Why Video Game Movies Struggle to Succeed

You are listening to a GeekCast Radio Podcast.

Thank you for joining us on this week's Off the

Cuff. I am your host, Michael Bufinger -Powers,

and this week I am sitting opposite TFG1 Mike.

How are you doing? Hello. I am all right. It's

good to hear, sir. It's tiring dealing with people.

Yeah. Especially upstairs neighbors who... Lock

their dog in the second bedroom, which is right

above my mom's bedroom and the damn thing wines

for 12 and a half hours every Sunday That's unfortunate.

Yeah so for those that are just tuning in this

is the third episode of the Refreshed off the

cuff basically. I'm every week. I'm gonna try

and sit down opposite a different host some people

might end up repeating themselves eventually

but going to play more a little closer to the

namesake of Off the Cuff and have a completely

random topic to talk about. So with that and

these this little side thing will stop eventually

as I get farther into the episodes. But with

that aside, Mike, what would you like to talk

about this week? Well, you know, you guys ingrained

yourself as a video game podcast, so I kind of

wanted to wing it back around to that and I thought

hmm what can I talk about that I haven't talked

about or that we haven't really brought up over

the network six years being online and you guys

being with us for a majority of that and I figured

hey they've never talked about video game movies

and how badly they fail true true Basically,

my idea for the topic is for us to discuss why

a good video game movie can't be made. I'm curious,

what is your criteria for a good video game movie?

Because I saw the link that you sent me earlier

today, and I was going over it and Yeah, some

of them start off like pretty I was just looking

at the box office sales right some of them Pretty

abysmally, but there's some that actually stand

out as what could be considered a mild box office

success right, but but no means like Well, I

don't mean financially. Yes, some of these movies,

and we'll mention some of them here in a minute,

but some of the movies have made a decent amount

of money. But I'm talking about the overall why

a video game film plot cannot be written well.

in most cases. Now, there are some films that

are on this list that I enjoy, not just because

of nostalgia or anything like that. That's part

of it, but it's like a really small part, but

it's just seeing the game in some sort of form.

I would say, even though the movies probably

aren't that great, I would say that Lara Croft's

two films kind of really emulate what her overall

game... Premises for the most part. She's an

adventurer that travels the world. I mean, it's

kind of hard not to screw that up Well, right.

That's one of the ones I was gonna for me. I

Don't know. I like some of these I do have a

guilty pleasure with some of these one of them

is the Resident Evil franchise I enjoy that Of

the video game movies I've seen, I've not really

like walked out going, well that was a crappy

movie. They're not good by any stretch of the

imagination, but I always find them fun. But

I find the better ones tend to be the movies

that don't retell something that a video game

already did. Right. So like Resident Evil went

off in their own direction, sure they borrow

like characters and stuff from... the show or

from the from the video games, but I not being

a real big Resident Evil fan. The films have

never bothered me like they do some other people.

And I think that I think that same thing worked

with Lara Croft, like they didn't pick one of

her games to remake as a movie. They just were

they just told an adventure story and slept the

Lara Croft logo on it and made the main it made

the main protagonist, Angelina Jolie. so according

to this the first video game film released at

least here in North America anyway was Super

Mario Brothers in 1993 now I know everybody's

like oh my god Super Mario Brothers it's the

worst movie ever and granted financially it it

didn't do well because it didn't make its budget

back but I still enjoy that movie. I'm afraid

the downfall of Super Mario Bros. wasn't coming

out after Jurassic Park. It's the same month,

I think. Yeah, that could be. I don't know. I

look back on that movie and the only thing...

Well, it came out in 93, so yeah. Sorry, Jurassic

Park came out after. Oh, Jurassic Park was 94,

yeah. Jurassic Park was 93, but it was June.

Oh, okay. Okay, yeah. I think with Super Mario

Bros. there are several things that I don't really

care for about it, but overall I enjoy it. One

thing is, John Leguizamo as Luigi and how they

characterized him and how they tried to make

him and Daisy have the plot line, of course,

you know, whatever, but I just, I'm not a big

fan of that guy as an actor. I thought Bob Hoskins

was fine as Mario. The one thing that really

made me mad was they tried to shoehorn in Yoshi,

because Super Mario World was hugely popular

at this point, and plus, I think, you can probably

correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't All -Stars out

by now? You know, I don't know. And as far as

the movie goes, I'm not super. I have actually

seen it. You've never seen Super Mario Brothers?

