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Whilst perusing the net looking for the latest movie news, I happened to find a link to the upcoming House of the Dead movie (http://www.house-of-the-dead.com/). Yup, for anyone who didn’t already know, Sega’s plot-light action-heavy light gun game has been turned into an action/horror movie, and it looks…well…hmm...I’ll reserve judgement for the time being.
So there I am, I go to the website, see good potential when I arrive in the form of pictures and icons akin to old style zombies from Italian zombie movies of yesteryear, but then, I read the plot synopsis and watch the trailer…it doesn’t look terrible, but time will tell.
In basic terms, completely ignoring the games settings and cynically pulling in fans of the game by calling it ‘The House of the Dead’, a group of young college kids go to a Halloween rave on a remote island. They arrive late and find the island deserted but find a slavering hoard of zombies ready to chow down on their pretty young flesh. Cue lots of dumb action and even an overused seen-it-before Matrix bullet time effect together with an atmosphere-killing rawk soundtrack.
It looks gory and action packed, with plenty of slobbering brain munchers, but, and it is a big but, Jurgen Prochnow, renowned for being in rubbish films, is in it playing a boat captain named Victor Kirk (captain Kirk). It’s potentially more teen horror rubbish, but *hopefully* it’ll be the decent zombie film fans have been waiting for…
The current flock of video game based movies are just not faithful enough to the original source material, or are based on dumb games that have no decent plot or characters (why so many movies based on beat ‘em ups?) It makes financial sense for games companies to flog their franchises, though, as a movie version of their game might attract more money, followers and attention to their games, and it’s also nice for fans to see their favourite games turned into big-screen films. Well, it would be nice if they weren’t all rubbish. Plus, game-based films also have a built in fanbase already, so movie bosses think they’re guaranteed fans of the film if they buy a successful game franchise.
So could The House of the Dead actually be quite a good movie based on a video game? Well if it is then it’ll be a first that’s for sure. The list of video game based movies reads like a who’s who of terrible movies.
So far we have:
The good(ish):
Final Fantasy: jaw dropping CG animated movie let down by a barmy plot, it proved too complicated for the average Joe and became the biggest movie flop of all time, costing a dozen king’s ransoms (about $137m) to make and only grossed about twenty quid. I quite liked it, and it had the voice of the ever-cool James Woods in it, but it didn’t receive great reviews.
Resident Evil: pretty good zombie movie but not faithful enough to the game, it had some good horror moments but that silly bullet-time jump was out of place. Again, though I thought it was OK, it didn’t receive great reviews.
Plus we have quite a few video game based anime movies such as Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Tekken, Toshinden and of course, the many Pokemon movies (being an anime fan, I quite liked the Pokemon movies…I’ll get me coat.) Whilst those few mentioned may not be the best anime movies about, they’re better and more faithful to the games than the equivalent Hollywood attempts. I’d love to see anime movie versions of Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid.
The bad:
Mortal Kombat: Yet another movie based on a beat ‘em up, it’s mindless dumb rubbish based on a mindless overly violent game with the strangely accented Christopher Lambert as Raiden.
Double Dragon: I’ve never seen it and I never want to see it. Its very existence is an insult to us all.
Tomb Raider: Another blatant cash-in riding on the wave of Lara Croft mania (which never really existed in the first place), plus we have a sequel coming soon. I can hardly contain my excitement.
The downright ugly:
Super Mario Bros: Bob Hoskins as Mario and Dennis Hopper as Koopa *shakes head*. It’s nothing like the games whatsoever; it’s a disgusting abhorrent cash-in that reeks of badness. Why oh why was it ever given the green light? A lapse in concentration by Nintendo methinks.
Street Fighter: *shudder* Jean-Claude Van Damme as a beret wearing Guile, Kylie Minogue trying to act, a whole host of other SFII characters looking nothing like their video game counterparts, plus Ken and Ryu as a couple of goofy surfer dude types. The film even spawned Street Fighter The Movie, the game of the film of the game!
Wing Commander: Freddy Prinze Junior is in it, ‘nuff said, plus we have the ubiquitous Jurgen Prochnow making an appearance.
The Wizard: not based on a game I know, but pretty much a game based movie. We have Fred ‘the boy from The Wonder Years’ Savage going to a video game championship. The result is a poor film that’s basically one long advert for Nintendo, which I guess is OK in my book.
