was converted to accommodate a female lead rather than a male starring in the game. The horror was there with a good, yet sometimes confusing narrative. The film did well becoming more successful than previous tries, but still did not do as well as expected.
Recently we've seen Hitman (2007,) many a review were negative and so it's clear some games don't make good films. Maybe it's like books; they say the worst books make the best films.
By looking at the films and the stages they have gone through it's clear producers are understanding that if you stay true to the game the film succeeds. Don't get me wrong though, I love games and I love films and I would love for them to make a film from a game that is just as good as the source material, but it seems Hollywood just can't do that.