No, I know the cast and I've listened to podcasts

and read various things about it, but I have

never actually seen the movie myself. Wow. I

count myself lucky. All right. Well, for anybody

who hasn't seen it like Mike, and I know Mike

doesn't care about this. I know probably the

rest of the podcasting world doesn't care about

this. I'm going to go ahead and spoil it for

you because it's really, it's a, it's a nothing

plot. I mean, it's not anything, you know, it

wasn't written by Joss Wheaton for crap sake.

They take the basic gist of the Mushroom Kingdom

being taken over by Koopa, but they put in this

whole de -evolve, evolve kind of thing where

Koopa played by Dennis Hopper wants to de -evolve

into this Tyrannosaurus Rex looking creature.

It's basically they took Super Mario Brothers

and instead of having Koopa be some sort of dinosaur

obviously because you need an on -screen actor

they Made him a human and then they brought in

these Jurassic Park Prototypes, I don't know

if that I know that's not true But it's only

I can describe them as like Yoshi looks like

something you would see in Jurassic Park He does

not look like the cuddly green thing you see

in the Super Mario World game And they have these

whole two things with the worlds merging with

Mushroom Kingdom and in or in our world merging

together and they have Koopa has turned Daisy's

father the king into fungus and there's fun it's

The more and more I talk about it the more and

more I talk myself out of how good it or how

much I enjoyed it but I know there's a huge backlash

to everybody on on this movie and The one thing

that really makes it for me is when they put

in the video game References or like they use

part of the the original Mario Brothers theme

And I love the action in it, but by no means

is it a movie that has a plot that makes any

sense Okay, so That aside are there like I know

you said you you you enjoy you mildly enjoy Super

Mario Brothers are there any other like Are you

like proud and almost all video game movies or

do you know something you actually enjoy? Oh,

yeah, there's plenty of them that I enjoy it

just It's more so my perception of what everybody

else on the internet says of oh my god They're

doing this and they screwed it up or oh my god.

Oh, I can't believe they're doing this and oh,

it's gonna suck So bad. I don't care what anybody

says it was his last role But Rao Julia as M

Bison, I thought that was perfect casting in

Street Fighter and I really liked Street Fighter.

I thought they did an excellent job with that.

Double Dragon on the other hand was a little

weird. That one I could do without. See the first

video game movies I saw was Mortal Kombat. And

Annihilation. I don't remember seeing Annihilation.

I've seen Annihilation, but I remember seeing

it in the theater. And I remember trying to watch

Annihilation a couple months ago, and I had to

shut it off in the first five minutes. I saw

Mortal Kombat in the theater, and I almost went

to jail. Because up in Massachusetts, the town

mall that we had had the movie theater in it.

I wanted the soundtrack to go with it. I wanted

the Mortal Kombat, the album is what they call

it. And I went in there and dirt poor 15 year

old and next thing I know, I'm nearly getting

ready to get into the back of a squad car because

I shoplifted the discs. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah,

so Mortal Kombat I nearly went to jail for the

Mortal Kombat music Mortal Kombat Annihilation

it is a bad movie, but I like seeing the characters

in it that that was one of the things about certain

video game movies is how are they going to incorporate

the characters and They screw up a lot of them,

but I think a lot of them really work because

up to that point I had played Mortal Kombat 1

2 & 3 I think 3 was out by then wasn't it? 97

yeah the thing is that the thing is with most

of these it's like yeah they try to capitalize

on the popularity of something whether or not

it translates directly into a good movie or not

I think that's also a problem with some of these

like how do you I mean I know they put fighting

game stories in a game but those are essentially

like you know a reason for you to get on this

2d plane and fight the next guy on the ladder

to the top and I don't know that that stuff like

translates very well to the screen because I

know like some of the subplots and stuff like

that was like atrocious and the just the the

whole like okay you guys have a grudge against

the or you know the f like Sonya being like a

special forces person like trying to track down

Kano and he gets sucked into this tournament

thing like that just sounds ridiculous Sonya

was much better in the first film she really

sucked ass in the second film though That's that's

one thing I'll say about annihilation is that

Sonya was just Because she was too busy mourning

over Johnny's death and they hadn't really even

done anything in the first movie I don't even

think they kissed in the first movie But yeah

looking at the list though Other than those ones

the rest of them. There's a lot of them. I haven't

seen but like Resident Evil it's too gory for

me. I just can't handle that franchise. Like

the Final Fantasy, The Spirits Within, that was

just too ambitious for its time. Yes, it was.