The future: with video games now a massive mainstream industry, with games having life-like visuals, cinematic atmosphere, camerawork and music, games undoubtedly resemble films more and more and yet conversely, films are beginning to look increasingly like video games. It will probably be only a matter of time before movie executives in need of refreshing plot ideas rely more and more on games to get their new movies. Games like Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Eternal Darkness, Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, Timesplitters etc would be ideal candidates. Whilst those few mentioned are yet to be tainted with poor film incarnations, there are a few more games being/rumoured to be made into movies:
Crazy Taxi: another plot-light action-heavy game, and it’s being turned into a movie. God help us.
Duke Nukem: the chief alien butt kicker of the galaxy has potential as a movie star, hopefully if it ever happens we’ll see an over the top action flick with Arnie as Duke (but I bet the part goes to Vin Diesel).
Doom: stuck in development hell for the last 50 years, if it’s ever made could end up being just like Ghosts From Mars? Probably.
Alone in the Dark: According to Digitiser, the rights have been bought to turn this creepy adventure series into a movie. What’s the betting it’s just another teen slasher flick.
Plus there are a few unconfirmed movies to come:
‘Shenmue: The Movie’, starring Ben Affleck as Ryo Hazuki. However, in a Hollywood change, the setting has been changed from 80s Hong Kong and Japan to 21st century New York. Ryo searches for his father’s killer whilst getting a job stacking crates, fights lots of sailors, plays old arcade machines and collects little plastic toys.
Rez: a Tron style movie sees Tom Cruise going into a psychedelic CG cyber wonderland of music and having a crazy adventure.
The Sims: cashing in on the Sims craze, this is the ordinary life of a rich American household who do nothing interesting. One day they catch a burglar and another they have to unblock the toilet. John Woo is to direct.
Tetris: a gang of good-looking teens and a cute puppy get trapped in a computer and must play a giant game of Tetris to save themselves. The typical cold-hearted cynical tough guy teen dies at the end of the movie when he saves the puppy from a falling Tetris block. Freddie Prinze Junior is to star as the hero.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Brad Pitt takes the lead as the spiky blue hedgehog who gets accidentally transported to modern-day San Francisco. When there he meets up with a bullied kid, they get in all kinds of hi-speed hi-jinks and shenanigans together, and in the end the bullied kid earns the respect of his classmates by saving the day with the help of Sonic. Rik Waller stars as Dr. Robotnik.
Wipeout: The Fast & The Furious + Rollerball + Wipeout the game = Wipeout the Movie.
A few years ago I had a tiny bit of excitement in the potential of some video games to movies, namely Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil, as I felt both would work well as they had the right movie-like feel. Resident Evil would have been great had George ‘king of the zombie movie’ Romero directed a creepy/eerie/tension filled zombie movie, in keeping with the games ‘ haunted house’ style ethics. However, we later had a dumb action movie no-brainer that just didn’t live up to my expectations and hopes. Basically, games and their fans have been let down far too often with below par movies that don’t do justice to their gaming equivalents, and I’m now hoping they don’t ever make a MGS movie as it will undoubtedly reek of naffness. Besides, seeing as games are becoming more cinematic these days, we don’t really need them made into movies anyway really.
All this begs the question; will we ever see a decent movie based on a game? Probably not, so if there happen to be any Hollywood producers reading, please, don’t keep churning out this cinematic bum juice and besmirching the good name of video games, either make decent game-based movies or don’t bother making them at all you cash-in money-hungry suits.
The House of the Dead opens sometime in 2003, whether its any good remains to be seen…
So there I am, I go to the website, see good potential when I arrive in the form of pictures and icons akin to old style zombies from Italian zombie movies of yesteryear, but then, I read the plot synopsis and watch the trailer…it doesn’t look terrible, but time will tell.
In basic terms, completely ignoring the games settings and cynically pulling in fans of the game by calling it ‘The House of the Dead’, a group of young college kids go to a Halloween rave on a remote island. They arrive late and find the island deserted but find a slavering hoard of zombies ready to chow down on their pretty young flesh. Cue lots of dumb action and even an overused seen-it-before Matrix bullet time effect together with an atmosphere-killing rawk soundtrack.
