Why Video Game Movies Don't Have To Suck | A Response To The Cosmonaut Variety Hour

so video game movies this whole thing right and I'll be honest I don't think I've ever seen one that I would call amazing but is it impossible to make a good video game movie I personally don't think so but one person who does is the cosmonaut variety our who released a 12-minute video on the topic a video that the majority of his audience seems to be on board with he says that it is impossible in his opinion to make good video game movie and even go so far as to say that we should just give up on trying to make them I've seen and enjoyed some of his videos before but I do have to say I think he's wrong on this one here's why over the course of this video I'm gonna respond to the 7 main points cosmonaut makes in his video as well as also bringing up three and a half examples of video games I think could make of movies one other thing before we really get started is that I left a comment or cosmonauts video explaining my problems with it a couple of people came back to me and we just like did just watch the last couple of minutes he explains it some people seem to be if the opinion that his last point recontextualizes all of his other points and I disagree with that I'm gonna get to why that is one I actually get to covering that point personally I don't think it does a very good job of recontextualizing anything ok so right off the bat I think this quote is pretty bold in my opinion it's impossible to make a good movie based on a game I'm serious I think we should just stop trying and you've got to have some hella good evidence to back up a statement like that the best and hardest to refute evidence I think he has is the track record of video game movies he doesn't spend very long on that point which is fine the point of this video isn't to explain that all video game movies do suck it's to explain why he thinks they suck and if he wasn't saying he thinks it's impossible to make a good video game movie I think he'd have a very good concise video explaining loads of the pitfalls that video game movies can fall into unfortunately the video is filled with quotes like that I think if it was possible after all this time we would have already seen it happen at least once but we haven't and I love video games and I love movies so I would actually love to see it happen but so far I just don't think we're at that point now this Court does feel a little bit contradictory the start of it he says he thinks it's impossible for that to be a good video game movie and at the end he's just sort of like I don't think we're real at that point where we could have a video game movie that's good yeah it's all a little bit confusing and I don't want to misrepresent his argument here and that quote it's almost as if you're saying it's possible to make video game movies that are good we're just not in the right place for it yet but clearly he doesn't think that because he explicitly said he thinks it's impossible and that we should stop trying so I do recommend you go and watch his video before you watch mine it is only 12 minutes and I've done my absolute best to make sure I've not taken anything he said out of context but you're watching his video first definitely couldn't hurt in my opinion as I've stated over and over again movies based on games are doomed to fail he does make it very clear that the idea he's trying to sell to us is that video game movies can never work and that's the idea I'm responding to all right let's move on to his first point the first point he makes is that a video game depends on interactivity and interactivity is something that a movie could never have so why can't just take a game and make it into something else well that's because games have an element that books movies and TV shows do not have brief pause the fact that he said TV shows that will be important later just just remember they said that interactivity the number one factor shared amongst all games is that one or more people have to actively work towards enjoying the game through their own actions and nine times out of ten that's the main reason you're playing the game wait nine times out of 10 so what about the one intent well is it impossible to make them into good video game movies if it really is impossible to make a good video game movie your argument should apply to all video games or if they don't you should argue why between all of your arguments all video games are covered otherwise you've not argued why it's impossible you've just argued why you have to pick the right game but personally I don't think this argument really works even for the video games that applies to you I don't think this argument really holds water get it I'm showing footage of a submarine holds water submarine salt water yes a lot of people play games just for the story but you're still playing the game so if you take that away most of the time the game isn't gonna be as special anymore even if you're watching a let's play which isn't you interacting with the game you're still watching someone do it interactivity is the main factor here okay so does this explain why movies based on games are doomed to fail no you're right and whereas if you take something away from a game for example interactivity and you don't add anything to replace it what you're going to be left with is going to be strictly worse than what you're adapting if you take something away and don't add anything new what you're going to be left with is just going to be less this is why let's place work even though you've taken away the interactivity something is being added by the person you're watching play it very few people watch Let's Plays without commentary and that's because then the less play would be taking away the interactivity of the game without adding anything in return instead the let's player adds character into the game other forms of gaming content for example highlights that don't have commentary still usually bring something new to the table for instance highlights bring novelty to the table the novelty of seeing something happen in the game you've never seen before or humor of seeing someone [ __ ] up really hard these are all