but honestly how long has this genre been going on for anyway? maybe if this film was structured like the rest, sure your right to give bad comments for being just like the rest, being to mainstream as it were. Despite this, I’m going to give this one a chance because I think the director has balls to contrast the film the way it was origonaly intended. GBMP

Although I fucking love van dammes street fighter… but not for the reasons the producers intended.

anyway…the only game I have ever played and thought “i hope they make a film out of this” is max payne.

chances are it will be terrible but it is the only game i
have ever thought could work….

its a basic revenge story with dirty cops, dirty women and a fucked up antihero……and I fucking love revenge films.
but no doubt the producers will turn payne into a fucking clean cut good guy with no shades of grey and fuck the entire film up…but set it right in the world he inhabits in the game and stick to the sleazy grimy world in the game and write a story around the general idea it might work.

thats the problem with most video game movies…there is no real reason why they all suck so bad. i mean john you go on all the time about narrative of games versus plot etc etc but that has nothing to do with it…..as long as you write a good script it doesn’t matter whether its based on a video game or not. the biggest problem is the producers and makers of video game movies seem to think we are fucking idiots…..they think they can shovel any old shit out and people will go see it…..

doom could have been great…get decent talent on board and you could have had a decent sci fi actioner on that premise ….. but because the genre is looked down upon the makers never seem to care or try to deliver a decent product.

when you strip most games down they have fairly basic stories … so do 99% hollywood blockbusters…its what you do with the premise and how you tell the story that matters.

I think the biggest reasons people had hope for halo is that for the first time you had a genuine academy award winning A list film maker involved in a video game film. I certainly can’t think of any other video game film that had someone of jackson calibre involved…

anyway….in summation i just think that there is no real reason a film based on a game couldn’t work…the film makers need to try harder and not treat it with lazy distain

hell transformers is based on a fucking toy….

You’ve just named pretty much the 3 things that make ANY film. YES a video-game film COULD be good, but only if the writer is allowed to completely ignore the game’s story and improvise. My argument was that computer games have terrible stories when taken away from the experience of playing the game.

Maybe the best way to go with video games would be for the director to play the game and then write “a story INSPIRED by the game”. This way the film need bear no real resemblance to the game plot, but could be (very) loosely based on the games setting/themes.

Also I agree with Darren “In some cases “good stories” in videogames are influenced by (or outright ripped off and stolen from) previously produced movies and novels, with or without permission.”.. although I would also add that they are also often ripped from books also. I think Max Payne falls into this category although ripped is probably a harsh word and I prefer “pays homage” to the revenge movies.