Games to Movies

Opinion

Translating interactive storytelling to passive storytelling: Why video game movies haven’t worked.

By Josiah Sapp

    Cinema has been around for a century now and it still dominates the entertainment world today. The movie going experience is precise and well thought out. It fits into a complete narrative that can snuggle into a two hour run time costing millions of dollars and employing hundreds of people. All working to tell you everything you need to know about what’s happening on screen. From actors and makeup artists to directors and editors. Their goal is to make sure the story is told in a clean way that can be understood in one viewing.

    Video games are in another ballpark. They may not have been around as long as film but they can tell a story unique to the medium. Games tell a story through an interactive experience. The player makes the choices, experiences the events for themselves, and has an invested interest in what’s going on. Most Role Playing Games (RPGs) give the player the option to design the character. With that amount of customization to a fictional character, you’d be disappointed not to see them through to victory. Games are designed from the ground up to give you control, allowing you to create what happens and when it happens. There’s definitely a beginning, middle, and end, but the lines get real blurry very quick.

Freedom to experience what you want

    I’m excluding the multiplayer based games (Overwatch, Call of Duty etc.) because there isn’t much of a story and most the time spent is with other players. I will be focusing on narrative based games because those tend to be Hollywood’s primary targets.

    Storytelling in video games has gained a lot of momentum over years. Gone are the days of simple mechanics that lead to a simple story. Games these days aren’t as straightforward as their predecessors. The original Donkey Kong title is a great example of how simple games were. A giant ape kidnaps your girlfriend, climbs to the top of scaffolding, and throws barrels at you as you attempt to make your way up to save your girl. There is never any question of who you are or what you’re doing. Are there still games that exist today that have this style of “story”? Of course there is! However, developers are starting to see the true power behind video game storytelling. That power is the freedom of choice.

Your choices can impact the way you experience a story through a game. Right now I’m playing Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs 2. I’m loving the way I get to experience the story. Scenarios are set up in front of me and it’s up to me how I  tackle the story. Stealth; Only use gadgets; Non-lethal; Go gun crazy? It’s my choice! The story is ultimately the same even if I don’t do it all in the “correct” order. For a game like Watch Dogs 2, there are the main storyline missions and side missions that can all be done in any order; it’s your choice! Everything that is supposed to happen, eventually happens. The way the game unfolds is what makes game storytelling so unique. Sometimes, however, your actions truly dictate the outcome of the game.

Mass Effect (ME) is a series developed by Bioware. Bioware is known for its storytelling, in-depth conversations, and multiple endings. ME switches the format of telling a story and gives you full control of the dialogue options which dictates how the game plays out. Every conversation brings up a “sentence selection wheel” with three or four different options. Each selection has different consequences that might benefit or harm you. ME has three main title releases. Each game has hundreds of conversations and that translates into hundreds of different outcomes that the player has to choose. This creates unique opportunities to mess things up or get things right. Honestly, it’s stressful at times but that amount of choice draws you into the story and never lets you go. Only through an interactive video game can this amount of choice be accomplished. Movie’s can’t come close to that but they’re not supposed to.

Beginning. Middle. End.

If you’ve ever read a book or watched a movie, the phrase “beginning, middle and end” reigns supreme. Does the beginning make sense with the middle that concludes in a satisfying ending? Movies live and die by this phrase. If the beginning is strong but it tapers off by the end, you can bet that critics are going to point that out. The form of storytelling experienced through film is linear and passive. It has a start and a finish. That’s how they’re designed when they’re laid out in storyboards and eventually put to film. The story is supposed to make sense throughout the movie and the best way story is told is through it’s characters and their arcs.

Who are we watching? Where do they live? What makes them unique? These are questions we subconsciously ask ourselves at the beginning of a film and it’s the movie’s job to answer those questions as it progresses. The character’s actions is what drives the movie and should tell us everything we need to know about them. Do their actions/words make sense? Do they react appropriately to other characters? How do they handle situations? The character that we follow through a film needs to have an arc that makes sense. Otherwise, the film feels disjointed and can cause pacing issues but the amount of emotion that can be portrayed through film is like none-other.

The best thing that movies have at their disposal is the actors. The emotion that is being portrayed through these actors can bring us to tears or make us bust out in laughter. We watch them go through situations that can pull our heart strings causing us to relate to what they’re going though. We can have an intense human connection with the actor who we’ve never met before just by watching them in a film. You can’t get that experience of relatability anywhere else. You’ve never been a superhero or secret agent but movies have successfully made them relatable. We don’t make their decisions but see them walk out their story in ways we can follow. We see ourselves in them and that’s the greatest achievement movies can accomplish. Games give you the experience of making the decisions but often can lack that human emotional touch. The two forms of storytelling don’t mix.

From controller to the big screen

    Video game movies are bad. Just… like… stupid bad. The long list of bad video game movies is laughable; starting with the most infamous of them all, the 1993 release of Super Mario Bros. boasting a 14% on rottentomatoes.com. In my opinion, and the opinions of many, this film is bad and it started off a trend that never really went away. Video games movies are bad for numerous reasons. Bad acting (Street Fighter 1994), bad writing (Mortal Kombat 1995), bad visuals (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider 2001), or even misunderstanding the source material (Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within 2001). The heart of the issue is that the way stories are told in both mediums completely contradict one another. Let’s use 2016’s release of the Assassin’s Creed film as an example. A game that pride’s itself on free roaming beautiful ancient cities and tackling the story at your own pace. The movie had great promise. It had all the talent going for it to make it a hit but it wasn’t. Majority of reviews claimed that the movie had pacing issues. That they didn’t really connect with the characters. They felt cold and dry but the action was portrayed well. Gamers were the harshest critic of the movie (as they should be) because they spent hundreds of hours getting to know this world. The general consensus was clear among gamers. The movie failed to give them same feeling the game did. Why? They didn’t have control of what was going on.

    Movie studios try to capture that feeling of awe and wonder that gamers feel when experiencing a game for the first time. Taking down the last boss; infiltrating an enemy base undetected; saving the princess; pulling off the perfect combo. All things that movies try to recreate but have failed in their attempts. They’ve taken the control away from the player and said “Let me show you what you’ve experienced!” and it hasn’t translated well. It’s like the difference between being at a concert or watching a video of the concert. They’re both the same show. One you experience. One you watch. One is real. One is fake.

Conclusion

    Movies that try to tell stories of video games are knockoffs; cheap imitations of the real thing. Video game movies will always feel less than their source material because they fail to capture the “in control” experience games can give you. It seems like movie studios see a specific game brand bringing in millions of dollars (World of Warcraft) and want to cash in on their success with a watered down film version (Warcraft 2016).  I saw recently that 42 video game movies are currently in production. The list includes titles ranging from the action first person shooter Halo to the arcade classic Centipede. It has me kind of excited but super skeptical because of how different these forms of entertainment are. Movies are passive. They tell what to look at and when to look at it. Games are interactive. You get to choose what to look at and when you want to. Film producers haven’t completely cleared this jump between the two entertainment formats. It appears that they’re going to continue this leap of faith no matter how many have fallen flat in the past.