I feel like that got bogged down and I say this

a lot and I said this on an AGU, which will now

be like several, like almost a month ago from

when this is out. But I feel like this is another

movie that was done in by its title. Because

the Final Fantasy means that people are expecting

to see certain things and as far as I know this

movie had very few of those things and it was

very expensive to make and I think if it was

just called the spirits within it probably would

have done a little better and just had been like,

you know Squaresoft's first movie, but I don't

know, I feel like there was a turn, to me there

was a turning point. I remember being really

excited for like Tomb Raider, but again, that

was just, you know, make an action adventure

movie and slap a girl in there. And Resident

Evil was just a, you know, yeah, they were capitalizing

on the whole Resident Evil franchise, but they

kind of, they more or less made their own character,

told their own story. Now there's a couple of

others like Alone in the Dark, Blood Reign. Okay,

House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Blood Reign,

and Postal, all made by the same guy. Also, In

the Name of the King, which has three sequels

now, which aren't listed on this. Apparently

they spun it off as a non -video game franchise.

That it, you know, it's all made by the same

guy, and those ones kind of were like the down...

Those were kind of more reminiscent of like the

earlier stuff that we were just talking about,

like the Mortal Kombat, the Double Dragons and

stuff like that. Whereas you had higher profile

ones like Lara Croft, Resident Evil, even Doom

was, I mean, Doom was alright to me until you

got to like the last 10 minutes and they do the

first person shooter thing, which I don't think

anyone was ready for. And because Doom was essentially

like a first person game, it came off as like

very gimmicky. I Know people are gonna criticize

me for this because I know that no one enjoyed

this movie except for me, but I Have been waiting

since the 90s for them to make a Need for Speed

film I like Need for Speed because that okay.

Oh you excluded then I Know you like the franchise.

I don't know how you feel about the film. Um,

well see to me that was like one of those I originally

kind of questioned, how do you make a Need for

Speed movie, especially when the game, depending

on which one you get, it's just a various genre

of a car against cops. And essentially, you just

have to do what I was talking about, which is

just make a movie about cars and put the Need

for Speed logo on it. And they did that. And

I view the film starring Aaron Paul, I view that

film As a film version of the original 2005 most

wanted game Because they basically did that same

kind of story there's no real There's no real

multiple racing in it, I mean it it's not like

they're having street races all over town and

you know Vin Diesel needs to you know iron giant

everybody Uh, it's not like that at all. It's

basically you have this, this one race to help

this, this mechanic in his, in his guys, basically

get on the map with, you know, their shop and

whatever else. And of course the bad guy is a

rival and, you know, he basically sets them up.

And then you have this cross country thing where

they have to clear their names. It's. It was

interesting. I think the most shocking thing

out of that movie. is Batman. Oh, Michael Keane

was great. No, he was great. Absolutely. No,

I agree. I'm not saying he was bad. I'm just

saying like having like seeing him in there and

just where he is at his age now and his vocal

tones, it's like, oh, wow, Batman really got

old, but he sounds great. What I thought was

really so great about the Need for Speed movie

is they got the cars and the locations perfectly.

If you look at any of the games, look at more

of the less of the circuit, like don't look at

Need for Speed Pro Street or any of that crap.

I'm not a fan of those versions of the game.

Just look at any of like the most wanted or the

hot pursuits or any of that kind of thing like

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, the original Hot

Pursuit 2, that had amazing location visuals.

And this film does as well. And I wish people

that like the franchise would get on board with

the film a little bit more, but to each their

own. Well, $203 million is not a bad turnout.

And you're also getting a sequel. Oh, I didn't

know that. It's coming. It's being made by, well,

because it did so well overseas, the foreign

investors in the film have optioned it for a

second movie. So it'll get made for theatrical

release, like, overseas. Whether or not it gets

a theatrical run over here is decided whether

or not a distributor decides to pick it up. But

it could just get a direct to... DVD yeah video

release over here, but if there is a sequel that's

being in its in development No, there's real

no other news other than that Yeah, but the the

other thing I notice here and this could be as

the list as we get like closer like modern -day

stuff the the box office results for these movies

Get you know continue to increase and I wonder

how much of that is because video games have

become More mainstream in the last 10 years.

