MEMBER BLOG

Mass Effect, Uncharted, and even Space Invaders (Yes! Space In-****ing-vaders!) are being made into movies. Which is why I’m blogging today, that and the fact I have an ego the size of Texas. This isn’t the first time I’ve opined about video games and Hollywood: “Mass Effect Movie Gets Comic-Con Panel” (gamerevolution.com/news/mass-effect-movie-gets-comiccon-panel-6639) My post: “Hey, any one else remember that God-awful Super Mario Bros. movie. Talk about bad casting, bad story, bad everything! And lets not forget all the wonderful movie based games we've been given over the years. Can anybody name even one that was worth a crap! Hollywood + Games = CRAP! So forget getting a good Mass Effect movie and resign yourself to another helping of Hollywood crap!”

Daniel Bishoff (danielrbishoff) pointed out that there was at least one “worth a crap” Spiderman 2. This got me thinking (NO! It didn’t hurt!), and a little research later I found: “Sons of Celluloid: The 11 Best Movie-Based Video Games” (gamerevolution.com/features/video-games-based-on-movies) You may have even heard of couple, if not played them Goldeneye 007, and Spiderman 2. But they had to go all the way back to the seventies (Yes, the nineteen-freaking-seventies) to find two of those! Both of which were arcade games! Shit, if we had to rely only on Hollywood for good games there would be no game industry, it would have dried up and blown away ages ago. But my guess is that I am preaching to the choir about this, so next point.

I stand behind what I said about the Super Mario Bros. movie, even the lead actor Bob Hoskins wishes he hadn’t made the film (guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/18/bob-hoskins-interview-neverland). Even with that and all the bad movie based video games, Hollywood keeps making video game based movies. Rotten tomatoes, the movie rating site has a list of the best video game movies (rottentomatoes.com/guides/best_video_game_adaptations/). That is to say the cream of the crap. There has never been a video game movie that critics have liked. Why? It’s not just because they are video game movies, but because they’re bad. Bad yes, but many turned a profit. So long as there is money to be made, Hollywood will crank out even more of these movies, and maybe one day there might even be a good one (But don’t hold your breath!).

One could argue (wrongly) that the shear size of a video game, 20 or more hours of game play, makes video games less ideal fodder for film than say a book. I have only to point out The Lord of the Rings to punch a hole into that argument. Long books, good movies. Yes, much shortened, but still good. Why? R-E-S-P-E-C-T Respect ! Yes, simple common respect. Hollywood has no respect for video games as a source of the stories they make into films. Until this changes, and I for one hope it’s soon, we will still get crap from Hollywood, both video game based movies and movie based video games.