8 Reasons They Haven’t Made a Great Video Game Movie

And it’s not for lack of talent.

I get mild amusement out of using the word “they” to imply that everyone working in Hollywood is responsible for any shortcoming in the film industry, but it just makes things easier.

In light of Assassin’s Creed being an absolute disappointment despite the talent involved, here’s why I think “they” haven’t made a great video game movie yet, and how they can curb the incessant trend of spewing out head-scratching garbage based on immersive, obsession-inducing masterpieces.

Too Much Care Put into Staying True to the Franchise

This is the number one problem, so we have to start here. For one thing, the games they’re choosing are hugely popular, meaning most of the people lining up to see it will be familiar with the logic behind the game.

Focus on the story, and then fill in some blanks here and there, but making Assassin’s Creed a 140-minute movie is absolutely ridiculous. They shouldn’t be explaining the background to that extent given the countless number of hours people have already spent understanding the franchise.

I’d say keep it to two hours, maximum, but even that was too much to bite off for 2016’s Warcraft.

Also, why is it always basically a retelling of the same umbrella story? Zero in on a single adventure and go with it, don’t try and tackle the full scope of something that people spend hundreds of hours on. You won’t be able to do it, so why try?

Refusal to Make Movies About More Obscure Games

When I say, “more obscure,” I don’t mean games your typical gamer hasn’t played. I mean games most people with new consoles haven’t spent the time on, and there are plenty. Rather than Assassin’s Creed, Warcraft, Super Mario, or Tomb Raider, I’d like to see a Fallout movie styled like Children of Men (2006).

Or, screw it, going incredibly obscure might even be the answer, like doing a Dead Head Fred movie. Headless detective puts on various zombie heads for special abilities in his quest to take down a crime boss? That movie would be, at a minimum, worth watching.

Movies About Video Games Rather Than Video Gaming

Movies about video gaming or that have video gaming as a major element seem to leave the storyteller open to actually telling their own story. A great idea popped into their head, they wrote it out, they developed it, and it was made into the likes of Wreck-It Ralph (2012) or WarGames (1983). Rather than force creative people to come up with something based on someone else’s idea while staying true to that other person’s idea, let’s just let gaming culture craft its own stories. Please?

Medieval Time Fantasies are Normally Awful

Obviously, exceptions exist (LotR), but more often than not, if you make a movie that takes place in ancient or medieval times with fantasy elements, it’s not going to be a good movie. In fact, it’s more than likely going to be an over-bloated, desert-heavy monster movie with a ripped actor who’s trying to segue from small screen to big. Medieval fantasy video games, on the other hand, are considered some of the best games ever made, from Fable and God of War to…well, Assassin’s Creed and Warcraft. Unfortunately, they just do not translate into a quality flick.

Having Too Many Characters

Unless you’re Marvel doing The Avengers or movies within the Avengers storyline, do not put all these major characters into one movie. Seeing more than four recognizable characters in one plot is almost always sounding the death knell.

I was thinking that a revamp of Mortal Kombat with today’s unbelievable martial arts special effects could be awesome, but then I remembered how it’s next to impossible to have a great movie when each character gets about five minutes of background and characterization while the universe, for whatever reason, needs full fleshing out.

By the 135-minute mark, you realize that was over two hours of precious life you’re never getting back.

The Halo Movie?

I don’t know what my point is here, and largely speaking, this is pure speculation, but we know that District 9 (2009) was intended to be a Halo movie. Because of lack of funding, it turned into a wonderful science fiction film up there with the best of the best of the genre.

The question is: would it have sucked if it had been a movie about Master Chief killing aliens rather than a marvelous allegory about refugees, racism, nationalism, and all the other underlying meanings you can pull? Again, pure speculation…but almost certainly. It just validates the idea that forcing something from something else for the money rather than cultivating and encouraging originality clearly consumes quality and creativity.

Hollywood’s View of Video Gamers

They look at you and see dollar signs ($$$,$$$,$$$$). They see the number of people who buy the video game, who discuss the video game online, who buy the game’s merchandise, and they see CHA-CHING in big, neon, Dirk Diggler letters. They don’t see the high-brow, sophisticated, enthusiastic-for-quality individuals that make up a large percentage of the video gaming community.

These gamers know crap when they see it, which is why they steer clear of video games based on movies, and gag when they see Tinsel Town bigwigs treat something they love dearly like it’s a penis pill ad on a porn site (seems promising, but click, and you’ll regret it.)

Curse of the Bam-Pixels

It could very well just be the implication of creating a good movie based on a video game that’s the problem.

As a director, screenwriter, producer, and whomever else is generally responsible for the outcome of a picture, it can’t be easy taking on a project that’s historically destined to fail, nor can it be easy to win a World Series with eight decades hanging over your head. That being said, the Red Sox did it, and the Cubs sure as hell did it and then some, so it stands to reason that the world’s most creative cinematic minds, all converged into one city, can someday pull it off.

It’s just starting to feel like we might be waiting a solid eight decades, and no movie has made that reality clearer than the jaw-dropping piece of Adam Sandler garbage known as Pixels (2015).

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