things you wouldn't get from just playing the game and that's important when you're adapting something like a novel which you specifically said you can do you have to substitute good words good diction with good visuals when adapting a game you have to substitute the interactivity for something else that the game doesn't have it's at this point I'd like to bring up my first example of a game I think could make a pretty cool movie if done well sunlight I've been dreaming of it for months but it's hard to enjoy alone subnautica I'm guessing this isn't most people's first choice but bear with me I'm not adjusting a one-to-one adaptation here rather a film based on the very best of what it is Sapna has to offer mostly because if you try to adapt it completely faithfully you just end up with a movie that fails to run after you try to play it speaking of which the footage you're seeing right now I had to get someone else to take for me because subnautica isn't launching for some reason so thanks to the DVI master David for contributing that for those unfamiliar subnautica is an open world survival game set mostly underwater you play as the lone survivor of a crashed ship on an alien planet and have to collect resources in order to survive there is a story element to it but I mostly play it for the atmosphere subnautica is great at atmosphere and if they were ever to be a film of it I would want to see that in the film as well but what I'm suggesting here isn't something that takes every element of the game as much as a looser adaptation you don't need to seem off The Lost River or a part where a Leviathan spawn so near your face you [ __ ] yourself to successfully adapt subnautica I'm just suggesting a story where spoilers by the way a character all characters are the only survivors of a ship called the Aurora that crashed in the middle of an alien ocean and survived you to an escape pod they were the only ones lucky enough to get out in time or survive the harsh environment of the planet below they discover their ship crashed because it was shot down by an ancient automated alien gun that was being used for planetary defense they can have the Koran if they want but I personally think the story would be better if they left the reason that the gun was there in the first place a mystery after some finger tightening Li tense scenes of the deep unknown our main character all characters are able to disable the alien gun so that a rescue team can arrive if you wanted to be extra tense you can have it so that they can't contact the rescue team and have a time limit before which they have to disable the gun or the rescue ship will get shot down as well for this I'm making the change that the escape is due to a rescue ship rather than a rocket that the characters build themselves because I think that's better for a film building a ship yourself is cool for gameplay in all but when it comes to a movie I feel like that's just an unnecessary complication I'll get to talking about how it's a bad idea to just cram stuff in because it was in the game later don't worry if they tried to force stuff in like base building and the Peron suit and tried to fit in every species of fish that you can encounter in the game they would ruin the film not because those ideas are in any way wrong for the big screen but for reasons I'll get into in the next example I imagine the story following a three-act structure for the first act our main character or characters simply try to survive finding stuff like food a source of drinkable water and finding out if anything nearby wants to try and eat them in the second act they would start to discover things about the precursor aliens that left the planetary defense system like the fact that they exist in the first place and that's why their ship crashed this motivates them to dive deeper to try and find out more and in turn encounter more of the dangers on the planet this is where a very strong mystery element would kick into the story and the third act would see them trying to disable the gun before rescue can arrive a scene where they salvage the Aurora would be cool as well but I do you think it should only be put in if it services the story like the game most of the film should take place underwater anything not underwater like stuff in the Life pod should feel cramped and claustrophobic a lot of the horror of subnautica comes from the fact that you're forced to be underwater and if you spend too much time on land you're going to lose that factor this is why I think elements such as base building and submarines should be completely left out of the film when it comes to gameplay they're good for a sense of progression but I don't think that's an element you need in a film and I think it would simply detract her in the horror honestly I do think that this would make a really cool movie if done well but there is a reason I bring this example up in relation to this specific point and others that there is one thing subnautica lacks entirely characters what it has instead is interactivity when you actually play subnautica you add the main character yourself by interacting with the game is the main character brave or cowardly are the hopeful about their chances of escape or are they falling into despair or maybe they've resigned to living on this planet and they're just trying to make the most of their new life are they smart funny talented are they're the kind of [ __ ] that would use their knife in the middle of their base and then wonder why there's a massive [ __ ] hole in the wall well they're you you fill in those blanks with the way that you react to the game the game doesn't need to characterize them for you because you already know what kind of person you are and you're stepping into the shoes of this person stranded on an alien world a film however since it lacks the possibility to just make you the main character has to characterize the protagonist itself and this is something that can often trip up video game movies it means adding something that wasn't there before and integrating it with the already existing world of the game it's a challenge but it's not impossible and subnautica there'd be two main options keep the story