Why Do (Most) Video Game Movies Suck?
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Today I am talking about a question that I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and I finally sat down to write out my thoughts on the topic, that being: Why do (most) video game movies suck?
Co-Edited by: Archie
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Outro: Pls Proceed by Baron Grand
If you are reading this, comment: “Man, that footage of Sonic doing taxes was a crazy thing to add to the movie, though! He’s a hedgehog! He doesn’t owe taxes!”
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@ItsMrCow you look like the steak i just ate
You look like Egon Spangler from ghostbusters
Who are you?
Ok so I was gonna give the timestamps for you to see what he was holding as a mic holder, but then realised that it’s all a trick for getting more videos which is smart so am just gonna tell what he was holding. Just go and watch the vid again *the item he was holding throughout the video* pinecone, spatula knife and the other thing is for you to find out
Ted why did you use a pinecone and a spatula for a mic holder?
Internet outrage saved the Sonic movie, imagine if he still had those weird ass human eyes? There’s no way there’d be a second
Don’t forget the teeth…
Imagine what taiks would look like
@olivia grace Jesus is gay <3
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 <3
agreed
I can’t believe that Ted didn’t even talk about the Detective Pikachu movie
The first 90% of the movie was awesome, the last 10% deviated heavily from both the core game continuity and the actual detective pikachu continuity but it wasn’t too terrible.
The designs were meant to be realistic but not to the point where you couldn’t tell some of the more ‘normal’ pokemon from their real world design inspirations, and there were a ton of nice designs just organically in the background of scenes (i.e. there was at least 1 instance of a few Comfey chilling around some plants, and during the abandoned lab scene the Torterra in the tent were just big chillin as their habitat was sprinted through).
While not every character had a goal (or at least a good one), that’s to be expected (i.e. the police chief is just a police chief), and all in all there were plenty of good character moments and the movie itself never really fell flat with any of the things it tried to do (especially the comedy- it’s hard to mess up comedy with Ryan Reynolds there, but then again the Doom movie messed up action with the Rock so it’s not impossible)
@McGoldenblade exactly, they’re obviously intended for kids, but as an adult I don’t need to get a lobotomy to enjoy them. They’re not the best, but they’re definitely not as bad as other kids movies these days.
@Netap The exact same thing could be said about the Sonic Movie
It’s a great family movie, it’s not some Homerian epic, it’s not the godfather, it’s a nice movie you can watch with your family and friends and be happy about. It doesn’t give much to be angry about as well, it has the fun pokemon thing for the kids in the audience while the more mature people are invested in the family drama thing.
Overall a 7/10.
That’s because it was a way overhyped movie after how many Pokémon movies and tv shows.
I really liked the Detective Pikachu movie- and I didn’t find too many inconsistencies with the lore of it. Even though the whole “soul swap” situation was pretty cheesy, it’s still accurate to the lore because of the Mystery Dungeon games.
This was a really fun video dude!
You went a lot more in depth than what I’ve seen other people do when they talk about bad video game movie examples and even talked about stuff I didn’t know about, like the backwards logic of the director for the Mario movie.
But man, am I happy that Sonic is at the forefront of good VGMs. As a big Sonic fan, it feels so rewarding. Also, I was surprised at how much research you actually did for Sonic lore. When you talked about the moon just…turning around I was like “Oh fuck-he DID do his research XD”
You can thank Connor for that moon reference
I think one of the most interesting cases was Arcane. Sure Riot did a lot of work beforehand with their whole League of Legends universe.
And they could have settled for a mediocre story and us fans would have be satisfied. But they didnt. They poured their hearts and souls into it and gave us the best video game adaptation ever.
@LostnthSauze Cliche, easy to read & boring as compared to what? And again, you’re seriously telling me you predicted the events of episode 3? And episode 9? You saw all of that coming? Children killing children and bombing the central government?
When you say things like “there was 0 storyline” it just makes it sound so much like you weren’t even paying attention. This show has several intertwining plot points that are all well balanced. I just don’t understand how you thought there was no story.
And what do you mean by gimmicks? The characters have certain defining features because they’re from a game with one-not archetypes, but they’re a lot more here than just their surface level personas.
You just blatantly missed the arcs dude. I could explain them for damn near every single character.
@Anson. no I did watch the show thats why I tried to leave some positives about the show 🙂 I just disagree. The writing seemed cliche, easy to read and boring. I even watched the entire season thinking the entire time “wow I hope this gets better everyone else seems to like it”. Maybe its just me and my shit opinion, but that show is just like every other blue pill Netflix bullshit story that they produce en masse. I really wanted to like it, but the show was not good imo.