Yeah, like it's it's kind of now you now you

can put these Because you know the Call of Duty's

and stuff like that the Assassin's Creed's they

they make as much if not more than movies do

on Their release and so that means there's a

market out there for people that want to see

that now Sure, you could put out like a Call

of Duty or Assassin's Creed movie, which Assassin's

Creed is coming in 2016 Mm -hmm, but it's it's

one of those things where will that same audience

turn out I mean even if they turn out for the

first weekend, you're probably guaranteed some

kind of a Moderate success. I think I think what's

gonna be telling is if Warcraft can pull it off

Because out of the upcoming ones and the and

the soonest one that's got name recognition for

it is Warcraft and they've got a massive following

Well, I mean Everybody knows Hitman. I mean,

everybody that is a first -person shooter gamer

probably knows Hitman. And that first movie wasn't

horrible. No, but it wasn't as the audience wasn't

there. Yeah, that's true. And I don't know what

they're going to be doing with Agent 47. I enjoyed

the first Hitman. I'll check this one out. But

I haven't played one of those games in at least

10 years. I used to love playing those games.

I know its popularity has spiked recently because

of the last Hitman game. So this is in the last

Hitman game, I think hit the widest market possibly

could have. So I think you'll see a different

result with this one. Plus the kind of like comics

have come into their own video games have come

into their own and. So I think you can get they're

getting better people to take a look at these

projects. I think it's going to be interesting

on a lot of these upcoming movies is to see how

they're going to do. You already mentioned Assassin's

Creed and Warcraft Uncharted as well, supposedly

2016. Oh, man. According to this, they have Warcraft

and Uncharted coming out on the same day. How's

that? That's not going to happen. Yeah, I know.

They'll move that. The other reason it's not

gonna have is because Uncharted hasn't even started

yet and Warcraft is almost done. The one film

on here that really perplexes me is Angry Birds.

Don't get me wrong, I love the franchise. I've

played almost all the games. I love watching

their little tune things they have online and

all that stuff, but... Angry Birds as an actual

film, I can't see that working. Wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait. I can get behind Angry Birds before

I can get behind Cut the Rope. Next thing you

know, we're gonna have a Fruit Ninja. I mean,

it's crazy. Other ones on here that... Tempted

and interested like with Metal Gear Solid. That's

easy. It's military -based I mean they should

have made a Metal Gear Solid film ten years ago

except this one's gonna be one of the one that

they're gonna have a problem with this one even

if it even gets made anymore, but the thing is

like are they gonna retell like a game from the

story or are they gonna take like are they gonna

make basically like another game, but as a movie

like like if they're attempting to retell like

like Metal Gear Solid, Shadow Moses, yeah, like

that, then people... a lot of things I have problems

with, or I see people have problems with them

when they people do a straight -up adaptation,

is that people have an idea of what they want

already, and any creative talent is already fighting

against public perception of what they think

the movie should be, for better or worse, and

I feel like Metal Gear Solid can fall into that

trap. I think Assassin's Creed is going to fall

into that trap. Oh yeah. Mass Effect, Tomb Raider,

depending on how, I mean if they decide to retell

the video game Tomb Raider, if they just do it

like they did before and just tell like a completely

different story. Last of Us can fall into that

same hole, unless they're gonna tell like a new

story, but I don't know, it's gonna be interesting.

Now what, I was gonna bring up Splinter Cells

on this list. Okay. And I, I don't know, have

you seen Olympus Has Fallen? No. I need to, but

I just haven't. The entire time I was watching

that film, I was like, this is Splinter Cell.

In my mind, this is a Splinter Cell movie. Why

this was not bought and just slapped with the

Splinter Cell name on it? I feel like you could

have hit a much bigger market than the name Olympus

Has Fallen. Even if it was Splinter Cell semicolon,

Olympus Has Fallen, I feel like the movie probably

would have done much better. From my understanding

of what a Splinter Cell game is, Olympus Has

Fallen was that. So that was kind of a bummer.