as having only one survivor and with only one real character you have to characterize them through something other than dialogue something that many movies struggle with but if done correctly I think it could be really great the second and I think safer option would be to have an ensemble of main characters probably still a very small group maybe even just two could be interesting but this way you can have as much dialogue as you want without relying on something like the main character talking to an AI all the time my heart would be set or option one but I'd be super excited to see this film either way so at this point in cosmonauts video where he gives an example as well so I'm going to take a random game and we're gonna make a movie out of it let's take Bioshock oh cool the random game you chose to demonstrate why video games don't make good movies is a video game that just so happens to have a central message that depends on it being a video game what fortunate random selection we're gonna try to make a movie with just the elements given to us by the game I'm going to show you guys why it doesn't really work so if I was a studio executive and someone through BioShock on my desk and said we need to make a movie out of this the first question I have is who's the main character the main character of Bioshock does not have a character that's part of the story that makes sense in the context of a game so you give it the same treatment I gave subnautica if you're taking away the interactivity if you're taking away the fact that you are playing as the main character then having a silent protagonist no longer really works this is Nautica movie I was pitching would not work if they just left the main character a blank slate like they are in the game although I do think Bioshock is a very well chosen example to demonstrate your point a straightforward adaptation of the story of the first Bioshock game probably wouldn't work very well and if a Bioshock movie were ever to be announced I would hope they wouldn't directly follow the story of the first game but rather use elements of the universe to inspire an original story in the same setting so maybe we do like a Mad Max sort of thing maybe we have him be a surrogate for the audience to explore this world with except that ruins the whole point of the character in the story the role of the helpless player the person who has no choice but to do what the game tells them to do in fact the whole message of the game can't even be in the movie because the message is that free will doesn't exist in a video game the idea that you're forced to do whatever the game tells you no matter what that is basically the entire point of Bioshock at least the first one so then you know I'd suggest choosing a different story you know literally any other video game story you know that would be my recommendation of how you make a video game movie work in this case don't pick a story that depends on its medium being a video game pick any other story you can't pretend that all video games are like this this is an argument only applies to Bioshock and a very select few other games he does go on a little later to talk about other games this also applies to like the Metal Gear series but that doesn't suggest to me that video game movies are an inherently flawed concept it's told me why an adaptation of Bioshock and a select few other games wouldn't work my subnautica example is still fine completely untouched by your argument and so is any other potential adaptation of any other video game that has a story that doesn't depend on it being a video game to work so let's see what your next point is and that brings up the next problem half of the things in the game are just there for gameplay purposes the whole idea of magical abilities are just there to make the combat more fun if you remove them they actually kind of make the story a little better and honestly if somebody made a Bioshock movie you know that the Big Daddies would just be there as set-dressing they would just be there to look cool okay so he says all this and I do think he's right and that this is a pitfall that people making movies out of video games do need to be careful of but it's not inevitable he also provides what is in my opinion a pretty good summary of this pitfall most of the time video game movies just take these base concepts of a game and they throw them on the screen haphazardly with no regard to those concepts and what they mean and you know I'm on board with that a lot of the time it does happen it's very much avoidable though the fact that this is true and does happen often in video game movies doesn't mean movies based on games are doomed to fail it means that if a video game movie wants to be good it has to be careful not to do this that's at this point I'd like to bring up a second example of a video game I think could make a pretty cool movie or rather a video game franchise I think you could get a cool movie out of don't worry I'm not suggesting that the story of fallout 4 would make a great film I managed to actually go ahead and get my own footage of the game this time so you're gonna see how terrible I am at it especially since I've not played it in forever and I forgotten all the controls there's a point in this clip where I accidentally throw a grenade myself that was fun anyway fallout as a franchise isn't a story as much as it is a universe fallout games will take place in different settings and I'll cover different characters I think it's a fairly safe assumption to make that if any company ever decided to make a fallout movie that wouldn't be a direct adaptation of one of the games as much as it would be just a story set in that universe the resulting freedom if that means that a fallout movie could be anything from a typical blockbuster about a hero who ends up shooting some bad people to stop them from doing bad things to a character-driven story about a Raider who only has Raider friends but they get uncomfortable with the violent lifestyle and have to choose between their friends and what they now consider to be the ethical way to live or it could be a rom-com or a super mutant falls in love with a member of the Brotherhood the possibilities are really unrestricted and as a result of that I think there are a few of cosmonauts reasons that a video game movie could never work that just don't apply to fallout but there are two main pitfalls I could see fallout the movie coming a victim of the first is by no means unique to video game movies and this is that fall out the movie might just be an uninspired corporate product designed to make money by being the most generic movie with the fallout logo on it as it possibly can it will have a protagonist pulled from a box of protagonist archetypes you know your fish-out-of-water who has to adapt to this new and scary world your starry-eyed teen who dreams of bigger things or someone who's just in it for themselves just looking to have fun and quips every three seconds by the end of the film they'll probably have learnt to accept other people into their lives and have learnt the value of friendship or some [ __ ] like that but the deeper issues that resulted in them being like that in the first place will probably still be there oh cool my laptop turned itself on if the movie fell into this trap the story would probably just be some kind of very generic conflict some beef between the main characters and a gang of Raiders or summon other possibilities are a fairly generic battle or war or an equally generic mystery story there's no clear-cut way to get around this pitfall but usually the best way is to hire people who actually care about the source material care about good storytelling and actually seem to want to do the project also you know don't fire the director halfway through the project or demand reshoots to make the movie safer taking risks is something you're just gonna have to learn to accept is often a good idea studio interference to make a movie less risky rarely goes well studios at this point and just gonna have to learn that occasionally failing is better than a life of mediocrity the second risk I could see being a big pitfall for a full life movie is exactly what cosmonaut described that's where I'm bringing up this example in relation to this point because I definitely think it's possible to avoid this pitfall most of the time video game movies just take these base concepts of a game and they throw them on the screen haphazardly with no regard to those concepts and what they mean and the solution is pretty simple so don't do that this is a common failing of video game movies and a common pitfall rather than an inevitability for instance in fallout movies you know there are certain things that people would want to see on screen your robots desolate wastelands vaults ghouls super mutants various human factions a worst possible fears of atomic annihilation oh and death claws all of these things and more are going to be someone's favorite part of the Fallout universe when making a fallout movie there would be a desire to include as many of these things as you possibly can but things like story and character need to comfort deathclaws are a pretty iconic staple of the Fallout universe and if a fallout movie were ever to be made I'm pretty sure there would be high ups pushing pretty hard to get one included I mean come on it would be a great thing to put in the trailer right you probably have it roaring at the end like the big dragon thing in detective Pikachu I've never really time the whole Pokemon thing the inclusion of deathclaws is an inherently bad idea but it would have to contribute to the world building or story rather than detract from it if you've reached a point where you're pushing parts of your story around or manufacturing unnecessary conflict just so you can include a deathclaw you're actively making your story worse for the sake of fanservice and marketability if your story needs or would benefit from a big monster at some point put it in a deathclaw if it doesn't then don't same goes for pretty much everything else you might want to put in a video game movie volts and wastelands are both great but if you only need the story to be set in one of those places don't force the other one in mushroom clouds are cool and all but if you don't need one don't just inject one into your film video game elements like this are like farts if you try to force them you'll probably just end up with [ __ ] and you'll [ __ ] yourself so fallout is one of those video game franchises I think could have a fantastic movie in it but it would have to be made by someone with the right priorities it would definitely run the risk of being dragged down by all of these factors and the pitfall described by cosmonaut only exists because this is a video game movie but it is 100% avoidable it doesn't mean that video game movies are doomed to fail it's just another way in which they could fail so let's move on to the next point usually you have to change a lot when you make a game adaptation because games don't really have enough content to adapt because most of the time that content is gameplay how can you actually make an uncharted movie when this is what's on screen for 99% of the game I'd say you know choosing what content to include under what content not to include is probably quite a big part of it okay honestly I don't think I'm gonna need to spend very long on this one this point is one of the biggest generalizations in the whole video sure some games don't have enough content to make an entire movie out of them but some games have too much on top of that even if this were true of every single video game that exists in the world that wouldn't mean that one of those video games is beyond a good adaptation if you're dis you're working with truly are interesting and you truly are a talented director filmmaker or whatever shouldn't stop you the main thing that blows me away about this point though is just how big of a reductive generalization it really is a lot of game developers have a huge amount of freedom when choosing how long to make a game there are short games and there are long games your point is not universally true by any stretch of the imagination the statement that video games don't have enough content to properly adapt them into films is true in the same way that the statement the entire screen is blue right now