Assassin's Creed, Warcraft etc: The problem with video game movies ISN'T video games

[Cthulhu 2020]

Yea man just used it to demonstrate that I wasn't the only one in the world that had a impression of a connection between the story and the current events at the time.

I got some 30+ responses of varied triggered intensity from that post, and a few that got the actual point.

Well yeah, it's pretty similar, but at the same time anyone who knows warcraft knows that it's been the same story for 20 years, before the migrant crisis. You have to have either very little or no knowledge of warcraft whatsoever to believe it was some kind of propaganda arguing for migrants.

And anyone who knows the warcraft story would also know that it goes like...

SOME orcs partake of demon taint and become violent.
Destroy their own homeworld unwittingly since that was the intent of the demons all along.
Demons encourage orcs to invade and destroy Azeroth, but don't personally go there to make sure it happens.
Tainted orcs run around Azeroth for a bit and sow some violence and destruction in a relatively small area.
Orcs are defeated and put in internment camps.
Horrible living conditions, torture, starvation, etc. in camps.
Thrall and a bunch of others escape to make their home in Kalimdor.

Yeah... sure... there's a loose connection, but this story has been around way longer. Just imagine if lord of the rings had been released during the time when there was a tyrannical dictator that was taken down and people made a connection to that... and yet it's a story that's been around for a long time.

[Clone]

Saw AC today, it wasn't good but I wouldn't call it terrible. The narrative played out like the games do but failed at making the audience care about the characters and the conflict.

[Tackhisis]

War of the Ancients would be great source material to start Warcraft franchize.

No. No one is going to watch a movie without humans.

[Kuniku]

Don't listen to critic's reviews of films, they have terrible taste!

Warcraft was a solid film as a setup to more films, Saw Assassin's Creed last night and I'd give it a solid 8/10 tbh, was very impressed with it.

I think one of the main problems with game films when comparing them to say comic films, is that comics can often have shorter storylines, or it condenses into film a bit easier, or they're written more like a TV show, with smaller plots underlying a longer plot - which is why the MCU films work quite well. Sure they might have to gut some of the comic content to work on the big screen, but the stories are already fairly short and don't need condensing much.

Where as video games often already have hours of "footage" to draw from, if you think that some of the more modern games can have 5-10+ hours of cinematics in, let alone the 10's of hours of story told within the gameplay - its much harder to condense that much story into a 2 hour film without losing important bits and making it feel hollow.

But this is where the Assassin's Creed film did very well I feel, while if it was a game it probably would've been a hell of a lot longer with far more time spent within the Animus, but to fit within the length of film, it pulled everything off very well. And creating a film outside of the existing game series' was a great plan - that way its not taking from an actual game. If it'd been based on the AC2 trilogy, for example, it probably would've fallen short for the fans, too much would've been missed. But taking a new story arc can't be compared to the games as directly.

Only bit that really stuck out for me was the text at the start of the AC movie, it was short enough that it easily could've been explained early on in the film, or done with a voice over while watching an eagle fly or something... xD

[belfpala]

If the creators aren't committed to a film franchise, then television seems like the perfect medium for these sorts of projects.

Exactly. Some of the best "movies" to use the term loosely have been television (Game of Thrones, etc). There have been many good movies but more in what I'd classify as drama. It's a change from years ago. Television shows now can sometimes get budgets as big or bigger than cinema.

[Deleted]

Street fighter movie with van Damme was still the best videogame movie ever.

[tehealadin]

Street fighter movie with van Damme was still the best videogame movie ever.

Mortal Kombat would like a word with you. Best. Movie. Theme. Ever.

[Ratyrel]

Saw AC today, it wasn't good but I wouldn't call it terrible. The narrative played out like the games do but failed at making the audience care about the characters and the conflict.

Sounds like a faithful rendition of assassins creed since we left Ezio.

Video games do not make good film material, it's simply a different kind of narrative with a different pace and rules. It sounds like a good idea, but when you actually try to translate it you realise that there are just so many holes to fill that games simply plug with, you know, gameplay. Gameplay makes you part of the action and fill in motivations and immersion automatically, suspending disbelief far more easily than the same scenario viewed from a cinema seat. That basically leaves the option of making videogame films cool with effects, stunts, and humour.

