Why Video Games Haven’t, Won’t and (Maybe) Can’t Become Good Movies

Can Video Game Movies Work?

Yes. In spite of everything I€™ve written here, there is the potential for video game movies to work. The problem is, for them to work, the filmmakers need to feel free to break away from the structure and characters of the game. They need to feel free to adapt. After all, it wasn€™t until Bryan Singer jettisoned the X-Men€™s costumes that people really began to take comic book films seriously as a potential medium. And like those uncanny fans, I have no doubt that huge sections of the fan bases for these games will VEHEMENTLY reject any and all attempts to break away from the dogma of the source. But that€™s taking a totally insular, quasi-incestuous view of storytelling. You can€™t just translate things from one medium to the other. It doesn€™t work, for reasons I have spent the past few thousands of words describing. In order for art to flourish, it needs to be given space and freedom. The reason studios keep hiring hacks to develop these properties is because they view them as second-rate entertainment. Well, if you want true artists and auteurs to tackle these games, you need to accept that they are in fact artists and auteurs. They are going to want to change things, fundamental things, to better make the material suitable for this medium. Like I said in my 2001: A Space Odyssey piece, being willing to accept change is a key part of loving anything. It will take fans proving that they WANT to see games taking seriously and treated as art, even if that mean filmmakers taking the stories and characters apart to make something new with them. As always, it is on the audience to ask for better, and to prove that they deserve better.