is true you just have to ignore all of the other colors let's move on to the next point games are impossibly hard to adapt because your experience goes beyond your interaction with them your experience with the game is incredibly personal do you guys remember when Skyrim came out and you talked to people about it and they'd share their experiences with you and you'd share your experiences and some of the times things would be the same but a lot of the stuff you did on your personal adventure would be way different because these kinds of games mean something different to everybody yeah this is true a movie adaptation of a game is never going to give you the same experience that the game did this again is why you have to remove the interactivity and replace it with other content edit start the kind of game this argument applies to is a story about you the player and what you do a movie is a story about someone else that you watch this is why adapting some games can be difficult but not why it's impossible it's also again a huge generalization not all games are like this there are plenty of games that aren't in fact the game I use as my next example isn't going to be a very personal experience I'll get to talking about that one in a minute but there are plenty of games where the story is laid out for you and your experience playing it isn't gonna be that unique and that goes for like every game wait a second you think this applies to every [ __ ] game what No there are loads of games with very clearly laid out stories for the player to follow for example Bioshock a game where the fact that the player has no choice in what they do and has to do exactly what the game tells them is something that one of your arguments depended on the role of the helpless player the person who has no choice but to do with the game tells them to do the idea that you're forced to do whatever the game tells you no matter what that is basically the entire point of Bioshock but for now let's just talk about games this document does apply to your right you can't capture that same you would have playing the game in a two hour movie that's impossible a movie is never going to give you the experience of having infinite possibilities laid down in front of you and letting you choose which one you want to go down a movie is never gonna replicate the feelings you had playing a video game a movie is never gonna give you that same sense of satisfaction after defeating a difficult boss it's never gonna give you the feeling that something bad will happen to you if you fail and it's never gonna give you the feeling of having a choice a movie shouldn't try to do these things because it will fail and it doesn't need to do those things the game already exists if that's the experience you want play the damn game you can't have infinite possibilities in a movie a movie is just one story which is why when adapting this kind of game you've got to choose and write a good story a story that would fit within those infinite possibilities but one that isn't the individual experience of an individual player that's why we write stories you get to choose what happens in them if you were to make a movie of just your experience playing Skyrim chances are narrative Lee it wouldn't have much of a structure unfortunately someone in the pasture did do this but with the game of DND they took that specific experience playing the game and turned that into a script for a show not a movie and show that I'll be relevant later I've never seen it so I can't vouch for its quality but I can't imagine that would be great this show low-dose is what cosmonaut brings up in his argument to show why video game movies are doomed to fail to put it simply low-dose as an anime series based on a D&D game actually multiple D&D games with different players all run by the same DM so yeah it's not a movie and it's not based on a video game but in my opinion it's emblematic of the issues I have with adaptations of games in general not just video games when you play Dungeons & Dragons the fun comes from your personal experience in the game the experiences you share with you and your friends there's a reason why you shouldn't turn the narrative of a D&D game into a movie or show unless it's something like Harmon quest so again it's a matter of knowing what elements of a videogame to adapt into a movie the fact that you shouldn't do specifically this thing doesn't mean you can't take elements from a video game or any kind of game and turn them into a good film if you wanted to make a fallout movie and you decided the way you were going to do that is you were just going to adapt your exact experience you had playing the game you would barely have written a movie and you wouldn't have added anything to substitute the interactivity you took out except maybe some flashy visuals if you didn't know this is based on a D&D game you would just see a fantasy adventure show with a messy plot similarly if you'd never heard of Prince of Persia before what are you gonna see when you watch this movie a fantasy adventure with a messy plot yeah adapting a video game requires good writing this may mean it's more challenging to adapt a video game than it is to adapt say a novel but it doesn't mean you can't do it this is just yet another pitfall to avoid it's at this point I'd like to bring up another example of a video game I think you could turn into a pretty good movie so long as you actually write the movie well the best game of all time Lego Star Wars - just think it would be pretty neat make a pretty neat film you know like maybe maybe even like a trilogy of films you could get out of that just think it'd be pretty good maybe not necessarily Lego you know just uh turn Lego Star Wars to enter into films I think it would be really good surprisingly enough his next point is also a huge generalization but it's one that I can understand what he made now here's the part of the video where I say something that's gonna piss some people off most video game plots aren't very good now there are exceptions to this rule obviously however a lot of the time the plot of games just aren't good enough to be adapted into movies again the obvious solution to this