One of the biggest news-makers of 2013 was video games. There were big games released such as The
Last of Us, Grand Theft Auto V, and Call of Duty: Ghosts. There were new consoles released: Xbox One
and PlayStation 4. We were getting over
the 2012 movie releases of Resident Evil: Afterlife and Silent Hill:
Revelations, and we saw a trailer for a Need for Speed movie. Video games are everywhere.
Hollywood likes to use a lot of sources when it comes to
inspiration for movies. Video games are
one of these sources, but the results are rarely good. When we look back at the various adaptations
of video games to the theaters, we get movies like Super Mario Bros., Street
Fighter, Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, and this week’s movie House of the
Dead. That’s not to say that there
aren’t some fun movies in the bunch, but they have never done too well
critically. Is it a result of a lack of
effort put into the movies? Is it due to
the talent of the people behind the camera?
Could there simply be no way to properly get a video game adapted to the
big screen? I don’t know the answer to
these questions, and I won’t tell you that I do. But I can write about how House of the Dead
can both show the good and the bad of video game adaptations.
For those of you who aren’t in the know, House of the Dead
is a 2003 adaptation of the 1996 videogame by Sega. It was directed by Uwe Boll, one of the most
hated directors in the entire world. He
is so hated, in fact, that there was once a petition to stop him from ever
directing again. The movie stars
Jonathan Cherry, a guy you might recognize as being in movies for a couple of
years then disappearing off the face of the planet. House of the Dead is about a bunch of people
going to an island, finding zombies, and hiding out in a house. Or trying to hide out in the house. That might be a better way to describe the
movie.
The good things about the movie are what I am going to start
with. It all basically comes down to how
fun the movie is. The point of most
video games are to have fun. In many
cases, the story behind the game is very secondary to how much fun a person can
have playing it. That is why online
gaming has become so much more popular than playing through the story modes of
games. Let’s look at the Call of Duty games
as an example. How many people do you
know that have played through the story mode on the games? Now compare that to the number of people that
you know have played it online. As the
Call of Duty games have continued onward, the story has become less and less
relevant, while the online has become more relevant. The games are about fun rather than a meaty
story. Most of the film adaptations of
video games focus on the fun instead of the story as well.
House of the Dead can exemplify this focus upon the
fun. The story of the movie is very
basic. A group of 20-somethings are put
on an island and get attacked by zombies.
Add some guns, boobs, and explosions, and you get an action movie. Add some ridiculousness, an extended gunfight
of every character attempting to get into the house while the camera spins
around them, a final climactic swordfight, a rave, and Clint Howard, you get a
lot of fun. The movie is upping the fun
in an attempt to cover the lack of story, and though the overall quality might
be bad, the movie is still a fun movie.
It’s enjoyable from beginning to end.
Before I get into what House of the Dead doesn’t do well as
an adaptation, let me say that I’ve never played the game. I will be talking about the negative aspects
of the adaptation in generalizations.
I’m not going to get into the parts that were directly adapted from game
to screen because I don’t know them.
With that out of the way, I shall begin.
One of the biggest issues with adapting video games to film
comes from the story. I’ve already
discussed how the point of video games comes down to fun, but movies are
supposed to give some sort of story to go along with the fun. It is hard to adapt a video game into a good
story when the source material does not have a solid story. From the little that I know of the House of
the Dead video game, it is about two people going to a mansion to stop an evil
scientist that created zombies. None of
that is in the movie. Instead, the movie
is about young adults at a rave being attacked by zombies. The story in the movie is even more
simplistic than that of the video game which is a major flaw in the
adaptation. The game might not have had
the most thought provoking, character growing plot to it, but it seems to have
had more than the movie.
The other issue I would like to bring up is the fact that
the House of the Dead game was a first-person shooter. The thing about games of this type are that
they put the player into the shoes of the protagonist. As a player, you are more immersed in the
game since all of the action is from your point of view. Anything that happens is from your line of
sight. You can’t rotate around the
character and see from all angles at once.
You can’t zoom in or zoom out from the character for a wider view. You have one point of view, which is the same
as the character’s point of view. You
are essentially the main character in the game.
This is extremely difficult to translate into film. Yes, found footage films are a big sort of
subgenre of movies in the present day, but that’s slightly different. How often do you see people brandishing
weapons in found footage films and acting as if the camera is their eyesight
and not a camera that they are holding?
That is very rare. I’m not sure
if I have ever seen that myself in a found footage movie. It’s very difficult to make work. The first person style is one that I’ve only
seen in a video game sense once on film.
Doom had one scene in which all of the action was seen from the main
character’s point of view and the screen was set up to resemble that of the
game. There is no real consensus on
whether it worked or not. I think it
did, but it has not been done since, from my knowledge. It’s a difficult concept to pull off.
The reason I bring up the difficulty of that is the
immersion factor. I said that the first
person point of view of video game shooters can really help to immerse the
player into the world of the game. Movies
tend not to do that. House of the Dead
is no different. The first person point
of view is replaced with the less immersive third person point of view. For people who had played the game, there
will be a sense of disconnect when watching the movie because they are no
longer a part of the action. Instead,
the viewers of House of the Dead are witnessing what is going on. It isn’t as satisfying or fulfilling. And that’s where the problem lies.
When you look at all of the video game adaptations that have
hit theaters over the years, you can see that many of the problems come in the
form of story, or the fact that the video game was first person, and the movie
cannot translate that. There are certain
aspects, like the first person point of view, that don’t translate well to
movies. There is more of a focus on
atmosphere and fun in video games that leaves the story behind. Will these problems ever be overcome? Will there ever be a critically successful
movie based on a video game? I cannot
answer these questions outside of saying that only time will tell.
There are a few notes that I’m going to leave you with:
- Michael Eklund was in House of the Dead. You might remember him from The Marine 3: Homefront, if you watched that movie.
- If you watched Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, you might have recognized David Palffy in House of the Dead.
- House of the Dead was suggested by @jaimeburchardt.
- Do you have a movie that you’d like to suggest for the Sunday “Bad” Movies? Leave a comment, or tell me on Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment