The complicated truth of videogame movies

[@iveseenthings7928]

a Subspace Emissary style movie would be really fun tho...

[@CharlieAndLuke]

Still waiting for the smash-vengers cinematic universe to drop!😇

[@SuperLegendOf364]

Dang bro, kinda wild to compare the Mario movie to the Boarderlands movie. The film only vaguely resembles the games, but dropped the ball on so many other aspects, it really cancels out any fan service to enjoy.

[@CharlieAndLuke]

My intention wasn’t to compare the two, rather point out that I think Hollywood is learning the wrong lessons from the Mario and Sonic movies success, that being that “accuracy” matters above all else and having a story that works isn’t important instead of realising that Mario worked because it’s Mario and was in a different position to borderlands. Kinda like how marvel started doing shared universe stuff and suddenly everyone was, as if cameos and shared universes were all you needed to have a successful franchise, whether it made sense or not.

[@michaelkindt3288]

I feel like there is a bit of A deep reason as to why the most popular video game movies are also fan servicey. And I think it ties into one question for the opposite extreme: why brand this with the video game franchise? After all, if what you wrote was truly good, then shouldn't it be able to stand on its own? If you need to brand it A "Mario" or A "Street Fighter" or A "Tomb Raider" flim in order to get executives or audiences to care, then is it really that good? Well I haven't seen the film myself yet, I heard the movie The Joker it's pretty good just at the film itself. But I also heard it was essentially not meant to be A Batman movie, but was made to be so in order to get green lit. If this is hypothetically true, then it could be true that some good ideas need to be to be branded under A "safe" franchise in order to be manifested. But I feel like even this would speak to greater issues in Hollywood. Both in its inability to recognize greatness in risky prospects, and it's misunderstandings of why brands can have so much power. Point is, if you load the Mario movie up with a bunch of references to Mario, and Mario fan service, then at least there's A reason for it to be a "Mario movie", as opposed to just A movie loosely inspired by Mario. I have yet to seen the film, and yet just looking at some of the footage shown in this very video, I can at least see the value in it as A way to show what the Mario world would be like as an actual world, without chucking it up to "just gameplay conveniences". I mean, I saw them platform around the city as though that was just a normal thing to do. That isn't nothing. The two Sonic films are a good example of this. It's not hard to imagine how the general plot outline of the first film could be rewritten to have nothing to do with Sonic. Replace Sonic the Hedgehog with a new character who's some of their animal associated with speed (rabbit, roadrunner, cheetah, gazelle, etc.), and make Robotnik just another generic mad scientist working for the military. But so does a lot to justify itself as a Sonic film. Not just references to Green Hill and the echidna clan nod, but also in its use of rings as the method of teleportation used to go across worlds (clear reference to warp rings), The fact that a lot of the robot designs could it take inspiration from badinks, the way Robotnik has A pseudo egg-mobile, and probably more I'm not thinking of. So you could erase Sonic from the equation, but it would be pretty hard to do so without leaving the inspirations obvious. It seems to answer the question of "how would these elements work in a movie?" It does a decent job justifying why it needs to be A Sonic film instead of Hops: The Superhero Film. But Sonic the Movie 2, does an even better job justifying this element by adding in aspects from both Sonic 2 and Sonic 3&K. We get to see a new interpretation of Sonic and Tails's friendship, we get to see a new version of Sonic and Knuckles's rivalry, we get to see the chaos emeralds, master emerald, and superforms get incorporated as an element of the film. I can't imagine how one could unsonic the movie. It does in your perfect job just defining _why_ it _needs_ to be A _Sonic_ movie, and why it would be _weird_ if it _wasn't._ Because the elements it takes from the Sonic franchise are to integral to its identity to separate them without changing everything. And since you brought up how your parents thought there was too much going on in Sonic the Movie 2, I think the reason why video game series tend to do better than video game movies is because both tend to be long form methods of storytelling. A series is divided into multiple episodes, lending itself pretty well to an arbitrarily large story, (and by that, I do mean it in the mathematical sense, look at One Piece), and once the video games introduce the ability to save and load files, it became much easier for them to be as long as would fit in A floppy disk or cartridge. So regardless of if it's a straight adaptation of the story, or an alternate continuity of its world, there's plenty of space for the games elements. But a movie, by definition, is one, compact film, not exceeding more than like 3 hours. Which puts serious limitations as to how much can be adapted into film format. Now, books also tend to be A longer format, but movie adaptations of books are something people can agree can be good. But the difference there is 1). Books are an ancient medium that has existed for thousands of years before motion pictures were even invented, so directors had the entire history of film to work out how to adapt books, _on top of_ they're being already some work done on how to adapt books into plays; well video games are fairly new in the grand history of media, and so there isn't as much to reference as to how to do a video game to film adaptation right. And 2). Books like both A visual and audio element, and while the absence of these things can be argued to add something in their own right, the presence of these two elements in film means that movies have more vectors to condense information without losing clarity, allowing for A greater density of information that can make up for films comparatively short length; meanwhile, video games have an extra gameplay element, and while this can be disruptive to the telling of certain types of stories, it is also ultimately another vector for condensing information in A clear way, and so films have comparatively _less_ to increase information density, adding A whole extra layer of complexity on top of the normal troubles with adaptations. And so ultimately, there's a lot of information that needs to be cut in order to fit game stories, or at least the elements of the game's story, into movie length, which only makes it harder to justify why this movie needs to be A video game adaptation. And I think we're still figuring out how to do this, but the recent video game films have been pretty good examples of where to start. Especially Detective Pikachu in retrospect. Pretty hard to imagine how that film _couldn't_ be A Pokémon film.