I'm wondering if there's any other movies that

are like that out there that you've seen that

aren't video game movies but could have worked

as a video game property? Movies that could have

worked as a video game property? Most movies

that get video game adaptations, I guess you

could call them, or translations. They're not

that great. No, no, no, I don't mean that. I

mean, like, did you sit down like like my Olympus

has fallen example. Like, did you sit down? Is

there a movie that you sat down to watch and

gone, wow, this could have been such and such,

you know, the video, like the movie, the video

game, like, like, like, like the Olympus has

fallen thing. That could have been a Splinter

Cell movie. Yeah. But it wasn't called Splinter

Cell. Right. Like, could you have sat down to

watch G .I. Joe and it could have been a Contra

movie? Oh, yeah. Well, that's what I'm talking

about. Is there a movie you've sat down to see

that could have slapped a video game title on

it and it would have worked? I'm trying to think.

No, I can't think of anything. Well, is there

anything else you wanna throw in here? I'm wondering

how they're gonna make Sonic work. Like he works

great in animation It's gonna be animated. Oh

it is? Yeah, Ratchet and Clank Angry Birds Sly

Cooper, Sonic the Hedgehog, Cut the Rope, you

can I I bet you anything those are gonna be animated

movies cuz they're gonna play up the family angle

These aren't all just live -action movies. According

to this, for Sonic, it says the film is expected

to be a live -action and CGI hybrid. No, same

thing. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Don't say that. And

people will have more Sonic the Hedgehog fan

service to write. You mean fan fiction. Oh, my

God. Don't say that. Don't say that. I honestly

think the only company, and this isn't even a

live -action movie, this is animation, the only

company that got a video game movie right and

told an original story was Walt Disney with Wreck

-It Ralph. Okay, sure, the plots in the movie

have been reused, but I mean, as far as taking

the old arcade stuff and mixing it in with...

with the quote unquote original game. And let's

face it, I mean, Fix -It Felix Jr. isn't really

original. I mean, I used to do that with Rampage

all the time. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

think. Yeah, I see Wreck -It Ralph as like a

video, like a movie based in a video game world.

But I don't look at it as a video game movie.

It's kind of like Monsters Inc is a movie about

monsters, but it's not like a monster movie.

That's true. I don't know I get what you're saying

like they they did it or it's kind of like you

know Like Tron is that a video game movie? Because

that's the same kind of the same idea as record

Ralph because they've got the characters named

after programs Yeah, that's true Don't get it

wrong. I like record Ralph. I'm not trying to

knock it down a peg or anything like that. I'm

just saying like It's not to me. I mean, there's

a reason it's not on those lists because it's

not a video game movie. Well, yeah. Well, I guess

it would fall into the category of movies based

on are using other video games. Some of the I

can't believe some of the television films that

they've put out based on video games like we're

not even going to get into Pokemon and we'd be

here for X number of you know time like but some

of the TV stuff. That's just crazy House of the

Dead 2 Like wow So I haven't even seen any of

this stuff yeah, it's it's it's crazy All right,

well I think that's it for this for this one

Yeah, this is fun. It's been a while since I've

been able to... You know, that's one thing with

GCRN is I, you know, for the longest time I haven't

talked to video games and I am a gamer. I'm more

of an old -school gamer than anything else. I

just can't get into a lot of the new stuff. I

don't know. Understandable. It's not for everybody.

Yeah, and I'm honestly more of a PC gamer than

anything else, so stuff like Grand Theft Auto,

that appeals to me more. I forget who was talking,

was it you that was talking about it somewhere?

About Grand Theft Auto's film? There's a... Somebody

was talking about it. There's a documentary coming

about the development. Oh, the documentary of

the development, that's what it is. See, I thought

it was, I thought they were eventually, I'm surprised

that's not on that list of doing... That won't

be on that list because Rockstar is very protective

of their properties. So with that, I put it to

you listener, what are some of your favorite

video game movies and what makes a good video

game movie to you and what makes them not work?

If you want to get in touch with us, you can

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.com. You can find myself, Michael Powers, on

Twitter, Xbox Live, and the PlayStation Network

at boothninja81. Mike? I am at TF2 and Mike on

Twitter. Is there anything else you want to plug?

Yeah, go check out our other... quote -unquote

video game podcast. Myself and TV's Mr. Neil

for the last few years have been doing a show

called Pixels in the Animation where, for the

most part, we review every single cartoon of

most of the video game cartoons that have been

out since the late 80s. We have gotten through

Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Legend of Zelda,

Captain N, Super Mario 3, Super Mario World.

We're just in the process of wrapping up Mega

Man. We're going to have two episodes based on

Mortal Kombat Defenders of the Realm. God help

me. So yeah, just go check that out. Go check

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