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AN ARTICLE BY: Mat Tschirgi, and Zack Huffman MAT I've been a fan of video games since I was in pre-school. I remember going to an arcade in El Salvador and playing Donkey Kong, Popeye, and my very first video game: Ms. Pac Man. I've also enjoyed movies for my whole life. The first movie I remember seeing in a movie theatre was Conan the Barbarian. I was in first grade at the time. Hollywood has made a few cracks at doing movies based off of video games and most of them suck, except for the original Mortal Kombat movie. Why do they suck so bad? I think it's because the screenwriters who write the scripts have never even played the video games before. They have no familiarity with what they are making an adaptation of. It's like if I were writing an adaptation of Harry Potter without even reading any of the books! Obviously, you can't make a movie just like a video game. Let's take Ms. Pac-Man as an example. Ms. Pac-Man as a movie that's just like the video game would look something like this: INT. MAZE -- DAY MS. PAC-MAN, a small, round, yellow babe with a small mouth and a red bow-tie on her head, sees a line of dots in front of her. Ms. Pac-Man eats the dots. She sees INKY, an evil ghost. -- Can you imagine how boring that would be? I don't know about you, but I would be bored watching Ms. Pac-Man eat some dots for 90 minutes. With any adaptation, you have to re-work the source material (in this case, Ms. Pac-Man) to fit as a movie. A possibly better way to do it would be: EXT. MS. PAC-MAN'S HOUSE -- DAY A small car drives up to the sidewalk in front of a big yellow house. MS. PAC-MAN, a round creature and a red bow-tie in her hair, waddles her way towards her front door. MS. PAC-MAN Geeze, I hate shopping! Ms. Pac-Man leaps up towards the door-bell, but can't reach it. MS. PAC-MAN Oh no, I can never reach the blasted door-bell! Ms. Pac-Man scratches her bow-tie for a second and opens her mouth really wide. MS. PAC-MAN Good thing I haven't had lunch today! Ms. Pac-Man takes a large bite out of the door and swallows it. She waddles in through the hole she just made. She sighs. MS. PAC-MAN Ugh, good thing a new door only cost $20! -- On second thought, that's pretty bad. Anyway, if you have any better ideas for a spin on how to turn a video game into a movie, send me an e-mail at magus@mindspring.com. If I get enough e-mails (although with nobody visiting the site, this isn't likely), I will put them up as an article on this site. ZACK After reading this article, I felt the need to elaborate on the true suckitude of most Video Game Movies, as a whole. Mat may have pointed out the main problem with making a video game movie, but he left out the examples. So now, lets's take a look at all of the video game movies that I can think of. 1. Super Mario Brothers This is the earlier movie that I could think of, that was based on a video game. It's also a movie that most literate people consider to be crap. I don't think I know a single that likes this movie. I'm not really sure why, but I think it has something to do with the completely, non-sensical storyline. Despite that, though, I happen to like this movie. Maybe it's because I like John Leguizamo, or maybe it's Dennis Hopper's portrayal of a germ-fearing King Koopa. Whatever the reason is, I actually enjoy this movie. 2. Street Fighter Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Guile in this adaptation of the popular video game. He must team up with Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li in order to take down the evil M. Bison. I could go on and on about every problem that this movie had, but I don't that much time. I sum it up with, horrible acting, directing, and writing. There also wasn't enough E. Honda. If you want to watch a Van Damme movie, rent Blood Sport. 3. Mortal Kombat This one isn't so bad, but I think that's because, much like the video game, it's much cooler than Street Fighter. It also didn't try to come up with a new story. It follows that game pretty closely in that aspect. (as far the first game, and first movie go.) It also features a cool fight between Johnny Cage and Scorpio. For a video game movie, it's pretty good. For a kung-fu movie, you can do better, by watching Blood Sport. 4. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation Mortal Kombat is the only video game that ever got a sequel. It's just too bad it didn't get a good sequel. Christopher Lambert didn't even reprise his sucky role as Rayden. You know it's a bad movie, when he decides not to take part in it. This movie also features a stupid ass side plot, where Jax learns that he can't beat Motaro with his bionic arms, but is able to once he takes them off, and uses his real arms. Are we to believe that Bionic appendages are inferior to their flesh and blood counter parts? I know a vibrator salesman who will tell you different. 5. Tomb Raider I won't go into this one too much, since I plan on writing a review for it, after I finish this article, but I will say that it's primary flaw, was to come up with a decent plot that could be told in under 2 hours. The games would get so involved that 2 hours wouldn't do it justice.
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