[@davidvaldez1093]

1:20 what about the 1986 Mario OVA

[@davidprogamer2703]

Short Answers: Videogames are something that WE (audience) can influence, even in the smallest ways. Movies cannot be influenced on-yhe-go. For example - Minecraft is a Sandbox game, and is less concerned about being a game with LORE. Instead, it gives YOU (player) total control to build and destroy whatever you want. Undertale technically has 3 different "Stories" (the 3 Routes), but you still have to make those small, almost blink-and-miss decisions. Mario - for as simple as it is -, has potential for stories. We have seen that even on the Gaming Scene (Mario Galaxy, Mario Odyssey, Mario Sunshine and Mario 64. They all have the same "Save Peach, Beat Bowser" basic.story, but there's still more that make them interesting) SHORTER ANSWER: As long as a videogame has some story attached to it, it has potential. But you have to be smart when writing a Movie script about it (rather than a videogame script)

[@val9847]

it's actually criminal this video has under a thousand views

[@CharlieAndLuke]

You’re so real, thank you

[@ThatShyGuyMatt]

Another excellent video. I'm probably the odd man out here. But the only video game adaptation to movie/tv I liked were the Resident Evil movies. Not that they were accurate mind you, I just enjoyed it was its own little universe and over the top. Now would I say they are top tier movies? Nope. But I still enjoyed them. I also enjoyed the Twisted Metal series. I REALLY didn't have high expectations for it even though the games always had some story to them. But the series still impressed me. And they don't drown you in fan service, its a slow drip. There are still so many characters left to see for example. Sonic was "good". And by that I mean I enjoyed it but would never watch it again. I tried watching the second one and gave up on it. I like Sonic and Knuckles as chareters in the movies but the movies are forgettable. Detective Pikachu I actually enjoyed more then I thought I would. I never played the Pokemon games, but I know all about it. I seen a few episodes of the cartoon/anime long ago. I enjoyed the movie was also sort of its own universe and story. I could go for a second one. As for the other movies/tv shows, half I haven't watched or have watched and didn't care for. The Mario movie was painful to sit though. Sure there were some nice fan service moments, but the non-existent plot left me bored. Last of Us was just "eh". For me personally I've never been a person that demands a huge amount of accurate crossover from one medium to another. Like some people Rings of Power (LOTR) on Amazon because its not lore accurate. I don't care, just give me an enjoyable story, movie level graphics and of course have some references in it. Likewise I don't care if a game is adapted to a movie/tv show with total accuracy. Assuming the other parts of it are done well. Thus my love os the Resident Evil movies. I just think of them as their own thing. On the other hand the Tomb Raider movies (old and new) do basic Lara fan service, but thats it. They can redo the story from any of the games and it would be perfect. As you said, Last of Us was loved by many because the game was basically a movie, with gameplay in it. Sort of the same for the Tomb Raider movies. I'd really love to see a good Hitman (Agent 47) movie. Both movies (there has been two right?) almost nailed Agent 47 himself, at least with the personality. But then redid the story. Why? It's a assassin/spy kinda game, the story is right there. Why are there other assassins? Why change the story with Diane? I mean John Wick is a better version of Agent 47 sadly. Splinter Cell would also be a great movie as the game is a giant story. But I have a feeling they would mess that up also. At least they did a good job with some of the other Tom Clancy novels being turned into movie/tv shows.

[@andrewbunch2394]

I was never into Pokémon, and I always assumed the games were based on the tv show, not the other way around. Blew my mind

[@MatthiasPendragon]

I think there may be an underlying assumption that all movies NEED to be great stories, and that simply serving a heap of fanservice is inherently a bad thing. Giving your audiance what they want may mean that it will never be high art, but it does garuntee a good time, and I think it's okay for us to just go and enjoy a good time. Not everything has to be Pixar. That being said, I think you can strike a balance. It's not a video game adaption, but Transformers One is a great example of leaning into Lore and fanservice while also telling a heartfelt story. EDIT: Also, love your videos man! Keep it up :)

[@stereokuuji]

I mean the only to do a good Transformers movie is to strike that balance constantly coz ut in it's self always has good stories to begin with What I'm trying to say is Transformers is is the same boat as Last of Us

[@RabbiB0Y]

24:29 welp this video was a waste of my time you be yapping so long about things that do exist but you just weren't paying attention shit doesnt have to be citizen Kane my guy

[@CarlWidegrip]

I don’t understand what you’re trying to say

[@stereokuuji]

You didn't watch the video You saw the video for 24:29 minutes

[@ConiferSSR]

Well put about certain adaptations being more fan-service than substance. I don't feel so alone thinking the Mario movie is just "fine" overall considering its lack of plot. Please never use AI images ever again though, it sucks so bad

[@reeyees50]

They still suck