and the reason that video game movies aren't doomed to fail you know why we shouldn't just stop trying would be to just adapt the ones that do have good stories but that's not all I have to say about this point but before actually tell you why I disagree with this or at least why I disagree with this from the standpoint of this being a reason we shouldn't try to make video games into movies I'd like to bring up my next example of a game I think could make a really good film [Music] the halo rich music is copyrighted and one thing I really like is when my videos don't get taken down by claims so [ __ ] it I'm using my own music for this one I think the first question a few people may be asking is why Halo Reach and I know it's really wishful thinking if any Halo game got adapted into a film you'd probably have Master Chief front and center personally I think a story more like reach would be a better bet there are a few reasons I feel that way it's not just because I grew up with it I promise and one of the main reasons I feel that way is that I feel at any movie about Master Chief runs the risk of just devolving into a big circle jerk about how cool and brave and strong he is I do understand that that's just a pitfall rather than an effort ability but itself the whole point of Master Chief's that he is really cool and brave and strong and I don't think I personally would find that as compelling as I would find a story about the characters from reach no what I want to see is spoilers by the way a story where an elite group of Spartans get picked off one by one where by the end all of them are dead but their deaths weren't for nothing as before they died they made huge contributions to war effort by recovering a package which the halo fans in the audience would know as Cortana a super advanced AI with the power to make her boobs bigger with every passing halo title now just like adapting a book when adapting Halo Reach you'd need to strip away a load of stuff that wouldn't really work in a movie like for instance in a movie I don't think it would be a good idea to have noble six ran out of ammo every two seconds and have to scavenge new weapons on the battlefield it's called for gameplay purposes and ammo shouldn't be ignored in a movie but when changing a game into a movie there are some things you need to do differently for example in the game noble sex really only seems to exist to be the player's avatar writing him or her out would be really easy and in my opinion the right decision there's a very good reason that if you go and watch every Halo rich cutscene back-to-back it doesn't feel like you're watching a movie and that reason isn't just that there are random jump cuts where the gameplay is supposed to be there are loads of things that you would have to change or adapt if you wanted to turn Halo Reach into a good film first and foremost I think that building up the relationships between the different members of the noble team would be really important I think building up a really close friendship between Kat and George would be fun making them a couple would make me want to die but if you made them close friends I feel like people will connect to both of their characters a lot more giving every man the noble team a healthy respectful and friendship with Carter would be pretty cool he is the leader for a reason and seeing other hardened super soldiers especially naturally antagonistic ones like a meal have a deep respect for him would really go a long way to show him why that is speaking of a meal I feel like if he butted heads with Jun quite a lot that could characterize them both quite well they both seem to have pretty different personal philosophies and could work pretty well as falls for each other also since we don't have noble sex anymore would probably benefit from picking a new main character someone to act as a point of view character for the audience my personal choice would be Kat obviously this change would mean that she'd have to be the last one of them today and would end up being the one who delivers the package obviously Kat has a very hardened exterior which could be off-putting if she were the main character of the film but if we were seeing things from her perspective I feel like we'd have ample opportunity to show her softer side what it is that makes her smile and this would hopefully really warm the audience to her the actual story of Halo Reach on its own is nothing super special or amazing but put characters in it that people really connect with and you've got a really engaging movie just like my other examples there's no reason that this couldn't work with the right changes made to it in the adaptation and the right creative team behind the project halo reached the movie could be really good there's nothing about the fact that Halo Reach is a video game that makes this project impossible now I'm perfectly happy to admit that there are a lot of video games that don't have particularly good stories video games where the story only exists to facilitate the gameplay in fact there are plenty of video games that just don't have a story most video game movies literally just adapt the plot of the game and maybe add in some fanservice and they all suck because those stories are usually just an excuse to let the player do fun stuff if you take away the actual gameplay element of a lot of games the actual story may seem pretty uninspired I mean what's the plot of monstrum you're stuck in a boat with a monster and you have to escape doesn't sound that inspired but there are a lot of movies you can give similar treatment to if you take away the cinematography the acting the atmosphere what are you left with when you take a movie like say alien some people are stuck on a ship with an alien that's trying to kill them and they have to escape doesn't sound particularly inspired but alien is widely accepted as one of the best sci-fi horrors of all time and that's because the story of alien isn't really what makes it good the plot is just there to facilitate the other elements of the film like the world building the ho the atmosphere and the part where John Hurt explodes similarly to a lot of games the synopsis of alien sounds