Planetfurry BBS

Joshua Fox · Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 10:22 pm Post subject: Three Other Video Game-to-Movies

Indeed with the imminent release of Final Fantasy: Advent Children here in the States, the mind drifts back to the many, many previous attempts to bring video games to the big screen in a fashion that won't lead to mass homicide/suicide at the first showing.

And as it so happens, Seanbaby, video game journalist to the stars, has three such examples for you here.

Enjoy!

***

When I heard that no one sent us any copies of games based either on kids' shows or just basic girlish wonderment, I thought I'd get the month off to catch up on some of my noncomedy work, such as reading jogging magazines aloud to crippled orphans. Then I was informed that there is still enough crap peripherally related to videogames to require my crap-evaluating services. Plus, now that Mary-Kate and Ashley are one failed project away from a third eating disorder and softcore porn, respectively, my EGM overlords have decreed that it's no longer cute to make fun of their games. So here I am reviewing the worst movies based on games, while the children at St. Despair's Hospital make do with their backup entertainment: a box of 3000 hungry spiders. --Seanbaby

The Wizard - 1989

Some say it's a glorified commercial for Super Mario Brothers 3. Others say no way; this story of an autistic boy leading two sexually experimental 12-year-olds to the Nintendo championships with the money he earns by hustling businessmen in Double Dragon simply had to be told. It is to the Nintendo community what Over the Top was to the arm-wrestling community: a brutal and lasting reminder of why you shouldn't make movies about those people.

Worst line: In case anyone thinks this movie isn't a feature-length advertisement for Nintendo, after the evil videogame bully is finished playing Rad Racer (badly), he turns to Fred Savage to growl, "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad." If you've never tried the Power Glove, it was a lot like translating your input into French, then Japanese, then back into English. So for example, if your impotent flailing was trying to say "walk right," the signal that made it to your Nintendo was "spuculent hamtasm."

Worst scene: It's hard to beat the Power Glove one. I'd like to dare filmmakers to try to make a worse scene, ever, during the entire course of the cinematic future.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - 1997

Annihilation's plot not only throws out logic, it even throws out the crazy logic established by the first Mortal Kombat movie. Flaming, cartwheeling ninjas fall from the sky for no apparent reason, and I'm OK with that because it's the kind of thing that could kill you and your dying words would be, "sooo...a-awe...some!"

Fine, let's not explore the subplot of excitable evil gymnasts falling through roofs, but even one spinning newspaper with the headline, "World in Chaos! Non-Karate Weapons Useless Against Meteor Ninjas!" would have been nice. Even though that particular headline is so common sense, no paper would bother to report it.

Worst line: When Kitana sees her mother, Sindel, and exclaims, "Mother! You're alive!" Sindel quips back, "Too bad YOU will...die!" Was there some sort of contest where collecting enough Nabisco snack points let you write dialogue for a feature film?

Worst scene: Any mode of travel that isn't a front flip, such as walking, is strictly forbidden in Mortal Kombat etiquette. So when Shao Kahn has to break the news to his father that Raiden is still alive, he spins down the stairs at incredible speed, as remorsefully as possible.

Street Fighter - 1994

Rule No. 1 in making a movie about Street Fighter is to take the characters and have them fight. Rule No. 2 shouldn't have to exist, but if it did, it would be to fill the time between fights with musical training montages or musical montages of shorter fights. But Street Fighter chose to ignore these simple rules I just invented ten years after its release. To anyone who tries this again, if you have a group of people who are superpowered warriors, you're done. Have them attack each other for 90 minutes and we'll fill in the holes in the plot by ourselves.

Worst line: "I'm sumo, brother. My body can be in one place. My mind another." Well, I guess if my body was trying to pick a fat man up by his diaper, my mind would definitely be somewhere else, because it wouldn't have had anything to do with that idea.

Worst scene: When Bison's supersuit brings him back to life. A shirt that gives you CPR is an imbecile's idea of unkillable. That would be like saying you're immune to flamethrowers because your hat squirts aloe vera, or telling police that tear gas is useless thanks to your contact lenses and their tiny windshield wipers.

anthony · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 5:08 am Post subject:

Yeah, the Power Glove really IS that bad.

Don't forget Dungeons & Dragons...

Or Tomb Babe...
(Tomb Raider for those who bought the game for playability, and not because they couldn't get a date)

What about the cases where they've gone the other way?

I think Tron was the first, but by no means the worst...
(The movie was good, the games not so.)

Anyway, any director seriously considering adapting a video game to the silver screen should be shot on sight!

Either that, or be forced to watch the Spice Girls movie until his head implodes.

Sigurd Volsung · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:46 am Post subject:

While there have been a couple decent video game to movie creations, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil spring to mind, I'll take the comic book to movies more or even TV to Movie, provided the show was good.

Right now I'm waiting for Serenity to come out simply because of how good Firefly was.

Mapper · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 12:11 pm Post subject:

Wing commander pittiful translation to movie, heh the game mini movies were much better.
And its funny how the games have a much better story line than what Hollywood can produce.

Paladin · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:09 pm Post subject:

All I have to say is with the amount of bad movies we get that are not bases from vidios games we did get a few that were quite good. Resident Evil! Very Happy

Also I'm waiting for serenity as well! #2gunfire

Not sure why, but I like the cowboys in space theme it has!

Sigurd Volsung · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 2:34 pm Post subject:

Scifer · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:00 pm Post subject:

D'ya know what I'd like to see a film version of?

Tetris.

Black and white, original music and hidden soviet propaganda written all over it. XD

Or even better, Starfox! If that was done well (REALLY well) it would kick so much ass. (And tail)

beno · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:39 pm Post subject:

Wouldn't we all Scifer... I'd like to see a film made of the games Homeworld I and II. Really.

Tygon · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:49 pm Post subject:

SkunkFox · Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:40 pm Post subject:

Osfer · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 7:34 am Post subject:

Tygon · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:00 am Post subject:

Osfer · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:07 am Post subject:

The new BSG spans a three-hour miniseries, a thirteen-episode first season and is nine episodes into its second.

The Battlestar itself is essentially an aircraft carrier. No shields, no lasers, no bullshit. Guided missiles, cannons firing ranged ammunition specifically to creat a flak cloud which enemy ordnance can't penetrate. Fighters engage enemy fighters in complex, Newtonian, three-dimensional dogfights, staying well clear against the capital craft. They serve to keep enemy fighters and nuclear missiles at bay, in addition to the Galactica's own defensive capabilities.

Little_Dragon · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 9:43 am Post subject:

strange-fox · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 5:22 pm Post subject:

Anyone seen the doom movie trailer? Dont... i nearly jumped out the window in pure angst.

Can anyone say "first person action movie?"