It looks gory and action packed, with plenty of slobbering brain munchers, but, and it is a big but, Jurgen Prochnow, renowned for being in rubbish films, is in it playing a boat captain named Victor Kirk (captain Kirk). It’s potentially more teen horror rubbish, but *hopefully* it’ll be the decent zombie film fans have been waiting for…
The current flock of video game based movies are just not faithful enough to the original source material, or are based on dumb games that have no decent plot or characters (why so many movies based on beat ‘em ups?) It makes financial sense for games companies to flog their franchises, though, as a movie version of their game might attract more money, followers and attention to their games, and it’s also nice for fans to see their favourite games turned into big-screen films. Well, it would be nice if they weren’t all rubbish. Plus, game-based films also have a built in fanbase already, so movie bosses think they’re guaranteed fans of the film if they buy a successful game franchise.
So could The House of the Dead actually be quite a good movie based on a video game? Well if it is then it’ll be a first that’s for sure. The list of video game based movies reads like a who’s who of terrible movies.
So far we have:
The good(ish):
Final Fantasy: jaw dropping CG animated movie let down by a barmy plot, it proved too complicated for the average Joe and became the biggest movie flop of all time, costing a dozen king’s ransoms (about $137m) to make and only grossed about twenty quid. I quite liked it, and it had the voice of the ever-cool James Woods in it, but it didn’t receive great reviews.
Resident Evil: pretty good zombie movie but not faithful enough to the game, it had some good horror moments but that silly bullet-time jump was out of place. Again, though I thought it was OK, it didn’t receive great reviews.
Plus we have quite a few video game based anime movies such as Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Tekken, Toshinden and of course, the many Pokemon movies (being an anime fan, I quite liked the Pokemon movies…I’ll get me coat.) Whilst those few mentioned may not be the best anime movies about, they’re better and more faithful to the games than the equivalent Hollywood attempts. I’d love to see anime movie versions of Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid.
The bad:
Mortal Kombat: Yet another movie based on a beat ‘em up, it’s mindless dumb rubbish based on a mindless overly violent game with the strangely accented Christopher Lambert as Raiden.
Double Dragon: I’ve never seen it and I never want to see it. Its very existence is an insult to us all.
Tomb Raider: Another blatant cash-in riding on the wave of Lara Croft mania (which never really existed in the first place), plus we have a sequel coming soon. I can hardly contain my excitement.
The downright ugly:
Super Mario Bros: Bob Hoskins as Mario and Dennis Hopper as Koopa *shakes head*. It’s nothing like the games whatsoever; it’s a disgusting abhorrent cash-in that reeks of badness. Why oh why was it ever given the green light? A lapse in concentration by Nintendo methinks.
Street Fighter: *shudder* Jean-Claude Van Damme as a beret wearing Guile, Kylie Minogue trying to act, a whole host of other SFII characters looking nothing like their video game counterparts, plus Ken and Ryu as a couple of goofy surfer dude types. The film even spawned Street Fighter The Movie, the game of the film of the game!
Wing Commander: Freddy Prinze Junior is in it, ‘nuff said, plus we have the ubiquitous Jurgen Prochnow making an appearance.
The Wizard: not based on a game I know, but pretty much a game based movie. We have Fred ‘the boy from The Wonder Years’ Savage going to a video game championship. The result is a poor film that’s basically one long advert for Nintendo, which I guess is OK in my book.
The future: with video games now a massive mainstream industry, with games having life-like visuals, cinematic atmosphere, camerawork and music, games undoubtedly resemble films more and more and yet conversely, films are beginning to look increasingly like video games. It will probably be only a matter of time before movie executives in need of refreshing plot ideas rely more and more on games to get their new movies. Games like Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Eternal Darkness, Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, Timesplitters etc would be ideal candidates. Whilst those few mentioned are yet to be tainted with poor film incarnations, there are a few more games being/rumoured to be made into movies:
Crazy Taxi: another plot-light action-heavy game, and it’s being turned into a movie. God help us.
Duke Nukem: the chief alien butt kicker of the galaxy has potential as a movie star, hopefully if it ever happens we’ll see an over the top action flick with Arnie as Duke (but I bet the part goes to Vin Diesel).
Doom: stuck in development hell for the last 50 years, if it’s ever made could end up being just like Ghosts From Mars? Probably.
Alone in the Dark: According to Digitiser, the rights have been bought to turn this creepy adventure series into a movie. What’s the betting it’s just another teen slasher flick.
