[News] David Fincher produced Halo 4 trailer premieres October 18

I will never say no to a video game movie. I keep hoping they one day get it right. Has there been a single good video game movie? I'm not counting the various anime versions spread throughout Japan (and to be honest, most of those are pretty mediocre, too).

Some thoughts before anyone jumps in....

I haven't seen Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Based on its metacritic rating, I have to kind of guess that it sucks. I also haven't seen Max Payne, but I've just heard god awful things about that.

Mortal Kombat is often considered a "good" one and it's fun, but it's not anything that will withstand the test of time (except for that awesome music).

The Final Fantasy: Advent Children film doesn't really count as good in my book. Mostly because it's not accessible. Show that to anyone who hasn't played the games and they don't know what to do with it. Yes, the fighting is cool. But the plot is so thin that everyone has to stop every three minutes to explain it.

The Tomb Raider films come close to good. I've actually watched them a number of times because they are fun and mostly enjoyable. But they don't do anything outside of the formula and certainly don't live up to the old Indiana Jones film (which is what a really good Tomb Raider film should do).

I actually like Silent Hill. It is not a great movie, mostly because it's really not scary (except for the nurses) and relies way too much on CGI—also the acting is pretty shitty—but I enjoy it and I like the ending. I think it borders on being good and treats the audience, for the most part, with intelligence. But, like Tomb Raider, it fails to really capture what it's video game does.

... and I think that's sort've my point. I've yet to see a video game movie that makes me feel the way the game did. Whether it's the rush of beating up guys in Double Dragon or the somberness and twisting plot of a Final Fantasy game, I just haven't seen the translation effectively transmit the themes or feel of its counterpart.

The purpose of a film adaptation isn't to imitate the source material with complete accuracy, and that's why I think directors fail so often with this kind of thing. The best book based movies are the ones that take liberal interpretations of the source material. It's more about the universe and adventure as opposed to portraying everything correctly.

Games don't make good movies, neither do books, that's why you need a good director who can use a bit of his own imagination into making a game or book's universe work in a different way, instead of translating elements awkwardly across wildly different mediums. LOTR movies were a great envisioning of the stories, not because they were in any ways accurate. Harry Potter didn't even become watchable until I think it was the 3rd that changed the directors? From then on they said fuck the books, here are some actual movies with pace and excitement.

And games are just very difficult for non-gamers to interpret. Street Fighter, for example, isn't known for its 10 minute story mode of terribly written characters. The cast is instead known to each player on a much deeper level through the actual play of the game. So why is every fighting game movie entirely focused on translating untranslatable elements? The street fighter films can only grasp what they see in the games, so essentially a very dumb cartoon (same applies to FFVII on surface level). But I don't want to see a real human being attempt a hurricane kick, it looks fucking stupid and always will. Instead, make the universe your own, and do what the film medium excels at.

And yet fans of course get all hurt if they made a movie where Ryu didn't do a shoryuken. People still get mad at great book based movies because the "the movie left stuff out" in their eyes, as if that statement even makes sense.

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Anyways, I think a Halo movie or the allegedly upcoming WoW film have great potential. If only because these are very large universes and can be handled liberally, not to mention having tons of money to work with.

Also, Gui Boratto is contributing to Halo 4's sountrack. Awesome. May be the first time a Halo game has earned my attention.