@LostnthSauze You’re telling me that you predicted they’d make a child accidentally kill her surrogate brothers & father? BS. I seriously don’t think you actually watched this show. The story and characters only get better the more I think about them.
What…? Lol that show was really bad. The story was weak and predictable, the characters were annoying and had too many gimmicks (why does every character in a show need a gimmick? To entertain the audience when there is 0 storyline) the animation was really cool and the fights were not half bad at all, but the studios put 0 time or effort into the storyline or the characters and their arcs.
@Big Man woah woah woah there Bigan I’m gonna have to disagree with you there
Speaking of video game movies, this reminds me of a funny story! I was on my way to see the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie in theaters when it came out, and while I was waiting for the movie to start, I saw Ted Nivison enter the theater! I blushed so hard, realizing I was going to be watching the movie in the same theater as one of my favorite YouTubers! I knew it would be inappropriate to go up to him and say something, so I just looked at him from afar. However, during the trailers, he caught my gaze and immediately stood up and started to walk towards me. Before I got a chance to think, he grabbed my leg and told me, “You’re not going anywhere.” He pulled his trusty hammer from his pocket and broke both of my kneecaps, letting me fall to the floor. As I tried to reach for my knees and soothe them, he grabbed my arm and whispered, “You’re too slow…” He smiled as he poured a bucket of popcorn on my head and covered me in butter. Before the movie could even begin, he dragged me out by the legs, and of course, when the theater staff saw a person with broken knees covered in butter, they immediately kicked me out of the theater for indecency. It was one of the most horrific experiences of my life. Classic Ted!
What a rapscallion! 😂
classic!
at first i was like “eh just another lucky fan” and was about to scroll but just as i was about to, it went dark-
This is immediately one of my favorite comments I’ve ever read in my life
I love how they choose the most gameplay-prioritizing games to remove the gameplay from. Like Super Mario Brothers, known worldwide for its excellent storytelling, and Doom for its in-depth and phsychologically neuanced protagonist.
I feel another big problem with these movies is that they have about ~2 hours to establish the entire world, its rules, everything you could explore inside the games, somehow include the entire story and make sense of it all.
Looking at the Mario games you have a fairly straight narrative and it will never stop making me laugh at how incredibly bad they fucked THAT up but with games like Uncharted or Tomb Raider it just doesn’t make sense to make a movie out of it. There’s so much to explore and they probably would have come better out of it, if they would have made TV shows.
These video games are games for a fucking reason, and the reason being that they can’t be a book, they can’t be song or podcast and they sure as hell can’t be a movie.
They are meant to be explored through the players eyes and not some dude who hasn’t played the Mario games and now wants to be god.
Just imagine trying to translate any of these games into an actual book, not a comic, a fucking book.
If that doesn’t work what in your right mind tells you to try to make it into a movie/ podcast/ musical???
@pringleprongles I think it can definitely be done though because those kinds of games go on for that long because they’re games and have hours of gameplay AND story, but a movie only has to worry about the story and can definitely be cut down to 2 hours. I think most games would work fine that way but there are also games that wouldn’t work like that, like Detroit Become Human which is basically already a 10 hour movie
@Luna Rose It absolutely does!! But there are also games like God of War or Control that go on for 10+ hours that you just shouldn’t press down into 2 hours.
2 hours is plenty if the story is enjoyable. I mean Sonic, Uncharted and Detective Pikachu did it perfectly fine.
But I really liked the new uncharted movie…
You don’t need to add every part of a game into a movie, you just write a story that follows rules of the game in the game’s world.
There was a movie based on a DS game, Professor Layton and that was actually very good. It was like an extended cutscene from the actual games and I loved it. Has anyone else watched it
I remember my brother got a DVD of it, twas pretty good from what I remember of it
@Jacynta Mckechnie No problem, it’s called Professor Layton the Eternal Diva btw
I didn’t know there was a Professor Layton movie, I love those games, I own all of them! Thank you for mentioning this, I’ll be checking this movie out
I thought you meant dark souls and i was about to get hella angry
The great thing about Tyson Hesse is that he’s living proof that being a fan can be rewarding. He made this super popular and crazy funny Sonic parody comic in 2006 (or slightly earlier) that blew up and eventually got him noticed by the Sonic team and he’s been participating in Sonic media creation for years now. It’s nice seeing a promoted fan actually do great work for the series they love.