Jessica Chobot
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Videogame Movies: The Good, The Bad and The Worse.

This is it people! It is only going to go downhill from here.

This current “nerds who rule the world” trend is at its zenith. Right now. 

My recommendation? Enjoy it while you still can. 

One only has to look at the videogame market, the system wars and the genres offshoots to read the writing on the wall. Manga and anime have flooded the market, claim their own private sector at Borders Books and are the dominate style for most Saturday morning cartoons. Game systems have become self-contained entertainment/computers systems and cost more than my monthly car payment (and I own a damn fine automobile); and while  Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft each try to out-wit the other, EB Games is a cluster-^%&* of rushed titles, half-assed sequels and worthless game play. 

Nowhere is Geekdom’s downfall more glaringly obvious than through the eyes of Hollywood.  Mediocre videogame television can be found in the upper echelons of your cable provider. These shows are cardboard cut-outs of one another; each trying to find that elusive “too cool for school” ingredient that would help to attract hard-core gamers, or just amuse the casual ones, yet none willing to take a real risk. (Sadly, the reason this occurs is because the bankers/investors and producers usually have no idea what being in the videogame business actually involves, but I digress…). 

Big businesses headed by grey-haired producers, who haven’t touched a controller a day in their life, drop a few thousand on some random production with the hopes of making a quick million back and a cheap and easy established demographic. 

These are the people that are trying to cheat you. These are the people that are trying to take your hobby and turn it into a get-rich-quick scheme that will benefit no one but themselves. And while the television shows could use some improvement, nowhere is the nerd-based generational, monetary and cultural gap more obvious than through today’s videogame-based movies and films. 

While never a high art form, game-to-movie film adaptations of the early 90s’ seem more acceptable than the titles we pay $8.50 plus the cost of popcorn for today. Maybe it is a legit argument or maybe its just nostalgia, but Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat lend themselves as perfect examples. Low budget and geared at younger kids but embraced by nerds of all ages, these movies succeeded because they didn’t strive to be something they were not. There were no complicated plots, over-the-top and expensive CGI, no well-known star asking for top billing and his/her face plastered all over the poster. What we got were a few B-listers, a hot chick, the dude from Highlander and a lot of ass kicking. 

It was glorious. 

Today, all we see is an overload of computer-generated smoke, a few over-the-top scenes of gore involving razor wire and an old woman’s virginity and a lot of pomp and circumstance for a movie that just doesn’t deserve it. 

Silent Hill proved to be a massive disappointment in this regard. After such a dismal showing from the studios/directors/producers on games-to-movie adaptations (lets not forget all of the comics-to-movie adaptations which are just as bad, if not worse! DareDevil and Elektra anyone?!?) such as Doom; hype grew to rather large proportions surrounding the almost assured success of Silent Hill.  

Thought to be the movie that would bridge the gap between Mr. Every-Man cinema and Fan-boys, Silent Hill had all the makings of being a shoe-in. An incredibly deep and engaging plot which linked all four versions of the SH universe together, a recently successful director (Christophe Gans of Brotherhood of the Wolf fame), a musical score created by the same gentleman who worked on the ones within the game franchise (Mr. Akira Yamaoka) and we even got the B-listers from the days of yore!

Gans assured everyone that fans and non-fans alike would approve. Yamaoka-San echoed those same sentiments. With that type of glowing recommendation, how could SH possibly fail? 

It couldn’t and it didn’t…..technically speaking. 

Having opened up in the US at #1 and eventually grossing a total of $47 million, Silent Hill seemed (at least, to the suits) to have done everything it promised (rumor has it a sequel is already in the making). But the Silent Hill fans I’ve talked with seem to have given me the universal response of, “Meh.” Mr. & Mrs. Every-Man say, “I didn’t understand what was going on.” And my mom and pop were all, “WTF!?” 

It looks as if that $47 mill. might have been steeped in nothing more than basic curiosity. Will that be enough to support round 2? What about the “bridging of the gap?” How will this affect soon-to-be released titles such as Resident Evil: Extinction? Even more importantly: how will this effect how and which videogames are brought across to film, especially with such big title announcements such as Gears of War and Halo? 

My two cents is that if they even get made (you’d be amazed at how many projects get lost along the way), they’re never going to fare any better than the RE series or SH. Halo has such a following that it will be a success whether the fans enjoy it or not. If Blomkamp and Jackson want to do it right-they will stick as close as humanly possible to Halo’s storyline. And now with Gears of War bringing up the rear, they had best put a move on it!

Doom’s biggest mistake is that it took to long for it to come to the big screen. For a game that was released in 1993, for it to be put on the backburner till 2005 was an incredibly moronic maneuver. By then it had been overshadowed by titles such as Unreal Tournament series, Quake and Halo.

Silent Hill’s biggest mistake is that it tried to be all things to all people. And, although I get plenty of flack for this, the Resident Evil movies are probably the closest to finding that perfect balance between fanboys and average movie-goers (plus it has Mia. Mia + zombies + government conspiracies gone awry = Chobot’s $8.50, plus the cost of popcorn)!

DOA’s biggest mistake is that it was ever made in the first place (/sarcasam). 
 

All in all, I admire and respect the fact that some studios and videogame companies are even trying to tackle this aspect of entertainment, and I think that in the long run, they’ll get it right. This will happen when the movie makers take the videogame guys more seriously and acknowledge their expertise within the area and look to them for guidance. Once that occurs, the videogame guys need to sack up and speak when they think something is wrong with the adaptation of their product.