Plus there are a few unconfirmed movies to come:
‘Shenmue: The Movie’, starring Ben Affleck as Ryo Hazuki. However, in a Hollywood change, the setting has been changed from 80s Hong Kong and Japan to 21st century New York. Ryo searches for his father’s killer whilst getting a job stacking crates, fights lots of sailors, plays old arcade machines and collects little plastic toys.
Rez: a Tron style movie sees Tom Cruise going into a psychedelic CG cyber wonderland of music and having a crazy adventure.
The Sims: cashing in on the Sims craze, this is the ordinary life of a rich American household who do nothing interesting. One day they catch a burglar and another they have to unblock the toilet. John Woo is to direct.
Tetris: a gang of good-looking teens and a cute puppy get trapped in a computer and must play a giant game of Tetris to save themselves. The typical cold-hearted cynical tough guy teen dies at the end of the movie when he saves the puppy from a falling Tetris block. Freddie Prinze Junior is to star as the hero.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Brad Pitt takes the lead as the spiky blue hedgehog who gets accidentally transported to modern-day San Francisco. When there he meets up with a bullied kid, they get in all kinds of hi-speed hi-jinks and shenanigans together, and in the end the bullied kid earns the respect of his classmates by saving the day with the help of Sonic. Rik Waller stars as Dr. Robotnik.
Wipeout: The Fast & The Furious + Rollerball + Wipeout the game = Wipeout the Movie.
A few years ago I had a tiny bit of excitement in the potential of some video games to movies, namely Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil, as I felt both would work well as they had the right movie-like feel. Resident Evil would have been great had George ‘king of the zombie movie’ Romero directed a creepy/eerie/tension filled zombie movie, in keeping with the games ‘ haunted house’ style ethics. However, we later had a dumb action movie no-brainer that just didn’t live up to my expectations and hopes. Basically, games and their fans have been let down far too often with below par movies that don’t do justice to their gaming equivalents, and I’m now hoping they don’t ever make a MGS movie as it will undoubtedly reek of naffness. Besides, seeing as games are becoming more cinematic these days, we don’t really need them made into movies anyway really.
All this begs the question; will we ever see a decent movie based on a game? Probably not, so if there happen to be any Hollywood producers reading, please, don’t keep churning out this cinematic bum juice and besmirching the good name of video games, either make decent game-based movies or don’t bother making them at all you cash-in money-hungry suits.
The House of the Dead opens sometime in 2003, whether its any good remains to be seen…
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They should make an Eternal Darkness movie, with the huge plot etc, it'd be quite difficult to mess up, in my opinion that is.
Following on from this post we now have this from comingsoon.net:
"Metroid Game Film Rights Picked Up
Variety reports that Zide/Perry Entertainment has acquired the feature rights to video game franchise Metroid. Producers Warren Zide and Craig Perry, who've produced both the "American Pie" and "Final Destination" franchises, are currently going out to writers and directors to adapt the property, to which no talent is attached as yet.
The story is set in a once peaceful galaxy, which has its prosperity shattered by a startling discovery: On a routine mapping expedition of a planet, a survey crew discovers a new airborne life form -- the Metroid. Able to engulf other living beings, feed on their energy, and multiply in great numbers, they prove a terrifying menace. Female bounty hunter Samus Aran is commissioned by the Galactic Federation to eliminate the pests, but she soon discovers that pirates with a stolen Metroid specimen are plotting to breed an build an unstoppable army."
Sounds good, but time will tell...
"Metroid Game Film Rights Picked Up
Variety reports that Zide/Perry Entertainment has acquired the feature rights to video game franchise Metroid. Producers Warren Zide and Craig Perry, who've produced both the "American Pie" and "Final Destination" franchises, are currently going out to writers and directors to adapt the property, to which no talent is attached as yet.
The story is set in a once peaceful galaxy, which has its prosperity shattered by a startling discovery: On a routine mapping expedition of a planet, a survey crew discovers a new airborne life form -- the Metroid. Able to engulf other living beings, feed on their energy, and multiply in great numbers, they prove a terrifying menace. Female bounty hunter Samus Aran is commissioned by the Galactic Federation to eliminate the pests, but she soon discovers that pirates with a stolen Metroid specimen are plotting to breed an build an unstoppable army."