incredibly simple but the devil is in the detail on top of that when I watch a video game movie I'm not sitting there hoping they've 100% faithfully recreated the plot of the game a video game adaptation doesn't have to include elements of the story that were just there for gameplay purposes on top of that it can add things to better flesh out things that weren't that well fleshed out in the game loads of video games have really rich universes are filled with really interesting ideas and set pieces and have plenty to offer besides their exact plot if something like a jak and daxter movie were ever to be made I'd hope they wouldn't just directly adapt the plot because the plot is essentially just a guy completes some tasks in an area until he can move to another area where he completes more tasks oh and also moving between the areas is also a task I don't think anyone really wants to see that as a film but the jak and daxter universe has loads to offer in terms of world building characters and interesting ideas turning this franchise into a film is just a matter of choosing which elements of the game to actually include in the film the problem with a lot of existing video game movies isn't that their video game movies in the first place and that inherently makes them bad it's that many of them are uninspired filled with compromises and poorly written some games don't even have a story to adapt some movies just make stuff up because they don't have anything that go off of yeah and there's nothing inherently wrong with that the problem is when it's done badly not when it's done in the first place but the solution to this problem is pretty simple when you're adapting a video game take the good parts of that video game leave everything else behind if that leaves you with holes or if you had holes in the first place fill those holes if the stuff you fill them with is good no one will mind for in most cases you have the problem where the games are actually too long to be adapted movies are around two hours and most big games are around eight to a hundred hours hang on what you earlier saying the games don't have enough games don't really have enough content to adapt because most of the time that content is game play so the games are actually too long to be adapted movies are around two hours and most big games are around eight to a hundred hour how can you actually make an uncharted movie when this is what's on screen for 99% of a game by cutting it out problem on the game is too long problem too a lot of the stuff in the game is stuff we would want to cut out of a movie oh look the problem solved each other according to you not only to video games have too much content to fit into a single movie they also don't have enough video games are really long you're right but most of that content is gameplay you don't want to include every second of the gameplay not only that this argument only applies to want to warn adaptations of video games adaptations that don't change anything movie adaptations of novels often cut a lot out so why can't video game movies do that as well the answer is they can and they should if it would make the movie better but that being said there's no reason to force a video game into the format of being a movie if it doesn't fit for instance I think Warcraft would make a much better TV show than a movie if the story you get from a video game adaptation would be too long to turn into a movie turn it into a TV show but this isn't going to be the case for literally every video game you could potentially adapt but we're getting ahead of ourselves because the next point he makes is but here's why get into the rebuttal for my argument in my opinion as I've stated over and over again movies based on games are doomed to fail however TV shows are a different thing entirely now if you ask me if you want to adapt a video game into something else you need three things number one you need to make it a show shows are longer and they allow you to explore the elements of the story with more depth depends on the game and also the story you want to tell within its universe some stories are more suited to being TV shows or some stories are more suited to being movies games are incredibly diverse some of them would make better TV shows whereas some of them would make better movies the Netflix Castlevania show is the only example of a good video game adaptation and it would be absolute garbage as a movie because it needs that extra bit of runtime to be effective at delivering this large story yeah but the conclusion to draw from that isn't this same rule applies to all video game adaptations a sample size of one instance is by no means enough to come to that conclusion but to be first cosmonaut hair off his three ways to make a video game adaptation good this is the only one I really disagree with the second thing he says you have to do if you want to successfully adapt a video game into something else is something that I definitely agree with it's just get skilled people to do it who care about the source material and yeah also while he's delivering that point he also says this and countless off of his own points because when you adapt anything you're gonna have to change stuff okay cool then why is it a problem that a lot of video game stories have elements in them that are just that to facilitate gameplay you're gonna have to change stuff in an adaptation so why not just make that one of the things you change Castlevania is based on a game with basically no dialogue or plot they had to get a little creative with what they were doing the reason it works is because they got people who know how to write a story and people who knew about Castlevania enough to write a story based on it yep that's also how you'd make a video game movie work finally number three you need the right game some games should not be adapted into movies wait I thought the whole point of this is that no games should be adapted into movies wasn't the whole point of number one on this list that they should be TV shows and not movies but honestly yeah I'll agree choosing the right game is important you probably couldn't make a very movie based on Tetris now that is the whole point but