What is the correct way to make a game into a film?

Rotation Advertisements

We hope you enjoy your visit to this forum.

If you are reading this then it means you are currently browsing the forum as a guest, we don’t limit any of the content posted from guests however if you join, you will have the ability to join the discussions! We are always happy to see new faces at this forum and we would like to hear your opinion, so why not register now? It doesn’t take long and you can get posting right away.

Click here to Register!

If you are having difficulties validating your account please email us at admin@dbzf.co.uk

If you're already a member please log in to your account:

What is the correct way to make a game into a film?
Tweet Topic Started: Mar 18 2014, 12:42 AM (219 Views)
+ Pelador	Mar 18 2014, 12:42 AM Post #1
Crazy Awesome Legend Posts: 25,663 Group: Legend Member #4,634 Joined: December 12, 2009 Gender Not Specified Country None Favourite Anime HunterxHunter What Browser do you use? Firefox Favourite Manga Dragonball	Obviously this will sometimes depend on the game you are basing the film off of but is there generally a correct way to translate a game into a film? I think so. I think modern film is now advanced enough to produce film adaptations to an acceptable standard. Whereas even as recently as the mid 1990s, the resources to faithfully recreate video game worlds just weren't there. As such you wound up with half assed attempts like Street Fighter and Super Mario Bros. I'm not saying that those films definitely would have been better had they had today's technology. The scripts and acting need to be a certain standard too. However what I am saying is that now there aren't too many excuses left for a bad game film. So now we have better special effects and film making techniques at your disposal. How do we utilise that to it's fullest? First of all we need to look at the style of games. Super Mario Bros tried to recreate the world of Mario as live action. Real people with prosthetic makeup and large sets. I don't believe that can ever work, not even today. The game is too cartoony, the characters designs are too surreal. Instead we would need to go down the route of 3D animation. This is the only way we can faithfully recreate the vibrancy and the surrealism of the Mushroom Kingdom. We now have a style for our adaptation. It looks very pretty but we obviously need more than that. So next comes story. Arguably one of the most tricky parts of bringing a game to the big screen. Here's how I would do it. Since the first game never gave us much more than rescue the princess from a fire breathing dragon, I think that's a perfectly reasonable place to start. It's pretty much the basis for most heroic epics after all. In fact we barely even need to add anything more. We don't need to give Mario or the Mushroom Kingdom an origin story. That can be saved for another time if the film ends up being a success. Instead all we need is a reason for Bowser to kidnap Peach and for Mario to rescue her. What's Bowser's goal? What would Mario lose if he didn't help? This is where you need a good script. It fills in the blanks of the overall plot. Most if not all of the dialogue should come from side characters. Not Mario. Keep him voiced by Charles Martinet but keep it as limited as the games. The only people explaining what's going on should be the inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom who Mario is interacting with. So it's actually quite simple to make Mario into a watchable film. Make it animated, use the same old plots that all the games follow and keep Mario's speech minimalist. If you do these things then you're more than half way there. With decent animation and a simple story, it shouldn't be that difficult.
	http://www.youtube.com/user/jonjits


+ Steve	Mar 18 2014, 01:18 AM Post #2
Greetings. I will be your waifu this season. Posts: 19,471 Group: Legend Member #5,710 Joined: February 7, 2011 Gender Male Country United Kingdom Favourite Anime Hunter x Hunter(2011) What Browser do you use? Mozilla Firefox Favourite Manga Berserk all day erry day	The main thing I would say is unless it's animated, loosely base it off the game don't try make it identical just create the world as it would look in real life and just have familiar characters and references, nods to fans of the game/games but at the same time keeping it interesting for people who aren't fans. I think the first 3 Resident Evil movies were probably some of the best game-to-movie adaptations just they got a bit nonsensical, for me I think Alice being this crazy psychic superhuman woman is all that's really wrong with Them. It's just kind of derailed and stopped making any kind of sense now. Don't screw with the origins of characters too much either, if it's a little unbelievable like Goku coming in on a space pod and hitting his head change that. Don't go changing the character completely making him some semi-regular school kid who's not the lovable dumb Goku we all know. Tomb Raider, DOOM and Silent Hill are another few good ones though Tomb Raider uses Angelina's sex appeal a bit too much, they take basic elements from the games and build upon them in a different way. It would be kind of boring watching an exact adaption of a game where they follow the main mission of the game you've played countless times in the exact same way.
	Definitely not a succubus, fear not


+ Pelador	Mar 18 2014, 01:28 AM Post #3
Crazy Awesome Legend Posts: 25,663 Group: Legend Member #4,634 Joined: December 12, 2009 Gender Not Specified Country None Favourite Anime HunterxHunter What Browser do you use? Firefox Favourite Manga Dragonball	I agree. Changing the characters is one of the main reasons film adaptations are generally terrible. Look at Street Fighter. They made Guile the main character but instead of an American Pilot he's a Belgian guy with terrible acting.
	http://www.youtube.com/user/jonjits


0 users reading this topic

Free Forums. Reliable service with over 8 years of experience. Learn More · Register Now
« Previous Topic · Television and Films · Next Topic »