Sounds good, but time will tell...
why not instead watch ingame movies :)
heres an example :-
http://www.deathace.net/marauder/dof/Descendants_[DivX].avi
And
http://prolog.ai.pjwstk.edu.pl/
~mseweryn/expLOSIV/sYs-yavor.Travel-T2movie.zip
^^ have to cut and paste link together because of maximum letters without spaces rule for forum
Also need divX codec to run it and suggest playing the travel movie in winamp 3 its got a cool colour flip thing going on.
much more satisfying than a crap version of a movie, take a good game and make a movie out of it but beware its broadband friendly only as its 187 mbytes and around 30 mins at 90 kbs
If this interests you let me know there are many more near professional movies like this.
heres an example :-
http://www.deathace.net/marauder/dof/Descendants_[DivX].avi
And
http://prolog.ai.pjwstk.edu.pl/
~mseweryn/expLOSIV/sYs-yavor.Travel-T2movie.zip
^^ have to cut and paste link together because of maximum letters without spaces rule for forum
Also need divX codec to run it and suggest playing the travel movie in winamp 3 its got a cool colour flip thing going on.
much more satisfying than a crap version of a movie, take a good game and make a movie out of it but beware its broadband friendly only as its 187 mbytes and around 30 mins at 90 kbs
If this interests you let me know there are many more near professional movies like this.
ÂLŠ†ÂÎR wrote:
> Yes, it was released before the games and it is a free gift on all
> orders of Shenmue 2 for the Xbox in America and Japan. If you can find
> it as a standalone film then please let me know, however I have
> searched the internet and the only place that I found it was on Ebay
> as an addition when Shenmue 2 (US) was purchased at the same time.
That sounds a lot like the original Shenmue game from the Dreamcast, which is being packed with Shenmue II on the X-Box in DVD form to show people the first-few chapters from the series that you get to play on the DC.
It's titled: `Shenmue: The Movie`.
> Yes, it was released before the games and it is a free gift on all
> orders of Shenmue 2 for the Xbox in America and Japan. If you can find
> it as a standalone film then please let me know, however I have
> searched the internet and the only place that I found it was on Ebay
> as an addition when Shenmue 2 (US) was purchased at the same time.
That sounds a lot like the original Shenmue game from the Dreamcast, which is being packed with Shenmue II on the X-Box in DVD form to show people the first-few chapters from the series that you get to play on the DC.
It's titled: `Shenmue: The Movie`.
Yes, it was released before the games and it is a free gift on all orders of Shenmue 2 for the Xbox in America and Japan. If you can find it as a standalone film then please let me know, however I have searched the internet and the only place that I found it was on Ebay as an addition when Shenmue 2 (US) was purchased at the same time.
Not sure what it is like as I haven't seen it, however it did win many awards in Japan when it was first released.
Not sure what it is like as I haven't seen it, however it did win many awards in Japan when it was first released.
ÂLŠ†ÂÎR wrote:
"The Shenmue film won a lot of awards in Japan but its quite a hard film to find."
You mean there actually WAS a Shenmue film???!! :o
Tell me more...
"The Shenmue film won a lot of awards in Japan but its quite a hard film to find."
You mean there actually WAS a Shenmue film???!! :o
Tell me more...
The Shenmue series should have been films anyway
due to their lack of 'gameplay', 'excitement' and 'intersting things to do'
due to their lack of 'gameplay', 'excitement' and 'intersting things to do'
I haven't been a great fan of the X-men beat'em ups, but I thought the film was very good!
The new X-men game is supposed to be terrible though, but that's not going to stop me from seeing X-men 2. (which comes out sometime soon this year)
What I'm waiting for though (and I'm sure most people are) is the Matrix game. That was such a good film and the game hasn't arrived yet, even after three whole years. Two Matrix films have been anounced for a 2003 release, but seriously, no games developer could go wrong with this game. Well, they better not!
Good post, BTW!
The new X-men game is supposed to be terrible though, but that's not going to stop me from seeing X-men 2. (which comes out sometime soon this year)
What I'm waiting for though (and I'm sure most people are) is the Matrix game. That was such a good film and the game hasn't arrived yet, even after three whole years. Two Matrix films have been anounced for a 2003 release, but seriously, no games developer could go wrong with this game. Well, they better not!
Good post, BTW!
I hope you mentioned 'Goldeneye' to be a great game, I didn't read the post.
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