TOP 10 MOVIES YOU DIDN’T KNOW WERE BASED ON VIDEO GAMES
Video games are filled with phenomenal ideas.
And sometimes, the grand fantasies they present us with are too good to not want more of.
Enter cinematic adaptations.
Now, we’ve talked about the top 10 movies based off of video games in a previous list,
but this time around, we’re taking a shot at the films you didn’t realize were inspired
by or based on video games.
Some are adaptations that borrow certain games’ plots, character archetypes, and even style.
Others are blatant rip offs.
So let’s see how many of these you guys knew about.
10 Edge of Tomorrow Let’s start off this list with some broad
strokes.
Edge of Tomorrow aka Live Die Repeat is a 2014 sci fi action film starring Tom Cruise
and Emily Blunt.
Inspired by the Japanese novel All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.
He was inspired by an online account written by a video game player who was discussing
how restarting the game after the playable character’s death allowed for trial and
error improvement, inspiring Sakurazaka to write a story in which the hero was being
played over and over.
9 Inglorious Basterds Many a fan have pointed out the similarities
between Bionic Commando and Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds.
While there is no confirmation as to whether or not the film was inspired by the NES 1988
classic, primarily for the loosely similar plots.
Both feature infiltration behind enemy lines and both result in Hitler’s assassination.
8 Clash of the Titans - God of War While is quite obvious that the God of War
series is the culmination of several greek mythological media influences, including the
original Clash of the titans 1981 film, this 2010 remake has many visual elements that
people felt echoed the game franchise.
And, funny enough, the game version of the clash of the titans remake is pretty much
a copycat of God of War.
7 Pirates of the Caribbean - Monkey Island Series
This one is sometimes seen as more of a rip off rather than ‘based on’ or ‘inspired
by’ case.Okay, so yes, it’s technically based off of the Disney ride.
Sure, cause it totally has a narrative, right?
Well, back in 1990 The Secret of Monkey Island came out, and it’s protagonist Guybrush
Threepwood shares many a similarity with Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner.
Down to their outfits.
The female lead in Monkey Island is captured by an undead pirate, and guess who else is?
Elizabeth Swann.
There’s a lot of other similarities in the franchise that echo the game - voodoo priestess
who lives in a swamp, a town made out of wrecked pirate ships, and so on.
This rip off may be due to writer Ted Elliot who was credited for the Monkey Island film
adaptation that was cancelled in 2000 - Ted went on to write for Pirates, and its safe
to suspect that perhaps Teddy reused parts of his old script.
6 Pokemon Anime Alright, so this is cheating a tad, despite
the fact that there are a bunch of Pokemon movies that have come out of the woodwork
over the past few decades.
Many a fan got on board the Pokemon bandwagon after the anime television show blew up in
1997.
The franchise started with Japan’s Pokemon Red and Green games back in 1996, 21 years
ago as of this recording.
Pokemon is the second best selling video game franchise to date, with only the Mario franchise
surpassing it.
5 Snowpiercer - Bioshock Here we have another case of a film that shares
a lot of parallels with a game, despite it not being official that the two have any sort
of relation or that the film was inspired by such.
Snowpiercer tells the story of a dystopian society that lives entirely on a train - earth
was ravaged by a freak natural disaster that has rendered it icy and inhabitable, and there’s
a massive class divide on the train/once-luxury liner that humans now call home.
So how is it similar to BioShock?
Well, both are societies cut off from the world outside, both dystopian, both feature
social class divides, and, the cherry on top?
Wilford, who runs the train, is very similar to Andrew Ryan, the man who built Rapture
- both are egotistical megalomaniacs who built their societies on messed up political ideologies.
4 In the Name of the King - Dungeon Siege video games
Uwe Boll who is known for making video game inspired films and adaptations.
Whether or not you think they’re any good is another debate in itself.
But apparently critics didn’t think this 2007 film was all that great.
The film stars Jason Statham, John Rhys Davies and Ron Perlman, and was inspired the Dungeon
Siege series.
The game, on the other hand, was critically acclaimed, mainly for it’s graphics and
fun, accessible gameplay, despite a mediocre plot.
So perhaps the lesson here is to not make a film about a game that’s got a weak story
to begin with?
3 Hostel Part 2 - Chiller (1986) Chiller was a gun arcade game released back
in 1986 in which you play as a torturer who mutilates and murders NPCs in different private
dungeons.
So you can see the comparisons to that and Hostel Part 2, which takes place in a private
dungeon.
The game itself got a lot of heat, not just for it’s excessive use of violence and gore,
but also it’s ideologies - rather than fighting enemies who were capable of defending themselves,
you were tormenting the innocent, strictly for entertainment.
2 Tron We mentioned Tron Legacy on our top 10 movies
based on video games list, so naturally we want to talk about the 1982 film that was
inspired by one of video game history’s trailblazers - Pong.
Creator Steven Lisberger initially began development on Tron back in 1976, completely fascinated
with Pong, wanting to make a film inspired by video games.
He said, I quote, “I realized that there were these techniques that waked be very suitable
for brining video games and computer visuals to the screen.”
And thus the franchise was born.
1 Wreck it Ralph Based on the 1981 Donkey Kong arcade classic,
the film follows an arcade game villain named Ralph who decides to rebel against his antagonizing
role and become a hero himself.
Ralph notably shares a lot of qualities to DK, who in the real life game, is the villain
to protagonist Jump man, who would later become Mario.
The film started it’s development back in the late 1980’s with Disney, then being
under the working title High Score.
The film is chalk full of video game references, especially retro ones, including PacMan, Sonic
the Hedgehog, MegaMan and Super Mario Bros.
There we have it friends!
Which ones of these surprised you the most?
Let us know in those comments below!
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