oh yeah wal Scott the gauntlet is about
to be thrown down
hello Internet welcome to game theory
the show about video games that
occasionally makes an episode about
movies video game movies can you blame
me
Netflix wanting to do a Zelda series
leaked emails about a Mario movie and
well we've talked enough about Scott and
the gang making movies based on gaming's
biggest franchises is the hottest trend
right now but for as recent as it feels
it's really a time-honored tradition
resulting in some of the cinemas finest
examples of your life too bad you will
die I mean some of the greatest
Hollywood things are progressing
according to plan I cannot wait any
longer
no I guess not that one but there are I
will not harm you I only wish to kill
vampires
okay yes these really do suck okay so
video game movies aren't known for being
the gems of the film world but they are
still worth talking about these movies
represent an industry worth hundreds of
millions of dollars despite the fact
that almost every video game movie
released has been critically panned and
for some of them it's not that hard to
believe
Street Fighter The Legend of chun-li in
the name of the king a Dungeon Siege
tale it's like Game of Thrones if Game
of Thrones were awful had fewer boobs
and wasn't you know amazing but matpat I
can hear you say the 1993 Super Mario
Brothers movie was amazing no no it
wasn't Yoshi as a Raptor Bowser with
cornrows toad as whatever this thing is
put down that past you're only
appreciating that movie in an ironic
hipster oh it's so bad it's good kinda
way well guess what it's not it's not
good in any way and I don't care how bad
it is it's still not good ah
but Mario ain't alone the best the best
Rotten Tomatoes rating ever awarded to
any video game movie released in
theaters was a lousy 44 percent and that
was for wait for it
final fantasy the Spirits Within aka
Alec Baldwin and the quest for the
uncanny valley okay
so Ron tomatoes might not be the be-all
end-all and grading systems but it is
pretty telling that the best movie in
the gaming genre is still rocking a
solid f f/a lling grade by 15 points but
all this leads to the question of why
why are these movies so bad
Resident Evil Need for Speed Mortal
Kombat Prince of Persia Doom Street
Fighter all of these are iconic games so
why are there movie adaptations so
mind-blowing ly awful how could all of
these movies get greenlit year after
year flop after flop and still no one
not one single person has ever been able
to make a truly good one well the answer
might surprise you no one's really been
trying ladies and gentlemen of the
internet meet you a bowl ooo-ooo-ooo
ball Oh a mr. bowl is the infamous
German film director who built his
career by making movies almost
exclusively based off of video games
some of which have been objectively
called the worst movies ever made I'm
looking at you House of the Dead and
alone in the dark don't think that you
can hide back there in the early 2000s I
see you hidin behind that Creed poster
almost all of his movies have been
cataclysmic box-office flops and when
film critics write Phillippe andum our
buddy you a made Internet headlines by
challenging and defeating five of them
in the boxing ring yep film industry
professionals ladies and gentlemen you
might say that he's a regular Raging
Bull
ha ha ha hey they did a documentary
called them what well played documentary
people well played TIPA TIPA the cap so
what's this guy's deal is he a
misunderstood genius a modern-day Ed
Wood not exactly in fact the truth is
actually much more depressing the
explanation is tax law you see all of
you Able's movies are financed by bull
kg his own personal and unimaginative
lean aimed production company and up
until
2008 as a German citizen he could take
advantage of some rather unusual legal
loopholes as the owner of a German
production company bole was able to take
advantage of a German tax law which
stated that any investment made into
filmmaking was 100% tax deductible
the law was enacted in the 1970s when
American Hollywood was taking over the
global film scene and European countries
were having trouble competing a number
of EU nations including Germany and the
UK set up these huge incentives for
movies not produced by big US production
companies ostensibly to support their
own local small-time filmmakers
realistically though this policy just
opened the door for people to cheat the
system so this law in place our buddy
was able to hide a hundred percent of
huge production budgets from taxes
simply by buying up the rights to video
game titles and making fast low-budget
movies as a way to move cash around
tax-free which makes the question if
you're gonna go to all the trouble of
making movies why don't you make good
ones so at least they're successful well
German tax code dictated that taxes only
had to be paid on any returns the movie
made back so if the movie was a flop
that was actually better making a
low-grade movie just meant that there
would be lower returns meaning that
there were even fewer taxes to pay at
the end of the process so bulk AG became
a tax shelter for German investors that
used video game properties as a tool
seemingly without any real passion or
interest in the source material or for
that matter making a good movie it's
like the producers but for video game
movies it's springtime for hit man
that's a great joke by the way if you
didn't get it go watch the producers so
that you understand it actually if you
did get it still go watch the producers
it's such a good movie it's also a
really good musical but now we're losing
focus let's move on so if this was a
system that can be exploited so easily
why didn't other people do it the answer
is they did 2001's Lara Croft Tomb
Raider was funded in a similar way and
even after making almost 300 million
dollars it's still sitting at just 19%
on
tomatoes 19 there are even more examples
from other genres by the late 90s and
early 2000s this was such a common
practice that Hollywood was
intentionally shipping its films
overseas to take advantage of these
insane tax breaks paramount studios
alone is estimated to have made 70 to 90