this is a point that does seem like it might recontextualize some previous points in fact a couple of people responded to my criticism of this video by just telling me to watch the last couple of minutes as if this changes everything so let's go over every single point he makes and see if it's recontextualized by this last point his first point was that video games have interactivity and that's the reason that most people play the games in the first place if you take that away most of the time the game isn't gonna be as special anymore surely this would apply to video game TV shows as well there's no difference between movies and TV shows that would mean that this would apply to movies but not TV shows in fact you even said to yourself that this would apply to TV shows well that's because games have an element that books movies and TV shows do not have interactivity so if it's possible to make a good video game TV show in spite of this that means it's possible to make a good video game movie in spite of this this point has not been recontextualized by your last point in fact you've sort of debunked it with your last point cosmonaut second point was that games have elements that only exist for gameplay most of the time video game movies just take these base concepts of a game and they throw them on the screen haphazardly with no regard to those concepts and what they mean this also would apply equally to TV shows it's still just a matter of figuring out what to include and what not to include in your adaptation ok next point the third point was that games don't have enough content to be adapted into good movies this actively goes against your final point games don't really have enough content to adapt because most of the time that content is game play if you don't have enough content for a movie you certainly don't have enough content for a TV show all right moving on cosmonauts fourth point was that your experience playing a game is very personal to you the video game stories are good when you experience them in the context of a game but aren't good if you experience them in other contexts his example to support this point was actually a show to put it simply low-dose as an anime series based on a D&D game actually multiple D&D games with different players all run by the same DM when you play Dungeons and Dragons the fun comes from your personal experience in the game the experiences you share with you and your friends there's a reason why you shouldn't turn the narrative of a D&D game into a movie or show unless it's something like Harmon quest so this rule clearly applies to DV shows as much as that applies to movies therefore if it's possible to make a good video game TV show in spite of this it's possible to make a good video game movie in spite of this point favors that most video game plots aren't very good that they're fine to facilitate gameplay but if you try to make them more than that they'll fail most video game plots aren't very good ya know this would apply to both movies and TV shows as well so if you think it's possible to make a good video game TV show in spite of this it's also possible to make a good video game movie in spite of this fact point 6 is the only one that was recontextualized by his final point and they're barely even separate points he doesn't lay out these seven separate points in his own video he doesn't format his video like I formatted mine I just split his video into seven main talking points and I was tempted to make six and seven the same point but and I decided that separating them was better so not only does his final point not recontextualize any of the points except the one leading directly into it it actively contradicts most of them most of the arguments he makes would apply to both TV shows and movies but he's telling us that a good video game movie is impossible whereas a good video game TV show is perfectly possible it's fine to have that opinion but then any argument you make in favor of it has got to apply to movies but not TV shows otherwise your ideas don't have a logical consistency so I've got to say I disagree with basically all of cosmonauts points and it seems like so does he because he contradicts them himself with his final point this video would make sense to me if it wasn't saying that it's impossible to make a good video game movie but that is what he's saying and not only is it what he's saying he makes it very clear that's what he's saying explicitly and repeatedly and I think he's wrong cosmonaut does successfully identify loads of pitfalls that video game movies and TV shows can fall into but they're all avoidable having listened to all of his points I'm still very much of the opinion that if a video game movie had the right team behind it the right inspiration and the right ideas it could be amazing it is definitely possible all right that's it that's the whole video I really hope you've enjoyed this is [ __ ] 40 minutes long Christ don't expect something of this length every Sunday but if you're new to the channel and you like this kind of video I've done videos like this before and I plan to do a lot more like this moving forward there's a playlist of my videos like this one on screen now although I do have to warn you most of them about Marvel but other than that I'll see you on Wednesday for the Wednesday show I hope you've enjoyed this Oh goodbye

Channel: Jay Exci

Views: 253,561

Keywords: film, cinema, movie, review, video game movies, super mario bros, video game, The Cosmonaut Variety Hour, Video Game Movies - Why They Always Suck, subnautica, halo, halo reach, fallout, fallout new vegas, fallout 4, subnautica movie, halo movie, fallout movie

Id: DaRvDACBMmM

Length: 40min 42sec (2442 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 25 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/notaworldbuilderXD]

Just so y'all can avoid spoilers, the game movies they pitch are: Subnautica, Fallout (though I'm sure the pitch was spoiler free), and Halo: Reach.

[u/milesamsterdam]

I’ve been saying it for a while but I think video game movies and tv shows are the next big thing after comic book movies.

It’s going to be different but the built in audience is there.