In 1993, a rather forgettable moment in video game history happened. Super Mario Bros., the first ever live-action video game adapted to the silver screen, was released worldwide. I say forgettable, since the movie was both a critical and financial failure, underperforming at the box office and commonly making the lists of the “worst movies ever made”. SyFy Wire wrote in 2020 that “Some movies are so bad that they’re secretly good. This film is so bad it crushes your spirit. It’s unfathomably terrible” and Bob Hoskins, who played the titular character Mario, stated that it was “the worst thing I ever did”. The decades following saw what seemed to be a tradition of popular video games being turned into lackluster films and television shows. Gamers, including myself, yearn for a film or television series that faithfully captures a game’s world and story, a Herculean task. So what gives? Why do they suck, and why is it so difficult to adapt video games into good movies or shows? In this article, I will go over the reasons why I think many video game adaptations tend to fall short. One important thing to note is that I will only be talking about live-action adaptations, not animated ones. Also, in the words of the great philosopher “The Dude”, “Yeah, well you know, that’s just like, your opinion man.”
The medium and its audience
Themes, commentary, and aesthetics are both present in every medium; books, poems, songs, and films; it is after all how stories and ideas are conveyed. However, these mediums are often one-sided. Take film for instance, Our only form of interaction is simply being an observer that is immersed in the world of the film. Audiences cannot interact with the story, rather only react to it. The characters’ behavior, personality, and modus operandi are all portrayed by the filmmakers themselves. They get to decide what they want to portray. Video games are much different in that they add another element, interactivity. The medium is now two-sided, with the player in control of how they interact and interpret the world they are playing in. Simply put, different players have different play styles. Take open-world role playing games (RPGs), the main character may have a backstory and even a voice actor, but the player may choose to complete the story through being a merciless killer burning their way to the top, design their character to be a brute who uses melee weapons, be the stealthy type with more tactical knowledge, or be diplomatic and charm everyone with maxed out charisma stats. It’s like playing with toys as a child, there is no “correct” way to play. This is what makes adapting video games into live action films incredibly difficult, a two-sided medium now becomes one-sided with the power being put into the filmmaker. It is up to the filmmaker to choose how they want to portray the game’s world, characters’ personalities, and behavior. It’s not entirely impossible, some games are easier to adapt than others. Games that have more linear stories such as, say, “The Last of Us” (2013), is much easier to adapt much of the player’s impact on the game’s world and characters are limited, whereas “Skyrim” (2011), much of the game hinges on the player’s own decisions. It will be interesting to see how the filmmakers of the upcoming 2025 Minecraft movie will portray one of the most personalized games in history.
This may be the most controversial argument when it comes to adapting anything to a film, do you stick to the source material or do you build a whole new story from the material? Gamers tend to prefer the latter, in fact much of the negative critiques I have seen about film adaptations had something to do with how the filmmakers have bastardized their favorite games. The Halo TV series that was adapted by Showtime did not create a 1:1 adaptation, instead the creators of the show built a whole new story from the game. To be clear, the showrunners DID play the Halo games, rather they said that they were not going to adapt the games directly, nor look to it as an inspiration. This was met with negative reviews from fans of Halo as they expected an adaptation of the games, not a whole new story. Forbes summarized the first season as “It’s just not…very good”, WIRED wrote that “Halo finds itself atop an unenviable heap: the carcasses of failed video game adaptations”, and fans share the same sentiment as one poster on Reddit writes “The show has completely wasted its source material. The writing is really bad in creating engaging arcs. The premise doesn’t make sense.” The Last of Us HBO series goes the opposite direction, creating a near 1:1 adaptation of the game. Not only did they stay true to the source material, they also built on the existing story. Showing us more about what the story of Joel and his daughter Sarah was like before the outbreak in the first episode. At the beginning of each episode, they show us a scene that either gives us a hint of what the episode will be about or fleshes out the story of one of the characters. One example is when it shows how Ellie’s mother was infected, leading to Ellie becoming immune, something that wasn’t present in the game. The showrunners did what many gamers believe is what filmmakers should do when adapting a video game and much of the show’s success is owed to that. Deviating from the source material in an attempt to market to a wider audience rather than to the fans of the game is what often leads to many of these films to bomb.
I fully understand not everyone is a gamer, not everyone wants to dump hours on playing a game, understanding its little intricacies and enjoying the story. Guiltily, I sometimes feel the same when it comes to film adaptations of books. I’d rather watch the movie version (“The Shawshank Redemption” (1994) was based on a short story by Stephen King and the film is far superior), or would like to see a book I like adapted. Given these reasons, I believe that sometimes, games just don’t need to be adapted, not everything needs an HBO series or a big budget franchise film. There are titles that hold their own as video games and must be played in order to enjoy the full experience. The Red Dead Redemption series, for instance, has an incredible story and immense world. I believe it would be very difficult to adapt such a game and to stay faithful to the source material, I feel that it wouldn’t have the same effect on audiences as the games do. I don’t think a film would be able to evoke the same emotional shock we all felt when Shepherd betrayed the player and killed Ghost in that infamous Modern Warfare 2 (2009) mission. It’s similar to the first reason I mentioned, where the players’ interaction with the game is what makes video games unique, adaptations tend to fall flat because they’re just not the same compared to when they’re played. What works in the game may not work on the screen.
Conclusion
Before large studios go buck-wild and start developing every possible game into the next summer film or streaming service series, it’s important that they consider these factors and to understand the audiences of these games. After all, it’s up to the executives’ judgment to decide the direction, and the results will show it. Still, I think we are entering a new era, when producers are starting to catch on and realize the true potential of video games on the silver screen.