million dollars in a single year from
classifying films as German in name only
and it's thought that a lot of these
profits for these studios both German
and US weren't even ever really
disclosed to the governments it was
literally free money for making garbage
thankfully this process was largely shut
down in the mid 2000s when German law
finally was changed but not before the
world got the most epic sideboob shot
and video game movie history
so I guess something good came out of
the hundreds of millions of dollars laid
waste by illegal tax sheltering okay but
that doesn't explain recent duds like
Max Payne and Prince of Persia video
game movies that weren't part of an
international tax evasion scheme and yet
still totally suck in order to believe I
know so there has to be something else
wrong with trying to make a video game
into a movie
well what if we actually look at this
from the artistic perspective is there
some categorical aspect of video games
themselves that would make it hard to
make them into movies well according to
many video games script writers yeah
besides companies like Bioware valve and
telltale games there aren't very many
developers out there who have writers on
board as permanent members of their
staff because a lot of the time in the
world of video games mechanics and
Technology come first while that's not
necessarily a bad thing for the medium
the writers themselves end up feeling
like third wheels on their own teams
Rhianna Pratchett daughter of English
fantasy author Terry Pratchett wrote
overlord Mirror's Edge and the reboot of
the Tomb Raider series and in a 2010
interview with CNN explained that quote
for many Studios story remains a hard
sell from a short-term perspective it
can be hard to see how a better plot can
translate into an improved ranking on
the retail charts
end quote what she means is that when
the game dev team is working with the
studio's to gather ideas for a movie
adaptation they're thinking about
translating the gameplay elements the
cool graphics the high-tech special
facts they're not thinking about
crafting a tight storyline around all
those elements to make them more
compelling and ultimately lead to a
better movie I mean let's face it game
developers are highly skilled at making
games interactive and exciting in the
moments but they're not novelists as a
result when you're making the story
secondary to other aspects of a movie
you just don't end up with a very good
movie novels and comic books are story
driven already so adapting them to film
is only natural but when your main story
beats our princess is captured plumber
knocks turtle into lava hero gets cake
yeah it's gonna leave you grasping at a
few straws you end up with stuff like
Mortal Kombat annihilation with three
percent on Rotten Tomatoes three like I
can use my fingers for that number as
koreem a head writer for the Assassin's
Creed series summed it up it often comes
down to money as movie studios
frequently choose to make films based on
the franchises that sell the best not
those with the most cinematic potential
there's that word again
money money the root of all evil and
apparently bad video game movies but
wait you interject again why you're
awfully talky this episode what about
the games that are story heavy for all
intents and purposes the Prince of
Persia Silent Hill and Max Payne movies
should have been totally awesome right
wrong and take it from wheeler Winston
Dixon no that's not an expensive whiskey
that's a professor of film studies at
the University of nebraska-lincoln who
said quote there's a very simple reason
that nearly all video game movies fail
they're not interactive with video games
the player is really the star of the
movie directing the actors deciding what
plotline to follow and whom to shoot
down to get to the next level when this
aspect of the game is missing viewers no
longer feel like they're part of the
action and quote with adaptations of
novels cartoons and comic books movies
are able to add to the fan experience by
allowing you to see a world that you are
only previously able to imagine or see
via still imagery with video game
adaptations you actually lose an aspect
of the experience the element of choice
for example Silent Hill is a much
beloved horror game known for its unique
psychologically disturbing brand of
scares but when you remove the
interactive elements it's reduced to
just another
worry about cults and demons BioShock
Infinite is a beautiful look at the
dystopian society of Columbia but if you
remove the ability to explore it at your
own pace much of the sense of wonder is
removed as many of the little details
you'd only uncover with meticulous
searching would fall by the wayside you
lose information rather than gain it
more than anything else making a
videogame into a movie kills the
personal connection you form with the
game playing Resident Evil alone in the
dark is terrifying you are the character
on screen getting attacked by zombie
dogs and your actions dictate whether
you live or become a Jill sandwich 300
people watching the movie at the same
time all getting the exact same
experience it's not the same maybe we
shouldn't be asking why video game
movies are bad but rather is what we
already have actually better instead of
adapting Prince of Persia to a movie
where we can all sit and have the same
experience should we be challenging
movies to break the fourth wall become
more like a video game where we can
interact with them explore them and form
our own unique perception of them have
our own adventure we're already a
culture that's become more and more
obsessed over the last 10 years with
concepts like 3d movies for DX movies
and other cinema experiences that bring
us closer to the action to make us feel
like we're a part of the movie well
there's no closer than you can get right
now than a video game if we put it in
those terms what we get to is not about
how to make video games into better
movies but rather how to make good
movies into awesome video games in fact
if you want to know the future of movies
and video games click here for another
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