[Fencers]

I actually had a fun time watching Warcraft. It was very cheesy and juvenile, but hugely fun in the style of old fantasy films; Clash of the Titans, Krull, Willow, Legend, etc.

That said the problem with any movie based on genre fiction or cross medium is bad filmmaking. It's that simple.

The superhero genre of film had the same issue (lol pun) for years till someone made an actually good film; well directed, acted, written, etc.

[dim]

No. No one is going to watch a movie without humans.

I guess that is why the Warcraft movie best parts were ones without humans on screen :P

[Hammertimerom]

I thought that AC was OKAY at best but I would not tell a friend to spend the money at a cinema to watch.
The Warcraft movie had some nice cgi and action scenes but I felt like the movie needed to be longer and a lot was missing.

[Gamevizier]

because they don't know what they're aiming for, and how they should do it. the material in video games does not necessarily make a good movie material, so there are some trouble when they try to convert the story of the game into a script for the movie. most movies turn into a bad fan service or just a poor adaptation of the origional source either because the publisher does not hire people who are familiar with the game, it's lore and it's character, or that the game designers fail to successfully create a script that is suitable for a movie. (just because you come up with a good game does not mean you can write good movie scripts)

[Slant]

Movie studios often forget that video games usually have shit plots and shit storylines. Warcraft is actually one of the exceptions, not sure about Assassin's Creed. But imagine someone making a movie about Mortal Kombat... oh right, they did. Just as an example. Movies, good movies, have a decent plotline. It doesn't need to be elaborate or intelligent, but it needs a decent plot. Take Star Wars, it's far from complicated. Good vs. Evil, boy rescues girl, girl is actually boys sister, falls in love with his best buddy and everyone knows his pet animal secretly loves her, too, and *SPOILER ALERT* the bad dude is boy's daddy.... And that's a simple plotline!

The appeal of video games is that you can play the adventure yourself. The type of scripting done for video games is rather different than the creative process going on in a movie plot, where you don't have to stick to just one perspective all the time.

[Deleted]

Games and movies just dont fit together.

Games should stay games, and movies and series should stay movies and series.

[Deleted]

It did well everywhere but the US.

The problem in the US was that "critics" crucified and condemned the movie even before it was released there.
We didn't have that shit, so it did well.

I don't recall it doing well in EU

[InDecisive]

The biggest problem is that most games with stories/settings worth adapting are far too expansive to be able to fit well into a film. Warcraft would make a pretty good TV show if it were done right, but the movie had too many characters with too little screentime in too many places with too much going on everywhere for someone who didn't know everything already to be able to follow it and get engaged by it. Video games need room to breathe, so they should generally be adapted for TV, not film.

[Malacrass]

The positive reception of the Warcraft movie here made me take every comment in regards to video game movies with a ton of salt. It's easily one of the worst game movies I have ever seen, and that says a lot.

That said, the trailer to Assassins Creed looks rather solid, and the story is not exactly demanding (which is a good thing for your average winter blockbuster). Warcraft was a huge cringefest because it tried to cater to everyone, while having not nearly enough screentime to work it out.

And for the last time, good $$ numbers don't prove that the game/movie is good, just that the brand is strong. Just ask The Last Airbender.

[Revi]

My biggest gripe with Assassins Creed is that they tried to jam way too much into one movie. A lot of it had shallow/no explanation and set-up, and they moved through different stages of the story way too quickly.

I kinda liked Warcraft though. They picked out one story from the huge universe and stuck to that, rather than trying to jam everything they could into it.

[Trifle]

Movie studios often forget that video games usually have shit plots and shit storylines. Warcraft is actually one of the exceptions, not sure about Assassin's Creed. But imagine someone making a movie about Mortal Kombat... oh right, they did.

Mortal Kombat was a pretty good movie, and the plot actually mostly made sense. It helped that it was basically a copy of Enter the Dragon. And let's just pretend the 2nd Mortal Kombat movie never happened...

[Triks]

The Lore isn't really important though. It's just a lot of flavour. The actual story for Warcraft 1 is quite simple.

That can be said for all Warcraft games - they have a lot of lore and simplistic storylines. John Carmack was right.