Spoilers herein.
Translating a book to film is a tough job. The bargain between reader and writer is more dense, more amenable to intraword twists -- intraphrase ironies, simultaneous realities. But the relationships between film and video game is far more difficult.
The distance is not obvious because they both center on video images. But the narrative bargain is wholly different. To make it work like the game, you are forced to make it look nothing like the genre -- but there goes your brand.
Three elements here: honest earnest heros, evil scheming villains, but most important: even more exotic (and therefore more engaging) tests of physical prowess.
For this to work, the scheming and exotic challenge needs to enter the story: the evil ones are not just messing with the hapless heros, but with the viewer as well. That viewer should be confused and have to fight his/her way to an understanding of what is going on -- how they are situated. Then, that understanding should dissolve as the world shifts.
Who will be the first to make a real game film? Who will try?
Translating a book to film is a tough job. The bargain between reader and writer is more dense, more amenable to intraword twists -- intraphrase ironies, simultaneous realities. But the relationships between film and video game is far more difficult.
The distance is not obvious because they both center on video images. But the narrative bargain is wholly different. To make it work like the game, you are forced to make it look nothing like the genre -- but there goes your brand.
Three elements here: honest earnest heros, evil scheming villains, but most important: even more exotic (and therefore more engaging) tests of physical prowess.
For this to work, the scheming and exotic challenge needs to enter the story: the evil ones are not just messing with the hapless heros, but with the viewer as well. That viewer should be confused and have to fight his/her way to an understanding of what is going on -- how they are situated. Then, that understanding should dissolve as the world shifts.
Who will be the first to make a real game film? Who will try?